Enrique Angelelli

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Bishop Enrique Angelelli during a service.

Enrique Ángel Angelelli Carletti (born June 17, 1923 in Córdoba ; † August 4, 1976 ) was Roman Catholic Bishop of La Rioja . At the time of the Argentine military dictatorship of the National Reorganization Process , Angelelli was killed in Argentina for his work in social issues. In the Catholic Church he is venerated as a blessed .

Life

Enrique Angelelli is the son of Italian immigrants in Argentina. He attended the Nuestra Señora de Loreto seminary from the age of 15 . Angelelli was sent to Rome for further study. He was ordained a priest on October 9, 1949 and then returned to Córdoba.

Angelelli began to work in a parish, founded youth movements and visited the poor areas of Cordoba. In his pastoral work, he focused on the living conditions of poor people. Pope John XXIII appointed him on December 12, 1960 titular bishop of Lystra and auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Córdoba . The Archbishop of Cordoba, Ramón José Castellano , ordained him episcopal on March 12 of the following year. Co- consecrators were the Archbishop of Tucumán , Juan Carlos Aramburu , and the Bishop of San Luis , Emilio Antonio di Pasquo .

Angelelli was drawn into the trade union and labor disputes and worked with other priests to renew the Church. As a result of these activities, Angelelli was temporarily relieved of his duties in 1964. Notwithstanding this, he took part in the first, third and fourth sessions of the Second Vatican Council as a council father.

Angelelli supported in the following time the organization of the labor priestly movement Priests for the Third World , which he did not join as a member.

Pope Paul VI appointed him on July 3, 1968 Bishop of La Rioja in north-western Argentina. There Angelelli supported the establishment of miners' organizations and other employee interest groups.

Conflict with the Menem family

On June 13, 1973 Angelelli visited the Argentine city of Anillaco , the hometown of the Menem family of oligarchs , to celebrate the city's patron saint there. He met a mob of merchants and large landowners, including the governor's brother Amado Menem and his sons César and Manuel Menem. The mob forcibly entered the church where Angelelli was celebrating mass. Angelelli then interrupted the mass and was pelted with stones. Angelelli left the place and pronounced a temporary interdict over the Menem family and their supporters.

Vicente Faustino Zazpe , Archbishop of Santa Fe , and Pedro Arrupe , 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus , were sent to La Rioja by the Vatican. They supported Angelelli in his actions and his interdict against the Menem family. On the other hand, the President of the Argentine Bishops' Conference , Adolfo Tortolo , and the Apostolic Nuncio , Lino Zanini , took negative positions on Angelelli. They openly supported the people affected by the interdict and gave them crucifixes, among other things. Conversely, Angelelli received encouragement and support from compatriots who were far from the Catholic Church but who admired his commitment to the defense of human rights.

Under the dictatorship of the military

On February 12, 1976, the Argentine military captured Esteban Inestal, Vicar General of La Rioja, and two activists of the diocesan agricultural workers' movement. Angelelli asked the military for information about the whereabouts of the three arrested people, but received no response. He then traveled to Cordoba to speak personally with Luciano Benjamín Menéndez , the commander of the 3rd Army Corps. For security reasons, he was accompanied by Raúl Primatesta , Archbishop of Córdoba. Menéndez said to Angelelli: "El que tiene que cuidarse es usted." ( Spanish : "If you have to be careful, you are yourself.") When Angelelli reminded the Christians of the commitment of Christians to stand up for justice during a service in the chapel in the air force base in El Chamical in mid-March 1976, the commander interrupted him and gave the bishop a ban on preaching.

On March 24, 1976 , the military seized power. The pressure on Angelelli and those around him increased greatly. At the first meeting of the Argentine episcopate after the coup, Angelelli read a memorandum with 37 points, which he described as "Stations on the Riojan Way of the Cross". The memorandum reported on intimidation and kidnapping of priests, seminarians, women religious and lay people in Angelelli's diocese. On July 18, the priests Carlos de Dios Murias and Gabriel Longueville were murdered by police officers in El Chamical. The following day, masked men raided the rectory in Sanogasta. Angelelli had already advised the priest there to hide. The masked people murdered a parishioner they found in the rectory.

