The Argentine city of Mar del Plata already has its Pope Francis street

The city of Mar del Plata, the second most important tourist destination in Argentina – after Buenos Aires -, with more than 5 million visitors a year, already has its Pope Francis street, in tribute to the Argentine pontiff who died in April of this year.

The proposal was promoted by the Honorable Deliberative Council of Mar del Plata, and Pope Francisco Street covers two blocks on Miter Street, next to the cathedral, and crosses the Plaza San Martín, in the center of the city.

The act of denomination of the street took place on Friday, October 3, with the presence of municipal and national authorities, including Mayor Guillermo Montenegro, and on behalf of the Catholic Church was present the Bishop of Mar del Plata, Mons. Ernesto Giobando, accompanied by Vicar General, P. Hernán David.

When referring to Pope Francis, Mons. Giobando pointed out: “Six months ago the Pope and his legacy is still alive.”

In addition, on the eve of the feast of San Francisco de Asís, he stressed that the Argentine pontiff took his name from this great saint, and wrote two encyclicals linked to his teachings: on the one hand, “Laudato yes, ‘Alabado Seas, sir’, a fundamental document regarding the common house, on how to take care of this common house.”

In this regard, he urged: “It is up to us to take care of our city of Mar del Plata in all aspects of the care that this means.”

Second, the encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, published in the middle of the pandemic, which means “all brothers.”

The bishop said that “Francisco’s documents and attitudes have transcended the Catholic Gray: he has reached humanity. Francisco is part of this humanity and of these people who want to change the world. Because the world must be changed; we cannot accept that the world is right if it is wrong. The Pope said: ‘It is broken, you have to heal it’, and it is heals through our direct action,” he said.

Before the local authorities, he considered that “an immense challenge the responsibility that each one will have.”

“We have to do something. This ‘Pope Francis’ street, which is in the center of Mar del Plata, will allow the people who pass to see ‘Pope Francis’ and remember the Pope. Look where he is put, where, and how the Cathedral looks: all this does the center,” he described.

In this regard, he reflected on Francisco’s message, who insisted on going “from the periphery to the center and from the center to the peripheries”, and stressed that in those peripheries “there is also a need for justice, rights, labor and dignity, as in all corners of our homeland”.

“To honor Pope Francis, on the eve of San Francisco de Asís, we must think how to commit ourselves from the center with the existential and geographical peripheries of our city,” he urged.

The bishop, of Jesuit belonging, recalled that “Francisco, as a Jesuit, was in the trench, fighting a fight in which he sometimes felt very alone, but today I think we Argentines accompany him.”

“Although he did not come to visit us as Pope, he is inhabiting us all with his presence after having died. I think it is a visit forever, not for a few days,” he observed, asking that “this street is also a memory, the memory of what the Pope did.”

The Prelate shared with those present the words that the Pope directed him when he became a bishop of Mar del Plata: “Ernesto, had a good humor and closeness with everyone.”

“That I try to do: good humor helps in the moments of tension, and the closeness with everyone is my obligation towards you, towards this city, because we are all brothers and sisters. They count on me, and in what I can testify to Francisco’s life, I want to find it with my works and not so much with my words,” he concluded.

The authorities present then discovered the nomenclator sign for the street, and Mons. Giobando gave their blessing.