Argentine Cardinal Eduardo Pironio will be declared blessed

 The Argentine Cardinal Eduardo Pironio (1920-1998), noted as the “inventor” of the World Youth Days (WYD) and considered “papable” in 1978, will be declared blessed. Pope Francis, who knew him well and promoted his cause, approved this Wednesday the miracle attributed to his intercession with the promulgation of the corresponding decree of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

El #PapaFrancisco aprobó hoy, miércoles 8 de noviembre, el decreto de la Congregación para las Causa de los Santos que reconoce el milagro atribuido al venerable cardenal argentino Eduardo Francisco Pironio, nacido en 1920 en la localidad de 9 de Julio; fallecido en Roma en 1998. pic.twitter.com/RLmb97pcav

— Conferencia Episcopal Argentina (@EpiscopadoArg) November 8, 2023

It is about the miraculous healing of Juan Manuel Franco, a one and a half year old boy from Mar del Plata - the city where Pironio was bishop -, poisoned by inhaling the glitter used by his mother for restoration work. The child had involuntarily aspirated and ingested it, which had caused acute respiratory distress syndrome (SDS) and he was about to die. As Vatican News recalled, it was December 2, 2006 and that day the so-called “March of Hope” was celebrated, an initiative devised by Pironio.

For the occasion the parish priest had distributed a small card with the figure of the cardinal. The little boy's parents, from that moment on, began to ask for his intercession, reciting the prayer that appeared on the card. Two days later, the first improvements began to be noticed. Five days later, the baby was reactive, lucid, and breathing spontaneously. And on December 13 he was discharged from the hospital, in a case that later laid the foundations for the advancement of the cause of beatification of 

Pironio, a remembered figure of the Argentine Church and the Roman Curia.

A life between Argentina and the Vatican

Pironio was born in 1920 in Nueve de Julio, the lastborn of 22 children, in a family of Italian immigrants from the Friuli region (northeast). He was ordained at the age of 23 in Luján, where his remains rest today by his will and had a life marked by a “Latin American” phase and another “Roman” phase, as the historian of the Community of San Egidio, Gianni La Bella, pointed out years ago. , in an agreement that took place in Rome. After passing through Mercedes and then the Villa Devoto seminary in Buenos Aires, where he was rector, he was auxiliary bishop of La Plata, then bishop of Mar del Plata and held various positions in the Latin American Episcopal Conference (Celam), of which Was president. Persecuted in Argentina for being considered too close to the left – even threatened with death in the period of violence that preceded the dictatorship – he was called to Rome by Paul VI in 1974 to be prefect of the Congregation of the Institutes of Consecrated Life. . Two years later, he created him a cardinal.

Saint John Paul II appointed him president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in 1984, something that Pironio himself confessed at the time that had seemed to him “to have regressed to a series B position.” Although he later realized that this had been a “promotion, because the laity are the majority of God's people.”

Experts on Vatican issues remember, however, that since Pironio - papal during the two conclaves of 1978 - was considered too progressive (he was a good friend of the Salvadoran bishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, and of the Jesuit father general Pedro Arrupe), the appointment At the head of the lay dicastery had meant virtual exile for him.

From that position, however, he played a key role in the creation of the World Youth Days, which began during the pontificate of the Polish Karol Wojtyla with immense success. After suffering from bone cancer, Pironio died on February 5, 1998 in Rome, at the age of 77.

Beatification

Pironio's beatification process was launched in 2003, five years after his death. On March 11, 2016, the diocesan phase of his cause was closed. The Cardinal Vicar of Rome, the Italian Agostino Vallini, presided on that occasion at the closing session, in which the evidence collected began to be analyzed.

Among those who contributed their testimony about Pironio's sanctity is Pope Francis himself, who knew him well and who, as archbishop of Buenos Aires, promoted this cause, as Monsignor Carlos Malfa, bishop of Chascomús, recalled to LA NACION at the time. Malfa, who was Pironio's secretary when he was bishop of Mar del Plata, also gave his testimony.

The next step took place in 2022. The Vatican published the decree that recognized his “heroic virtues” by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, led by Italian Cardinal Marcelo Semeraro, who today was received in audience by the Pope to the promulgation of the decree that certified the existence of a miracle through his intercession.

According to reports, the beatification ceremony will be held in Luján before the end of the year and on behalf of the Holy See the Spanish cardinal Fernando Vérgez Álzaga will participate, who for 23 years was personal secretary of Pironio, who is president of both the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State, as well as the Governatorate.

A trusted man of the Pope, in a tribute to Pironio that took place in 2018, Vergés highlighted the fortitude with which the future blessed faced his final hour. "The cardinal accepted the illness, but not in a passive way: he fought against it, he asked himself why and his conclusion was always the same: the prayer learned in Friulian, which said 'The Lord knows what he is doing, if the Lord wills that Be it so, the Virgin is happy, let's move on.' It is not resignation, but Christian hope,” said Vérgez Alzaga. “Despite the severe pain, he asked that the administration of morphine not be allowed if it was not strictly necessary. I never felt that he complained, but rather that he totally surrendered into the hands of the Lord .”