The Bishop of San Francisco and president of the Council of Economic Affairs of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, Mons. Sergio Osvaldo Buenanueva, referred to the support of the Catholic Church and valued as positive that the bishops no longer receive contributions from the State.
After a progressive resignation process, in 2024 the bishops stopped receiving the economic contribution of the Argentine State.
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In recent Interview with Radio Maríathe prelate explained that “during the administration of Mauricio Macri, the bishops began to discuss the issue, with the firm will to resign that contribution. So, we said: ‘We do not want to depend on what the State can give us because, in fact, we do not depend’ “.
“This must be said again and again: the Church is not sustained in its evangelizing work by the State. It has not been, it is not and will not be,” he insisted.
To the Catholic Church, he said, “we are held by Catholics, your parish community sustains it, which supports the parish. What the priest receives comes out of what you put in the collection, or otherwise contribution to the maintenance of the evangelizing work. “
“The State has never sustained the evangelizing work,” said Mons. Goodanueva, although he clarified that “it did allocate a game” of the budget to the bishops.
The decision of the bishops to resign that contribution, he said, was “after a long deliberation” and unanimously, aware at the same time that “we were renouncing a constitutional mandate, which also has its issues to consider.”
“No bishop receives anything from the State, nor retired bishops,” he explained.
Mons. Buenanueva agreed that retirement, pensions and other assignments received by the members of the clergy, in the first place, are also eliminated, because the bishops “are not going to reverse this resignation.”
Secondly, because from the episcopate, “we always wanted these things to be resolved at the level of one of the powers of the State” and not only with internal conversations between the bishops and the presidency.
Therefore, it supported that it is the legislators who decide whether “is repealing these laws”, and defining “how the repeal of these laws is combined with the constitutional mandate of article 2 of the Constitution”, which establishes that the Argentine State maintains the Roman Apostolic Catholic religion.
“For several years, it was agreed with the three successive administrations of Macri, Alberto Fernández and, now, of President Javier Milei, a progressive resignation to the allocation to the bishops; and all the bishops had to present a letter, signed by Each, the last days of Dr. Fernández’s presidency, saying that we renounced that contribution, to give him this formality, “he reviewed.
The last figure received by the bishops, in December 2023, was 56,000 Argentine pesos (which today represent about $ 46). “That was the last thing that was received, and the same happened with retirement, so we no longer receive that contribution.”
“There are two items, which are going to disappear progressively, which is a minimum contribution, a ridiculous figure, for seminars, and another for border parishes,” he said.
“The bishops no longer receive anything from the State, and the seminars and some parishes will stop receiving that contribution, which was in the national budget,” he said.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.