The Archbishop of Buenos Aires condemned the chanting of political slogans at Mass after two liturgies last week were disrupted by lay Catholics and priests singing anti-government protests.
Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva said: “The Mass is sacred. It is not good to use it to fragment [or] divide [people] along party lines.”
On 10 June, chants of La Patria no se vende – “the country’s not for sale” – broke out during a Mass for the late Nora Cortiñas, co-founder of the human rights organisation Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and Victor, son of the Argentinian novelist and Nobel Peace prize-winner Adolfo Esquivel.
The slogan is a protest against President Javier Milei’s sweeping austerity laws.
At the liturgy in Santa Cruz parish in Buenos Aires, Fr Carlos Saracini told the congregation that “Norita”, who died on 30 May, had “said” the slogan “in his ear”. He “exhorted” them to sing the words.
Three days later, another liturgy in Buenos Aires was disrupted by the same protest. Video clips circulating on social media of a Mass in the Inmaculado Corazón de María parish showed lay Catholics and priests clapping while singing “the country’s not for sale”.
Bishop Gustavo Carrara, an auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, was the principal celebrant. He offered “humble apologies” to “anyone who felt offended” by the singing and said he “accepted responsibility” for the incident, although he did not join the singing.
The Mass commemorated Fr Mauricio Silva, a priest abducted and “disappeared” on 14 June 1977 while working as a road-sweeper.
The singing, taken up by a congregation largely comprised of road-sweepers, “lasted a minute,” said Carrara. “I interrupted it to say the final prayers and blessing,” he said.
Other bishops’ responses to the chanting were varied. Bishop Eduardo García of San Justo said in a radio interview that “there is not opposition” except the Church in Argentina.
“We are doing what we have to do, what we always do, and perhaps it becomes more visible and stronger because the reality is more painful,” he said.
However, Bishop Sergio Osvaldo Buenanueva said that political polarisation “hurts our Christian communities” and said Carrara had been right to apologise.
Writing on social media, he said: “The Mass cannot be used to promote political causes, not because politics is bad, but because that’s not the purpose of the Mass, which is to glorify God and sanctify the baptised, strengthen the unity of the Church and promote its mission in the world, also encouraging ‘better politics’ as Pope Francis says and Bishop Carrara has rightly noted.”
Last week, protesters against Milei were dispersed by riot police with tear gas and rubber bullets after Argentina’s Senate approved his government’s “Base Law” by one vote. Covering pension cuts and tax incentives for foreign investors, the legislation is the foundation for Milei’s plan to apply economic “shock therapy” to Argentina.
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