Pope Francis appointed Mons. José María Baliña, one of the two prelates who in 2023 resigned from the position of Mar del Plata before assuming him, as a new auxiliary bishop of Chascomús in Argentina.
Mons. Baliña was until now Vicar General and pastor of the Cathedral of Chascomús. When giving the news of the appointment, the diocese pointed out in its account of Facebook: “We thank God and pray for his grazing between us.”
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Mons. José María Baliña was born in Buenos Aires on January 8, 1959. He is 66 years old. He was ordained a priest on November 25, 1989 and was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires on January 16, 2015.
At the Argentine Episcopal Conference he serves as the Pastoral Commission of Migrants and Itinerants and the Pastoral Council for the Protection of Vulnerable Minors and Adults.
With this appointment, the new auxiliary bishop will collaborate with the work of the Bishop of Chascomús, Mons. Juan Ignacio Liébana.
In the Diocese of Chascomús also works, as the pastor of Our Lady of Fatima the Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata, Mons. Gabriel Mestre, whose resignation of the Episcopal position was accepted by Pope Francis, just ten months after his appointment, for linked issues with the tension situation that was lived in the diocese of Mar del Plata, of which he was bishop until July 2023.
As the successor of Mons. Mestre, Mons. José María Baliña was appointed Bishop of Mar del Plata in November 2023. Little less than a month later and before assuming the position, the Holy Father accepted his resignation to the position for health reasons and for “personal and family situations.”
Pope Francis would then appoint Mons. Gustavo Manuel Larrazábal, who would also renounce the position in January 2024 after some complaints against him that according to the Nunciature in Argentina “have no foundation.” The prelate then remained in the position of auxiliary bishop of San Juan de Cuyo.
After the resignation of Mons. Baliña and Mons. Larrazábal in less than three months and in the midst of tensions that included the sending of the then diocesan administrator, P. Luis Albóniga to Jujuy, 1,900 kilometers from Mar del Plata, Pope Francis named An apostolic administrator.
For the position, the Holy Father selected Mons. Ernesto Giobando, a Jesuit prelate who was then auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires and that in December 2024 he was finally appointed Bishop of Mar del Plata.
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.