Pope Throws Enemy Archbishop in the Street

Archbishop Hector Ruben Aguer at Corpus Christi in his last act

 as ordinary of La Plata

Edit: when they do things like this, as they often have, there is need of retribution.  Bergoglio did the same to Bishop Rogelio Plano, who died not long after.


(Buenos Aires) The retirement of Archbishop Hector Ruben Aguer of La Plata has been closely watched for the past few weeks. Archbishop Aguer has been Bergoglio's leading opponent in Argentina for the past 25 years. When he leaves, the Church's Maximum Leader is letting him feel his displeasure.
 
As previously reported , the Jesuit Bergoglio and the secular priest Aguer, both from Buenos Aires, became Auxiliary Bishops of Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 1990s. At that moment, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who until then had been "exiled" internally, had the better luck between the two. He began his phenomenal rise.
 
With the help of the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Antonio Cardinal Quarrancino, Bergoglio and not Aguer became the new Primate of Argentina. Although Aguer was made the archbishop of the second most important diocese in the country by Pope John Paul II. The cardinalatial dignity is connected with Buenos Aires, not with La Plata. Pope Benedict XVI. supported Archbishop Aguer against the Bergoglio-led majority in the Argentine Bishops' Conference , but acted against his successor Francis with too cautious and hesitation, in order to make his intended renewal in the episcopacy really effective.
 
Bergoglio sat in the Conclave in Rome in 2005 and 2013, not Aguer.
 
After Francis became pope, he quickly disassembled the minority led by Aguer, who opposed him as a primate. Only Aguer remained in office, but not a day longer than necessary - which was quite literal.

Victor Manuel Fernandez

On May 24, the archbishop completed his 75th year. According to canon law, he presented his request for resignation to Francis. With a conspicuous haste, Francis accepted it and appointed one of his closest confidants, Titular Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, as his successor. The head of the Church Maximum Leader, thus, not only eliminated the last representative of a traditional understanding of the Church, but also wanted to ensure that the archdiocese was taken by a  Bergoglio team member.
 
What animosities are behind the scenes, illustrates an additional unfriendliness of the Pope to Archbishop Aguer. Francis was not content to emeritize Aguer at the earliest opportunity and immediately appoint a successor, which is also a humiliation for Aguer. Francis did not appoint the archbishop in charge, who is in good health, as diocesan administrator until the inauguration of the successor, as is customary, unless death or health force him to change the bishop. Francis openly expressed his disapproval of Archbishop Aguer. Not a day longer than absolutely necessary, Aguer should have something to say in the archdiocese of La Plata.
 
Francis Monsignor Alberto Bochatey OSA, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of La Plata was appointed diocesan administrator. This was announced by the chargé d'affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature, Msgr. Vincenzo Turturro, on Monday to the Archdiocese.

"Msgr. Bochatay will head the archdiocese of La Plata until the inauguration of Msgr. Victor Fernandez next June 16," said the press service AICA of the Argentine Bishops' Conference.

The appointment of a diocesan administrator for only 14 days when the previous archbishop is in the best health?
 
The Bergoglio related news site Valores Religiosos headlined:

"Aguer confirms that the Holy See wanted a quick change".

Monsignor Aguer had announced last Sunday that the change should be "quick" so that his successor, Fernandez, could already receive the pallium from the Pope's hand on June 29th in Rome.
 
At the same time, the emeritus archbishop expressed his astonishment that the media had already reported exactly for weeks what then became reality in those days: that Francis would immediately emeritize him and would make the papal ghostwriter Fernandez his successor.
 
The Argentine news site CadenaBA wrote critically:

"Pope Francis behaved towards Monser Aguer more after the Old than after the New Testament: according to the motto, "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth ". He reciprocated with Msgr. Hector Aguer, who had asked him to leave him in office until next September, so that he could celebrate his twenty-year jubilee as Archbishop of La Plata," for which several parishes of the archdiocese were already preparing.

At the end of the Feast of Corpus Christi, which was celebrated in Argentina on June 3, according to Wanderer,  the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostom approached the microphone and made his home available to the archbishop," since Monsignor Aguer has no place to go ( his original plan was to move to the Small Seminary of La Plata.)"
 
Behind the scenes, the retirement was obviously far more dramatic than when it became public.
The AICA press release from the Argentine Bishops' Conference said two days later:

"The retired archbishop will live for so long at the archdiocesan curia deems it necessary to find a new home."

In La Plata, not only was an archbishop emeritized and replaced by a towering mediocrity in a demonstratively urgent procedure, but evidently evicted on the spot.
 
Pope Francis' retaliation for revenge has found another victim at La Plata.
 
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Archdiocese of La Plata / MiL
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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