Circumstances of death

On August 4, 1976, Angelelli held a mass in El Chamical in memory of the murdered priests Murias and Longueville. After mass he went back with the priest Arturo Pinto. According to Pinto later, they were followed by two cars, which pushed Angelelli's car off the road at Punta de los Llanos. Angelelli died at the accident site. At the time of his death, he was carrying papers that he had written himself, which spoke of an “complicity of the episcopate” with the dictatorship.

The state and church authorities portrayed the incident as a road traffic accident that occurred due to a burst tire. In contrast, individual bishops such as Jaime de Nevares , Jorge Novak and Miguel Hesayne declared that Angelelli was murdered. Juan Carlos Aramburu , the archbishop of Buenos Aires , said on the other hand that there was "no concrete evidence to speak of a crime". Aramburu was later accused of collaborating with the military regime.

Legal processing

It was not until June 19, 1986, that the Argentine judge Aldo Morales ruled that Angelelli's death was not an accident, but a “cold-blooded, planned murder”. Some military personnel became involved in the charges, so that the military tried to obstruct further investigations into the meanwhile democratically ruled Argentina. The trial continued at the Supreme Constitutional Court in Argentina, which referred the case to the Cordoba Chamber. The court tribunal there stated that it was possible that the order to murder Luciano Menéndez came.

In April 1990, further investigations into the murder of three military personnel (José Carlos González, Luis Manzanelli and Ricardo Román Oscar Otero) were stopped by the Ley de Punto Final amnesty law , which had been passed under the government of Raúl Alfonsín . In 2005 this law was repealed. The Constitutional Court in Buenos Aires dealt again with the facts and again referred the case against the accused military personnel to the Chamber in Cordoba and the further proceedings for possible involvement in the murder by some civilians to the court in La Rioja. In May 2006, Menéndez was summoned by the La Rioja court, where he refused to testify. In July 2006, the Argentine Bishops' Conference declared for the first time its willingness to help clarify the circumstances of Angelelli's death. In December 2010 Menéndez was summoned again, together with the former junta chief Jorge Videla . On July 5, 2014, a federal court in La Rioja sentenced Menéndez and former Vice Admiral Luis Fernando Estrella to life imprisonment . Pope Francis had sent the court a letter and a report from Vatican documents, which the then nuncio in Argentina, Pio Laghi , had received from Enrique Angelellis as evidence . Angelelli gave examples of the crimes of the military dictatorship . Archbishop Laghi had always untruthfully denied receipt of that letter and report.

legacy

In Argentina today, the memory of Enrique Angelelli has a similar meaning as the legacy of the martyr bishop Óscar Romero in El Salvador. He enjoys great veneration especially in basic church communities . In 2006, Argentine President Néstor Kirchner declared the day of Angelelli's murder a national day of mourning. Human rights groups and Angelelli's companions welcomed the decision.

beatification

In 2015, a process for the beatification of Angelelli was initiated. On June 8, 2018, Pope Francis confirmed the martyrdom of Angelelli, the priests Murias and Longueville and the father of the family Wenceslao Pedernera. The beatification took place on April 27, 2019 in La Rioja (Argentina) by Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu , together with the beatification of Carlos de Dios Murias, Gabriel Longueville and Wenceslao Pedernera.

