Mons. Gabriel Mestre, the Argentine archbishop whose resignation from the pastoral government of the Archdiocese of La Plata was accepted by Pope Francis in May, will take over as parish priest in the Diocese of Chascomús.
In a statement signed by the Bishop of Chascomús, Mons. Juan Ignacio Liébana, it is explained that the appointment of Mons. Mestre as parish priest of Our Lady of Fátima, in the city of Mar de Ajó, has the zero buy (authorization) of the Dicastery for Bishops of the Vatican.
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The appointment details that the prelate accepted the proposal to reside and provide pastoral service in the Diocese of Chascomús and, as Mons. Liébana informed ACI Prensa, Mons. Mestre “is not currently residing” in Chascomús but “is already preparing” to arrive to his new parish, where he will take office on Thursday, September 26 at 6:00 p.m. (local time).
“We sincerely thank you for your availability and generosity to take on this challenge in our diocese. We know that his presence, his testimony and his vast experience will be a great contribution to our diocese,” said Bishop Liébana in a letter to the community.
“We pray for the fruitfulness of Mons Gabriel’s ministry among us and we warmly welcome him,” he added.
For its part, the Archdiocese of La Plata reported the appointment in its websiteassuring his prayers “for the fruitfulness of the ministry of Mons. Gabriel Mestre” and thanking “the deep mark he has left in our Archdiocese of La Plata, of which he was archbishop, father and pastor, brother and friend, between the 16th of September 2023 and May 27, 2024.”
On May 27, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Mestre, 55, as Archbishop of La Plata, a position to which he had been appointed only 10 months earlier.
At the time of resigning from the position, the prelate addressed a letter to the community, in which he explained that the Holy Father asked him to resign from the archdiocese due to issues related to the situation of recent months in the Diocese of Mar del Plata, where He had been bishop until July 2023.
What happened in Mar del Plata?
In September 2023, after the departure of Bishop Gabriel Mestre, who had served as Bishop of Mar del Plata since 2017, and until the appointment of his successor; The College of Consultants appointed Father Luis Albóniga, who until then had been vicar general of the diocese, diocesan administrator.
In November, Pope Francis made two consecutive appointments of bishops who did not take office.
The first of them, Bishop José María Baliña, resigned for health and personal reasons, as he himself expressed. The second, Mons. Gustavo Larrazábal, decided not to take over as bishop after versions of an old complaint against him for allegedly having exercised harassment and abuse of power circulated in the local media.
Pope Francis then appointed Bishop Ernesto Giobando, Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, as Apostolic Administrator of Mar del Plata.
One of the first measures that Bishop Giobando took, in January 2024, was to transfer Father Albóniga to the Diocese of Jujuy, 1,900 kilometers from Mar del Plata, within the framework of “a canonical procedure related to clarifying his performance during his task as diocesan administrator,” he explained in a statement.
In May, the resignation of Bishop Mestre from the Archdiocese of Mar del Plata was announced, and in a letter to the faithful, the prelate detailed: “After confronting some different perceptions with what has happened in the Diocese of Mar del Plata since November 2023 to the present, Pope Francis asked me to resign from the La Plata see.”
The current situation of the bishops and Fr. Luis Albóniga
Both the Archdiocese of La Plata and the Diocese of Mar del Plata are with vacant seat and both in charge of apostolic administrators.
As ACI Prensa learned, Bishop José María Baliña, to whom the title of Bishop Emeritus of Mar del Plata belongs, also works in the Diocese of Chascomús, providing pastoral service in the local Cathedral.
In the case of Mons. Gustavo Larrazábal, he continues in the position prior to his appointment, as Auxiliary Bishop of San Juan de Cuyo.
Father Luis Albóniga continues in the Diocese of Jujuy.
Juliet Villar
I am a journalist, with a degree in communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non-governmental organizations. Since 2016 I have been dedicated to Catholic journalism, first at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as ACI Prensa correspondent for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.