Pope Francis has named Peruvian Archbishop Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno of Huancayo, who works defending the environment and who advocates living a life in harmony with nature, as one of 14 new cardinals.
“The whole church must become ecological because every Christian needs to live his or her life in harmony with nature and with others,” the Archbishop of Huancayo in the Peruvian altiplano, told La Croix on June 12, 2013.
It is clear that Archbishop Barreto is perfectly in sync with Pope Francis in this area — and not simply because, like Jorge Bergoglio, he has been a Jesuit since 1961.
Appointed by Pope Francis as part of the Preparatory Synod on Amazonia, which will take place in Rome in October 2019, Archbishop Barreto, 74, has worked tirelessly to defend the environment.
“Everything that affects the water, the air and the earth also affects people, and particularly the poor!” he said.
“So, defending the environment also means helping the poor to live better,” he said in 2013.
After completing his training in Spain, he returned to Peru, where he was appointed as rector of a seminary. Prior to his appointment to Huancayo, he was Vicar Apostolic of Jaen en Peru o San Francisco Javier.
Round table on the environment
After arriving in the Archdiocese of Huancayo, he became familiar with La Oroya, a mining city of 35,000 people, which is often considered to be one of the most polluted cities in the world because of its copper and lead smelters.
Following a miners’ strike in 2005, which led to confrontations with the police, Archbishop Barreto established a “round table on the environment” with various institutions in the region.
As a result, the government ordered the US company, Doe Run, which has operated a mine there since 1997, to implement a program to clean up and manage the local environment. Continue reading