Pontifical Commission for Latin America

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The Pontifical Commission for Latin America ( Latin Pontificia Commissio pro America Latina , Spanish Pontificia Comisión para América Latina , Portuguese Pontifícia Comissão para a América Latina , CAL) is a dicastery of the Roman Curia .

Establishment, organization, tasks

The commission was founded on April 21, 1958 by Pope Pius XII. established to support the work of the Church in Latin America . Paul VI expanded the commission to include a General Council for Latin America, which coordinated the individual activities in the various Latin American countries. In 1988 Pope John Paul II decreed a comprehensive reorganization of the commission through the Motu Proprio Decessores Nostri of June 18. According to this Motu Proprio and paragraphs 83 and 84 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus of June 28, 1988, the Commission for Latin America has the following tasks:

  • Help and advice for the individual churches in Latin America,
  • Examining doctrinal and pastoral issues relevant to the life and development of these churches
  • Promotion of the new evangelization .

Bishops and cardinals from the Roman Curia and Latin America in particular are appointed to the commission. The commission is headed by the incumbent Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops as President and is responsible for the coordination of the Vatican's Latin America activities. The commission works closely with the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM) and prepared and accompanied its last general assemblies in 1992 in Santo Domingo and 2007 in Aparecida .

The Vice President is responsible for managing the business. The office is considered to be the switching point in the relations between the Latin American Church, the Roman Church leadership and the universal Church and is also economically significant, as it is the distribution of aid funds for Latin American ecclesiastical recipients from church or secular donation and aid organizations from other parts of the world such as Adveniat are applied in Germany, coordinated.

staff

The first Vice President after the reorganization by John Paul II was from 1988 to 2003 the Spanish clergyman and journalist Cipriano Calderón Polo , who was Popes Paul VI's most important Latin America expert. and John Paul II was considered "the Pope's man for Latin America" ​​for more than two decades.

In 2003, the Mexican Luis Robles Díaz was the first time a clergyman from Latin America was appointed Vice President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. He died on Holy Saturday of 2007 in Rome immediately before the V General Assembly of the Bishops' Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM) in Aparecida (Brazil) , which was largely prepared by Pope Benedict XVI. opened in person in May 2007. The Colombian Octavio Ruiz Arenas was appointed his successor at the end of May 2007 .

Cardinal Marc Ouellet has been President of the Commission since the resignation of the previous Bishops Prefect Giovanni Cardinal Re in 2010 . The duties of the Vice President went to the displacement Archbishop Ruiz Arenas for the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization to from Uruguay originating Attorney Guzmán Carriquiry over, who has been appointed Secretary of the Commission on 14 May 2011 and coordinates their activities since then. At the beginning of 2014 he was confirmed in office and in the same year was appointed Vice-President of the Commission as the first layperson . The Latin American was previously Undersecretary in the Pontifical Council for the Laity and is so far the only non-bishop to hold a high-ranking position in the Roman Curia.

Immediately before his abdication, Pope Benedict XVI. on February 23, 2013 several new members in the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, including his future successor, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio . Most recently, on January 14, 2017, Pope Francis appointed Cardinals Carlos Aguiar from Mexico, Baltazar Porras from Venezuela and Sérgio da Rocha from Brazil to the commission.

Previous President of the Commission

Current members

Confirmed in 2014 
Later new appointments 

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Profile of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (Italian) on the Vatican website (as of: Annuario Pontificio 2015), accessed on November 27, 2016.
  2. ↑ Newspaper article from May 31, 2007 (El Tiempo, Bogotá) (Spanish), accessed on November 27, 2016.
  3. ↑ Carmen Elena Villa: Fallce el obispo Cipriano Calderón, fue el hombre del Papa para Latinoamérica. Article on the death of Calderón from February 5, 2009 on the Zenit news platform , accessed on November 27, 2016.
  4. ↑ reporting ACIPrensa April 10, 2007 , accessed November 16, 2016th
  5. ↑ News from June 1, 2007 in the daily newspaper El Tiempo , accessed on November 16, 2016.
  6. ↑ Guzmán Carriquiry: “El catolicismo en Latinoamérica es fuerte y resiste a la secularización”. Article on ReligiónConfidencial dated June 6, 2016, accessed November 16, 2016.
  7. ↑ reporting ACIPrensa from July 23, 2016 (surprise visit of Pope Francis in the office of the Commission), accessed on 16 November 2016th
  8. ↑ reporting ACIPrensa from February 23, 2013 , accessed November 16, 2016th
  9. ^ A b Nomina di Membri della Pontificia Commissione per l'America Latina. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, January 14, 2017, accessed January 14, 2017 (Italian).
  10. ↑ a b Confirmations and appointments of members of the commission. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, January 15, 2014, accessed February 13, 2015 (Italian).
  11. ^ Appointment of Carriquiry as Vice-President of the Commission. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, May 2, 2014, accessed November 27, 2016 (Italian).
  12. ↑ reporting ACIPrensa from September 5, 2015 , accessed November 16, 2016th
  13. ↑ Confirmations and appointments of members of the commission. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, May 22, 2014, accessed February 21, 2017 (Italian).
  14. ^ A b c Nomina di Membri della Pontificia Commissione per l'America Latina. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office, April 20, 2020, accessed April 20, 2020 (Italian).