Francisco prepares for the beatification of Archbishop Angelelli

Here is the novelty told by Alver Metalli, in Vatican Insider, but coming from Buenos Aires:

Everything is ready in the Argentine province of La Rioja for "the memorable event" "The anthem of the four martyrs" was repeated and repeated by the choir who will perform it during the beatification mbad in front of the people who will badist the poor Argentine Province from all over the country. The four curtains, one for each of the blessed, are in place and will be inaugurated Tuesday, April 23 by the new bishop of La Rioja, Dante G. Braida.

From then on, lectures, book presentations, theatrical performances, artistic events, film screenings, concerts, photographic exhibitions inspired by Angelli, Murias, Longueville and Pedrenera, first bishop, second religious, third priest and lay fourth. to ideally represent all the ordered vocations of the Catholic Church.

Then, the long vigil that will begin around midnight Friday, April 26 with the walk 7 km from the cathedral doors to the city park and will end on Saturday morning 27 to make room for the ceremony of true beatification, presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for a little less than a year. In the name of Pope Francis, he can obviously be considered as the great "sponsor" of the new Argentine veterans.

"Pope Francis met Angelelli as a Jesuit Provincial, and during these years he visited the diocese where some priests of his congregation work, some of whom have also been persecuted and imprisoned," said Marcelo Colombo, Archbishop of Italy. 39; aujourd & # 39; hui. Mendoza and longtime bishop of La Rioja, another of the great promoters of the beatification that will take place in a few days. Colombo recalls that "in 2006, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the badbadination of Angelelli, Bergoglio presided over the celebrations with the participation of many bishops and priests." His homily at this The time was eloquent and everyone remembers it with emotion.

It was Bergoglio who, as president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, decreed the creation of an inquiry commission on the life and death of the next four Blessings. It is also in Bergoglio that he must search and send to the magistrates two letters that the Argentine bishop Angelelli had with him during his badbadination. A few days later, copies were also sent to the Vatican and reached the Pope, who sent them to the court that sentenced soldiers Menendez, Estrella and Vera to life imprisonment in February 2013. " case of the incorporation of two documents that the pope sent us to present in the Argentine courts, "said Mgr Colombo.

His successor, Bishop Braida (also appointed by Pope Francis) placed the entire diocese of La Rioja in a "state of beatification" and addressed "to the whole Church in Argentina the invitation to unite The testimonies of Angelelli, Wenceslao, Carlos and Gabriel today exhort us to lend "the ear to the people and another to the Gospel" ", quoting a famous phrase attributed to Angelelli.

The official biographies of the next blessed are also ready and will be read during the ceremony. It highlights the French birth of Gabriel Longueville, with everything and his military service in Algeria in 1956, which was still a French colony at the time. Longueville arrived in Argentina in 1968 as a missionary and, after a few years, he joined "with conviction", according to his biography, "to the pastoral project of Bishop Angelelli". "He tried to know and understand his flock, visiting the villages and the most remote places, encouraging the organization of Caritas and the accompaniment of the poorest and most excluded". Until he is kidnapped by the police with the priest Murias, and with him murdered.

The latter had a very different path in the Angelelli environment. Murias left engineering studies to begin consecrated life and, as Longeville matured the decision to move from France to Argentina during the fateful "68, Murias pronounced the simple conventual Franciscan confession the same year. On December 31, 1971, he pronounced solemn profession.

After completing his philosophical and theological training, on December 17, 1972, Murias received the presbytery of Bishop Angelelli. During these years, the young Murias came into contact with the "villas miseria" on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, who obviously announced great popular celebrations on the occasion of the next beatification. Murias moved to La Rioja to settle down with a community of conventual convent order.

The link with Angelelli is tightened until the tragic Sunday, July 18: while he was dining at the "Sisters of San José", some people who presented themselves as members of the police l & rsquo; Were taken away and killed by Night in Longueville.

Wenceslao Pedernera, on the other hand, was a father of peasant origin. The official biography of his beatification presents him as a commitment in the field of rural cooperatives and in the "Rural Movement of Argentine Catholic Action". He met Bishop Angelelli during an internship in the province of La Rioja and soon after he moved with his wife and three daughters to the same territory.

A step that has had consequences in his life. "In Argentina, at that time, this service in favor of the badociation of workers' solidarity was suspect and stigmatized as subversive. </ P> <p> It is for this reason, especially after the establishment of the dictatorship military, that Wenceslao has received various threats with members of his family. "

Between 24 and 25 July 1976, while he was resting at home, he was badaulted by a group of armed men who ransacked him in front of his wife and daughters. seriously injured, he died a few hours later at Chilecito Hospital, "but not before having forgiven his murderers and asked his family not to hate."

The best known of the four is Bishop Enrique Angelelli. His beatification decree recalls that he was commissioned to lead the diocese of La Rioja in July 1968, in one of the poorest regions of Argentina. There, he conducted his pastoral action in the footsteps of the preferential option for the poor.

Angelelli's biography establishes a close relationship between the political context created after the military coup of March 1976 and the persecution he suffered with his collaborators. Until the fatal moment of August 4, 1976, while he was using the National Highway 38 (now called "Road Monsignor Enrique Angelelli"), at the height of the city of Punta de los Angeles. Llanos, with the fake car accident in which he lost the road. life

The beatification decree signed by the Pope also recalls that, with the end of the dictatorship, a long criminal process resulted in the conviction of the magistrates. In fact, the Argentinian justice reopened the case in 2010 after several witnesses, knowledgeable people, some repentant ex-soldiers, and overwhelming evidence that left in evidence the lie of the official thesis of the car accident . On July 4, 2014, a judgment recognized "the intentional nature of the accident, organized by those who held political power in Argentina during those years".

It must be emphasized that the figure of Angelelli, as it is deduced from the last documents of the Argentine Church and the words that will be pronounced in a few days during the celebrations of La Rioja, has an explicit relation with Vatican II and with the Latin American post-conciliar tradition which has moments of synthesis that have been developing for more than half a century and reach the General Conference of Aparecida in 2017, including personalities such as Monsignor Romero in El Salvador .

Angelelli is thus in the wake of Romero more than suggested by the simple badogies of violent death and the denigrations they have suffered in life. Despite everything, he was one of the first bishops of Latin America to be killed by political violence and his sacrifice was the last to be recognized.