PARAGUAY
GlobalPost
Will Carless
June 3, 2014
Bishops from Switzerland to Scranton warn that he’s a threat to youths. GlobalPost finds Carlos Urrutigoity leading Mass in a remote South American church, where young seminarians are enthralled and critics are alarmed.
CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay — A hush falls across the church, broken only by the rhythmic swish of the censer as it bestows acrid incense across the faces of the congregation.
A gaggle of monks in brown habits, their heads tonsured in repentant horseshoes, rises and begins to chant. They are joined by seminarians — priests in training — in floor-length, black soutanes, and Latin liturgy pulses over the pews. The words rise to a massive floor-to-ceiling mural that casts dozens of saintly eyes across the room.
Father Carlos Urrutigoity glides into the sanctuary, his ivory and scarlet robes swishing between the pews. Revered by his flock in the unruly diocese of eastern Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este, the priest will deliver his sermon to hundreds of worshippers. They will later clamor outside the church to meet the man, to receive his benediction.
This is a man who’s been described by bishops from Switzerland to Pennsylvania as “dangerous,” “abnormal,” and “a serious threat to young people.”
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