By Giovanna Dell’Orto | Related Press
ROME — Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini is taking the identical spirit to his first conclave that’s guided his decades-long front-line ministry among the many migrants, poor and Indigenous folks in Guatemala’s highlands — making certain that the Gospel isn’t preached “in the abstract.”
Advocating for migrants was a precedence of Pope Francis, who made Ramazzini a cardinal in 2019. Being elevated to the highest hierarchy of the Catholic Church didn’t faze the bishop of Huehuetenango, whose continued dedication to social justice led to many threats of violence. His native Guatemala is struggling via political turmoil and stays a scorching spot of migration to the USA.
“It’s a duty of conscience for the cardinals, now that we have the responsibility to name a new pope, that we don’t lose sight that we’ve been coming along a path and this path needs to continue to grow and grow and grow,” Ramazzini informed The Related Press on Saturday, 4 days earlier than Catholic cardinals collect to elect Francis’ successor. “I’m talking about supporting, welcoming, and protecting the rights of migrants.”
Ramazzini mentioned the church has to advocate for migrants pressured by dire poverty emigrate alongside cartel-controlled routes the place they’re usually extorted or trafficked, each by serving to them with shelters and different humanitarian assist and by lobbying for complete immigration reform.
“But this we haven’t achieved,” Ramazzini mentioned. “We didn’t achieve it with Clinton, we didn’t achieve with Obama, we didn’t achieve it with Biden, and far, far less will we succeed with Mr. Trump.”
Nonetheless, the church shouldn’t abandon migrants or the “pastoral line” of advocating for social justice, peace and fairer financial relations between international locations that began gaining prominence with the Second Vatican Council and reached new heights underneath Francis, Ramazzini mentioned.
“There’s a line of continuity and I am sure that this will be a task for the next pope,” the cardinal mentioned within the hilltop headquarters of the Scalabrinians, a missionary order based by an Italian bishop within the late nineteenth century to serve migrants and refugees. “We need to be the voice of all these people who don’t have access oftentimes to lobbies that we can reach.”
For many of the 50-plus years since his ordination, Ramazzini has been bishop in San Marcos after which Huehuetenango, mountainous areas that had been notably hard-hit throughout Guatemala’s civil warfare, which led to 1996. Immediately, they proceed to battle with excessive poverty and drug-trafficking, pushing tons of of 1000’s of native youths emigrate to the USA.
Cardinals are sworn to secrecy concerning the ongoing deliberations concerning the route of the church as they put together to enter the conclave on Wednesday. However Ramazzini mentioned he’s heartened by the “global vision” shared by the unusually massive variety of cardinals electors — 133, all however a few whom are already in Rome.
He added that he trusts the following pope will choose up the pending activity of reforming church establishments and its monetary construction that Francis started, in addition to proceed the “great sign” of together with extra girls in positions of management.
Ramazzini additionally highlighted that spirituality and social justice motion should go hand-in-hand.
“This is the true spirituality, which is fed by prayer, by reflection on the word of God, but that has to be projected toward the other,” he mentioned. “The next pope will have his own spirituality. But the important thing is that nobody forgets that you can’t have real spirituality without putting the Gospel concretely into practice.”
And his personal beliefs are holding him from being nervous about taking part for the primary time within the election of the following chief of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“I’m not worried because I know that nothing will happen that our Lord Jesus Christ won’t permit,” Ramazzini mentioned. “In the end, he’s the master of the church, we are his servants. … So he will help us come out of this well.”
That’s reassuring — as is the knowledge that he received’t be picked, Ramazzini joked.
Related Press faith protection receives help via the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely accountable for this content material.
Initially Revealed: Could 3, 2025 at 12:37 PM PDT
