PARAGUAY
Catholic Culture
[RESUMEN EXPLICATIVO DE LA SITUACIÓN – Ciudad del Este diocesis]
Catholic World News – August 01, 2014
The Diocese of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, has published an aggressive defense of the leadership of Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, claiming that a priest who had been accused of abuse in the US was placed in ministry on the recommendation of then-Cardinal Ratzinger.
Bishop Livieres incardinated Father Carlos Urrutigoity, who had been accused of sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, into his diocese in 2005. The diocese stated that the priest “came recommended by some cardinals with functions in the Holy See (one of them, elected a few days later Successor of Peter).” In 2005, Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton suppressed the Society of St. John– which had been known for its promotion of the extraordinary form of the Mass, but also criticized for reports of lavish spending– following accusations of sexual abuse against its founder, Father Urrutigoity. Bishop Martino’s predecessor, Bishop James Timlin, had suspended Father Urrutigoity’s faculties after a diocesan review board found an abuse allegation credible. In defending Bishop Livieres, the
Paraguayan diocesan website stated:
* In 2004, Paraguay’s bishops wrote to Pope St. John Paul II to protest his appointment of Father Livieres, a priest of Opus Dei, to the diocese, but the Holy See held firm.
* Bishop Livieres was the only bishop who publicly opposed the presidential candidacy of former bishop Fernando Lugo, who governed the nation from 2008 to 2012.
* Opposition to Bishop Livieres among religious orders intensified when he forbade the “political or ideological instrumentalization” of their work and when he called for the proclamation of the Gospel to indigenous peoples.
* Ten priests from his diocese, and 150 from across the nation, urged Pope Benedict XVI to remove the bishop after he sought to “renew ecclesial discipline.” Today, however, the vast majority of the diocese’s “young and numerous” clergy support him.
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