With the blessing of Pope Francis, Jorge García Cuerva took office as the new Archbishop of Buenos Aires

2023-07-15 20:53:53

In a ceremony in front of the Plaza de Mayo, the new Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Monsignor Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, begins this Saturday his ministry at the head of the diocese that Jorge Bergoglio himself headed until his election as Supreme Pontiff in 2013.

The new Buenos Aires archbishop is the son of Jorge Antonio García Cuerva, a dentist, retired commodore of the Argentine Air Force, and Graciela García Cuerva, a teacher; and he is the eldest of five siblings from a middle-class family from the city of Buenos Aires.

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Participating in the ceremony in Plaza de Mayo are President Alberto Fernández, Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, Ministers Kelly Olmos (Labor) and Victoria Tolosa Paz (Social Development); and the secretaries of Worship of the city, Federico Pugliese, and of the Nation, Guillermo Oliveri.

The mass celebrated by the president of the Episcopate, Oscar Ojea and bishops from all over the country, began with the profession of faith and the oath of fidelity by García Cuerva; and then the apostolic nuncio, Monsignor Miroslaw Adamczyk, will impose the archiepiscopal pallium that was given to him by Pope Francis.

The new Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, will begin his pastoral work in the city this Saturday, replacing Cardinal Mario Poli. (Photo: Capture)

In recent days, the episcopal emblem of García Cuerva became known, which, with the phrase “Do not turn your face away from the poor”, is made up of five symbols: the cross, the staff, the earth, the sheet metal roof -referring to the villas and the reality of poverty- and the star.

“I want to be the shepherd of all, especially those sheep that are most wounded, those sheep that suffer the most, especially those who feel excluded, marginalized and those who suffer the cross of the pain of the disease,” said García Cuerva in his first words after his designation is known.

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“It is beautiful if we grow as a follow-up Church, as a humble Church that never takes the search for the Lord for granted”, he emphasized. And he expanded: “It is beautiful if we become a Church that goes out, which does not find its joy in the things of the world, but in announcing the Gospel to the world, to sow the question about God in the hearts of people.”