"The martyrs give us the strength to continue" | Homena …

The House of Identity, the grandmothers' building of the Plaza de Mayo located in the Memory and Human Rights (ex-ESMA) space, was the place where this Saturday and with the presence of Estela de Carlotto and Taty Almeida, organizations defending Human Rights commemorated the 43rd anniversary of the so-called "St. Patrick's Mbadacre", a name reminiscent of the badbadination by the army of three priests and two Catholic seminarians of the Pallottine congregation on July 4, 1976.

The incident occurred in the parish of San Patricio, in the district of Belgrano, in the federal capital, where a "working group" was composed of priests Pedro Dufau (76 years old), Alfredo Kelly ( 43) and Alfredo Leaden (57) inside the temple. ) and the seminarians Salvador Barbeito (25) and Emilio Barletti (24). In the book titled The mbadacre of San Patricio, the journalist Eduardo Kimel concluded that it was a group of the navy responsible for the death. Jorge Bergoglio, today Pope Francis and then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, promoted in 2005 the opening of the cause of beatification of the five Pallottins by invoking martyrdom as a motive. Today in Rome, in the church of San Silvestro, of the order of Pallottins, a commemorative plaque recalls the five murdered monks.

The president of the grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo said at the ceremony held in the former ESMA that the murdered religious represent "the Church of Christ, that we all want , attached to the poor, to the needy ". Estela de Carloto also stressed that "the martyrs accompany us, honor us and give us the strength to continue".

Ramiro Varela, a member of Palotinos por la Memoria, stressed "the will of the martyrs to transform the reality of the most neglected and to achieve a more just and egalitarian society".

The meeting, coordinated by the priest Juan Sebastian Velasco, representative of the religious congregation to which the victims belonged, was also attended by the former secretary of the nation's worship (2003-2015), Guillermo Oliveri, and l & # 39; 39, former head of the city government. Anibal Ibarra.

Ibarra, who as a prosecutor was charged with investigating the case between 1986 and 1990, recalled that "as soon as I got into the case, an employee arrived, Sergio Delgado, who is now judge, with the record and I said: "It is outrageous, you must follow him. "The former prosecutor added that, from that moment," I looked at the page and that one of the things that struck me the most was the Mafalda poster lying on the floor, which bore traces of the blood of the Pallottins. "For Ibarra," Their death was not futile and that is why today we are in a place of remembrance where we remember ". them".

Provincial delegate of the Pallott Congregation, Juan Sebastián Velasco, who also serves as a postulator (promoter) of the Vatican cause in search of ecclesiastical recognition of the victims as saints of the Catholic Church, said that " This tribute makes us very good because the cause of canonization does not cease to be a procedural cause of law and that the time of canon law is usually very heavy. "He also admitted that" popular religiosity has another pace, as the wisdom of the people goes much faster ", recognizing that those who were killed in 1976 are already the object of worship by Catholic faithful who recognize them as witnesses to their faith without wait for the institutional declaration of the Church.

For Guillermo Oliveri, the Pallottins "were murdered in the back, as if they had betrayed the faith," and he recalled that mbad murder "was the first and most brutal of the more than 150 crimes" that State terrorism had committed the different religious communities of Argentina.

On the same occasion, Taty Almeida, Mothers of the Foundation Line of the Plaza de Mayo, said that the five religious murdered "are somewhere, I know they're listening, we will not forget them" and has concluded his speech by saying that "for them and for the 30,000 missing, we will continue the struggle for memory, truth and justice".

On the occasion of the commemorative date, the Pallottine community of Argentina issued a statement declaring, among other considerations, that "they lived together and died". It was an attack on a community dedicated to proclaiming the gospel. have led them to defend the value of all life and to promote the evangelical values ​​of justice, peace and commitment to the defenseless of humanity. "

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