See also

literature

  • Martin Edwin Andersen: Dossier secreto. Argentina's Desaparecidos and the Myth of the “Dirty War”. Westview Press, Boulder 1993, ISBN 0-8133-8212-2 .
  • Peter Hartlaub: "With one ear in the Gospel, with one ear with the people". Enrique Angelelli (1923–1976), Bishop of La Rioja / Argentina . In: Johannes Meier (Ed.): The poor first. 12 life pictures of Latin American bishops . Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-7867-2133-5 , pp. 175-184.
  • Martin Lange, Reinhold Iblacker (Ed.): Persecution of Christians in Latin America. Witnesses of hope . Herder Verlag, Freiburg 1981; therein pp. 149–151: The death of the Argentine bishop Enrique Angelelli: a coincidence?
  • Luis Oscar Liberti: Monseñor Enrique Angelelli, Obispo de La Rioja. El corazón y el perfil de un profeta del Concilio Vaticano II . In: Virginia Azcuy (ed.): Semillas del siglo XX. Teología en la encrucijada de biografías, disciplinas y culturas . Volume 2. Centro de Estudios Salesiano de Buenos Aires (CESBA), Buenos Aires 2002, pp. 129-146.
  • Luis Oscar Liberti: Mons. Enrique Angelelli, pastor plasmado en la fragua del Concilio Vaticano II . In: Teología. Revista de la Facultad de Teología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina , Volume 87 (2005), pp. 463-482, ISSN  0328-1396 .
  • Luis Oscar Liberti: Mons. Enrique Angelelli, pastor que evangeliza promoviendo integralmente al hombre. Interprete teológico pastoral del Concilio Vaticano II y de los Documentos Finales de Medellín . Editorial Guadalupe, Buenos Aires 2005, ISBN 950-500-466-4 (revised version of the dissertation accepted by the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in 2004 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Peter Hartlaub: "With one ear in the Gospel, with one ear with the people". Enrique Angelelli (1923–1976), Bishop of La Rioja / Argentina . In: Johannes Meier (Ed.): The poor first . Mainz 1999, p. 177.
  2. Luis Oscar Liberti: Mons. Enrique Angelelli, pastor plasmado en la fragua del Concilio Vaticano II . In: Teología. Revista de la Facultad de Teología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina , ISSN  0328-1396 , vol. 2005, pp. 463-482.
  3. Peter Hartlaub: "With one ear in the Gospel, with one ear with the people". Enrique Angelelli (1923–1976), Bishop of La Rioja / Argentina . In: Johannes Meier (Ed.): The poor first . Mainz 1999, p. 180.
  4. a b c d e Horacio Verbitsky: El eslabón perdido . In: Página / 12 , April 9, 2006. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  5. Lucas Bilbao: Los curas y la política en la historia argentina. Nuevas miradas a un viejo problema . In: Anuario IEHS. Revista del Instituto de Estudios Histórico Sociales , ISSN  2524-9339 , Vol. 34 (2019), pp. 235–242, here p. 241.
  6. Peter Hartlaub: "With one ear in the Gospel, with one ear with the people". Enrique Angelelli (1923–1976), Bishop of La Rioja / Argentina . In: Johannes Meier (Ed.): The poor first . Mainz 1999, p. 186.
  7. Ignacio Pérez del Viso: El martirio de Angelelli . In: Revista del Centro de Investigación y Acción Social (CIAS), Buenos Aires. ISSN  0325-1306 , vol. 50 (2001), pp. 257-266.
  8. a b Nunca más: The case of the Bishop of La Rioja, Monsignor Enrique Angelelli, and of the priests of Chamical, Father Gabriel Longueville and Father Carlos de Dios Murias . ( Memento of October 14, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) CONADEP ; Report on disappearances in Argentina, 1984.
  9. a b Julio Aiub Morales: La muerte de Angelelli: en un giro histórico, la Iglesia dice que pudo haber sido un crimen . ( Memento of June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) In: Clarín , July 30, 2006; Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  10. Martin Lange, Reinhold Iblacker (ed.): Christenver Persecution in Latin America. Witnesses of hope . Herder Verlag, Freiburg 1981; therein the chapter The Death of the Argentine Bishop Enrique Angelelli: A Coincidence? , Pp. 149-151.
  11. ^ Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina . ( February 5, 2012 memento on the Internet Archive ) University of San Francisco website
  12. Videla y Menéndez en La Rioja, by Angelelli . (PDF). Website of riojaya.com, 6./10. December 2010; Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  13. ^ Life sentence for bishop murderers . In: Die Tagespost , July 8, 2014, p. 4.
  14. ^ Catholic News Agency , July 7, 2014.
  15. Mauro Matthei: Esbozo para un Santoral Latinoamericano . Ediciones Paulinas, Buenos Aires 1992; therein pp. 262–264: 4 de agosto - Monseñor Enrique Angelelli .
  16. Horacio Verbitsky: Cardenal angelizado . In: Página / 12 , July 30, 2006. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  17. Werner Pertot: "Tarde, pero esta es tu casa" . In: Página / 12 , August 3, 2006. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  18. Cristian Alarcón: "Recibía pedradas por predicar el Evangelio" . In: Página / 12 , August 5, 2006. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
  19. ^ Promulgazione di Decreti della Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office , June 9, 2018, accessed June 9, 2018 (Italian).
  20. Un enviado del Papa beatificó al obispo Angelelli ya los otros tres “mártires riojanos” . In: La Nación , April 28, 2019, accessed April 29, 2019.