New Jesuit Provincial is “Worst of the Worst”

Rafael Velasco, the new Jesuit Provincial of Argentina and Uruguay

(Buenos Aires) The Jesuit General Arturo Sosa Abascal has appointed Father Rafael Velasco as the new Provincial of the Province of Argentina and Uruguay. The appointment was "the worst of the worst," says Spanish columnist Francisco Fernandez de La Cigoña. From 1973 to 1979 Jorge Mario Bergoglio, today's Pope Francis, was Provincial of this province.

The new provincial was Rector of the Catholic University of Cordoba (UCC) until 2014. He advocates the recognition of homosexuality and the introduction of women's priesthood and assures that he will continue to adhere to Marxist liberation theology.

He expressed his views on this in an interview with the Argentine journalist Mariano Saravia in 2013. Velasco then called for "reforms" in the Church that, in addition to recognizing homosexuality and the admission of the women's priesthood, also meant the elimination of the Roman Curia, the last medieval court in the middle in the 21st century.”  "The community should have more say" in episcopal appointments. 

On the objection that Pope John Paul II had definitely excluded the women's priesthood, Velasco replied that Pope Francis could simply "reopen" the question. There is "nothing the Pope can not open. The pope or a council.” [What happened to not turning back the clock?]

There are "logical" consequences to be drawn, "if a homosexual lives the same norms of love and loyalty that we demand from heterosexuals, then we must totally rehabilitate them for the sacraments, beginning with communion."

The former rector of the Catholic University denied the infallibility of the pope in the interview, when he speaks ex cathedra to questions of theology and morality. According to Velasco, the infallibility in matters of faith is "democratizing.”

According to the Jesuit, Marxist liberation theology is "the reality of reading the word of God from the poor.” The Church has "always" made policy, "but the only ones who have been punished are Ernesto Cardenal and Fernando Lugo."

Cardenal, one of the priests who became armed revolutionaries in the wake of Marxism, was from 1979, Minister of the Sandinista Revolutionary Government in Nicaragua, and Lugo was elected as a candidate for a left-wing alliance to the Presidency of Paraguay. Cardenal, lost office in 1987 due to cutbacks. In 1990, the Sandinists were voted out by the people in the first free and democratic elections. Cardenal nevertheless continues to profess himself to be "Sandinista, Marxist and Christian.”

Lugo won the 2008 elections, was relieved of office in 2012. He had just had to acknowledge the paternity of a second child whom he had conceived during his time as bishop of San Pedro with various women. He had already recognized the first child in 2009. Lugo's personal way of life was criticized as a "slap in the face of the Church.”

Due to the heterodox and heretical positions of Father Rafael Velasco, Francisco Fernandez de La Cigoña today greeted his appointment as the new Jesuit Provincial of Argentina and Uruguay as “a scandal.”

"The only positive thing about the news is that the Argentine and Uruguayan Jesuits are only fewer than 200, of whom one hundred must be eighty or almost eighty. Only 50 Jesuits will be younger than 60, of whom he is one of the youngest in the province at the age of 52.”

The cases of Velasco in Argentina and Wucherpfennig in Germany, to mention only the two most recent, as well as the scandalous statements by the Father General Arturo Sosa last year, means that it can be not only marginal cases, but the Jesuit Order seems to have a fundamental problem 

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Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: InfoVaticana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Marxist Bishop has Close Contacts with Terrorist Group

By MICHAEL WARREN (AP) – 7 hours ago

ASUNCION, Paraguay — When he was a Roman Catholic bishop, Fernando Lugo taught liberation theology to uplift the poor. Now he is president, he has sent special forces into Paraguay's northern forests to hunt kidnappers whose leaders include a former student and his former altar boy.

The ties between Lugo and the kidnappers of a wealthy rancher are providing fuel for an effort to impeach the president, whose election last year ended 61 years of unbroken right-wing Colorado Party rule. Lugo's government calls it a hypocritical campaign by politicians who committed far worse sins under the nation's long and brutal dictatorship.

Lugo, known as "bishop of the poor," [it's just PR] was elected in large part for his advocacy of liberation theology, a Catholic movement that found inspiration in faith to push for social change, though the Vatican suppressed many versions and discouraged its teaching. Lugo renounced his church vows, saying he could do more for the poor as president than as bishop. [A most honest response for anyone who embrace Liberation Theology to do is to leave the Church, for if this Communist thinks he can do more as a political organizer than as a Bishop, he truly does not understand the mission of the Church]

The kidnapping of rancher Fidel Zavala to finance what the band has called a revolutionary movement for the poor now threatens to turn Lugo's past against him, taking his nonviolent idealism in a criminal direction.

