With the purpose of honoring the historical presence of the Virgin of Luján in the Argentine National Gendarmerie (GNA), the National Government gave this invocation the degree of commander generates that force.
The decree, published in the Official Gazette of September 19, is signing the Argentine President, Javier Milei; and of the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, and is based on the devotion of the gendarmerie to this Marian invocation, very rooted in the history of that force.
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
The document in turn establishes that the head of the Gendarmerie will adopt the necessary measures for the enthronement and corresponding military honors.
Among the considerations taken into account, the decree expresses that devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the invocation of Our Lady of Luján “has unique meaning for the inhabitants of the Argentine Republic and is present in the history and identity of the members of the Argentine National Gendarmerie.”
He also stated that “in 1958, the then Vicar of the Armed Forces requested before the Holy See, in accordance with the prevailing norms, the patronage of Our Lady The Blessed Virgin Mary on the Armed Forces of the Argentine Nation” was proclaimed, conferred by the Holy See in 1958.
In addition, he recalls that “in 1975, the archbishop of the then city of Buenos Aires and at the request of the National Director of Gendarmerie declared that the patron saint of the then National Gendarmerie must be Our Lady of Luján.”
He also points out that “according to the entrenched devotion” to this invocation, “there is no element of the Argentine National Gendarmerie that does not have enthroned and an image of it is not venerated, causing in their men and women a sufficient moral energy for a greater delivery to the service in the fulfillment of their duty.”
The initiative to honor Our Lady of Luján with the range of Comandante Genela carries the endorsement of the then and the current military bishop, and had the intervention of the General Directorate of Legal Affairs of the Argentine National Gendarmerie and the Ministry of National Security.
This appointment responds to the tradition of the Armed Forces of honoring their patron saints with the maximum degree in the category of superior personnel.
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.