“Panchito Cute, I wanted to hug you,” were the words that the mother of Nicaraguan Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes said, when he melted in a tender hug after Pope Francis made him a member of the Cardinal College, thus trusting him with the task of participating in the choice of the successor of St. Peter.
Brenes was created Cardinal in 2014. Now, with 76 years and from Rome he will participate in the conclave to choose the new Pope, the purple highlighted the love that Francisco had for his mother, Lilliam Solórzano de Brenes, who died on September 29, 2022,
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In a video posted on social networks, the Cardinal highlighted “the love he had to my mamacita when she greeted him, with that sensitivity she had. I always remember, and he remembered it a lot, when he hugged her when he created me a cardinal and she told him ‘Panchito cute, wanted to hug you’.”
Cardinal Brenes was auxiliary bishop of Managua and Bishop of Matagalpa, before being appointed Archbishop of Managua in 2005. He is the main leader of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, who suffers the fierce persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co -president” Rosario Murillo; And he is one of the five Nicaraguan bishops who still reside in the country, after the banishment of four prelates.
In the video, the Archbishop also said that he prayed to the coffin of the Holy Father and confessed that he was “about to shed tears, but with the contrite heart I have prayed, I have thanked and entrusted to him to be able to continue exercising my ministry during the time that the Lord allows me.”
“Today I have feelings cross -linked to have seen him alive, the dynamic man, the affectionate man, the smiling man, the man who always encouraged me to continue with love,” he continued.
Speaking again of his mother, Cardinal Brenes stressed that “I have also put it together with him so that she receives it there in heaven and can enjoy Los Angeles, Los Santos, the company.”
“That both pray for me to continue exercising my ministry in this beloved Church of the Archdiocese of Managua,” he concluded.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.