Tedeum in Buenos Aires: Before Javier Milei, archbishop asks for commitment to the poorest

With the presence of the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, this Tuesday the recitation of the traditional Tedeum was held at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, on the 208th anniversary of Independence.

The ceremony was presided over by the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Mons. Jorge García Cuerva, and was also attended by the vice president of Argentina, Victoria Villarruel, and a good part of the Government cabinet. The head of the Buenos Aires government, Jorge Macri, also attended.

At the beginning of his homily, the archbishop anticipated that his words seek to be a contribution that arises from the Word of God for the reflection of society, even knowing that later his words can be taken “to want to feed fragmentation.”

The prelate highlighted the dreams and ideals of the members of the Congress of Tucumán, which declared the independence of Argentina in 1816, and called to resume them “to rebuild our Homeland.”

In that sense, taking the words of the Gospel that narrates the encounter of Jesus with the paralyzed man, he referred to today, with “so many brothers paralyzed years ago in their hope, so many crossed by hunger, loneliness, and a long-awaited justice.” ; so many Argentines lying on a blanket in the cold on the sidewalks of the country’s big cities; “so many prostrated as a result of the lack of solidarity and selfishness.”

Focusing on Argentina that “has hurt us for a long time,” he warned that despite 208 years of independence “it still suffers today from the chains of various slavery that prevent us from moving as a people towards full development and a better quality of life for all.” ”.

The “great objective,” stated Bishop García Cuerva, has to be “for Argentina to be cured, for Argentina to stand up, for Argentina to walk, for Argentina to become independent of the stretchers that have it prostrate, paralyzed and sick.”

“It is urgent to understand that we need each other, that we are brothers, children of the same country,” he said. For this reason, he called to “be bold, risk our lives for those who suffer, commit ourselves to the poorest and most excluded,” and “independent of the hatred that sickens us and eats us from the inside, independent of corruption, of advantage, of privileges of some at the expense of the poverty of many, because something is not right when we have very rich leaders and very poor working people.”

Likewise, the archbishop pointed out that “many Argentines are making an enormous effort, an effort that is moving, a hopeful effort,” and he asked the Lord: “Do not allow us to stone it with petty interests, with the voracity of power for power itself, with reprehensible behavior that only shows that many lack the social thermometer of knowing what ordinary Argentines are experiencing.”

“Let’s not mortgage the future. We already did too many things wrong in the past that no one takes responsibility for, although the result is that in Argentina six out of ten children are poor; Hungry children rummaging through garbage, unschooled children,” he listed, indicating that “basic education has to be the first objective of a development plan, because hunger for education is no less depressing than hunger for food,” he stated.

Finally, he prayed for an Argentina in which “everyone enters, that no one is left out, that no one is excluded,” and that everyone “sits at the table of dignity.”