The kidnappers — a group linked to several bank robberies and other kidnappings in the past decade — showed up Oct. 15 on Zavala's ranch wearing military uniforms and calling themselves the Paraguayan People's Army.

The rancher's family pleaded with Lugo not to send in the police, fearing Zavala would be killed. But Lugo is in a tough spot. He is accused by critics on the right of coddling the kidnappers while those on the left say he has potentially violated the rights of poor forest dwellers by sending in police armed with U.S.-provided anti-terror equipment.

"Fernando Lugo continues to be deeply tied to the kidnappers," Colorado Party Sen. Juan Carlos Galaverna declared on television last week. He accused the president not only of mentoring the future kidnappers, but continuing to act as their "chief, or at least the protector of the band."

Interior Minister Rafael Filizzola told The Associated Press that the allegation "defies common sense."

"They're trying to stigmatize the Paraguayan left because of this, but the left has always been nonviolent," he said. "The violence came from (Alfredo) Stroessner, a right-wing dictatorship that tortured and killed. The violence never came from the left, nor the church."

Filizzola described the kidnappers as dangerous. On Monday he asked Paraguay's Congress for $1 million to finance the special forces' overtime and to pay for tips on Zavala's whereabouts.

"We have the objective of finding them, capturing them and making them face justice," he said.

The kidnappers' leader, Osvaldo Villalba, has been a fugitive since 2001 after claiming a $2 million ransom to release the daughter-in-law of a former economy minister. Police later recovered $600,000 and arrested several members of the group, including his sister Carmen Villalba, who is among about 40 people serving long prison terms.

The Villalbas — eight brothers and sisters in all — were raised in poverty by a mother who trained as a nun in Europe and promoted liberation theology while working for a bishop who, like Lugo, provided some refuge to opponents of the brutal 1954-89 dictatorship.

While Lugo denies knowing any of the kidnappers personally, Monsignor Adalberto Martinez of Lugo's San Pedro diocese acknowledged that several probably studied in the seminary directed by Lugo in the 1990s. Osvaldo Villalba's brother Jose also told the AP that one of the leaders was Lugo's seminary student, and a former kidnapper, Dionisio Olazar, said another member of the band, Manuel Cristaldo Mieres, served as Lugo's altar boy.

According to Interior Minister Filizzola, the People's Army comprises a core of about 20 uniformed combatants with military training and heavy weapons, a larger group whose members hold day jobs but sometimes participate in crimes and a much larger group of backers who occasionally provide logistical support.

Filizzola rejects the idea that liberation theology inspired the gang to become kidnappers, and says there is little evidence of any guiding ideology since they began calling themselves guerrillas. [Denying the clear and obvious truth, since Lugo's former seminary students and an altar boy belong to the organization]

But the group clearly expresses political goals in pamphlets and statements delivered anonymously to local journalists. "We will look for radical and revolutionary changes, the only way to dignify the suffering and hunger of our poor people," one reads. [The same rhetoric of Liberation Theology]

Jose Villalba, a carpenter who also raises chickens and pigs on his subsistence farm, says armed revolution is a necessary response to extreme poverty.

"This president promised us poor people during his campaign that he would bring change, but now that he's in power, he doesn't do a thing," Villalba said by telephone from the village of Santa Rosa.

Lugo's opponents have cited Zavala's kidnapping as evidence of a "failure to fulfill his presidential duties," a vague but impeachable offense in Paraguay.

There were more than a dozen high-profile kidnappings during the previous president's tenure, and no one pushed for impeachment then, but the threat is real in Lugo's case because he has so little support in Congress — only three sure votes among 125 lawmakers.

Filizzola said using the Zavala case to push for Lugo's ouster "is an act of opportunism for the same people who supported the dictatorship, who supported political assassinations, tortures, persecutions."

Associated Press Writer Pedro Servin contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Former Bishop Fernando Lugo dismisses Commanders admid Coup fears

CNN) -- Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo on Wednesday ordered the replacement of top military commanders, a day after publicly dismissing rumors circulating the capital about a military coup.

The announcement came from the armed forces themselves, not the president's office.

In his capacity as commander-in-chief, Lugo named replacements for the heads of the army, air force and navy, according to a statement from the armed forces.

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