Argentina’s president has asked priests to help the national government flatten the curve of coronavirus in slum areas. Aregentina has 4,500 shanty towns and illegal settlements. Seven priests – including Bishop Gustavo Carrara – who live and minister in the slums of Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, met with President Alberto Fernandez last week. The priests’ Read more
Argentina’s president and his allies have appeared to receive a public scolding from the Archbishop of Buenos Aires over prioritisation of the poor. President Mauricio Macri heard Archbishop Mario Poli speak at the traditional May Revolution Day service at the local cathedral. The Archbishop said “Attention should be prioritised toward children and the elderly, the Read more
Pope Francis used to pick up La Nacion newspaper every day at a kiosk across from the city’s cathedral. Each edition was bound by a rubber band. But then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, being frugal, would save the rubber bands and return them in a ball at the end of every month. Guide Javier Cortese offered the anecdote Read more
Pope Francis has asked for a statue of himself at his old cathedral to be removed — and advised seminarians and novices to get around on bikes and avoid sleek cars and smartphones. The statue, a lifesize likeness of the Pope, had been installed for about 10 days in the gardens of the Buenos Aires Read more
An account of a eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires, involving Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — has been published in a Polish-based magazine. The article says a priest in the commercial centre of Buenos Aires was finishing distributing Communion at Mass in 1996 when a woman told him she had found a discarded Read more
Born in Argentina, Pope Francis is the first Latin American to lead the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the first Jesuit. “It seems my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world [to choose a pope],” he told the crowd in St Peter’s Square in his first address, a joke which belied Read more
The Bishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, has used strong language to criticise priests who refuse to baptise children born to single mothers. Almost apologising for the actions of some priests, Bergoglio recalled the story of a young unmarried mother who had the courage to bring her child into the world and who then Read more