(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a letter to Archbishop José Maria Arancedo of
Santa Fe, Argentina, the President of the Argentinian Bishops’ Conference, on the
occasion of the Beatification of “Cura Brochero” (José Gabriel Brochero), which took
place on Saturday in Cordoba.
In his letter, the Holy Father praised “this
pastor with ‘the odour of the sheep,’ who made himself a poor man among the poor,
who always struggled to be very close to God and to the people, who did and continues
to do such great good, like the caress of God for our people who suffer.”
Pope
Francis said that in a beatification, “pastoral realities” are important. Cura Brochero,
he said, did not remain in the parish office, but went out on a mule, seeking the
people like a priest on the street of the faith. This, the Pope said, “is what Jesus
wants today: missionary disciples!”
Today, the Pope concluded, “let us allow
Cura Brochero to enter, mule and all, into the house of our hearts, and to invite
us to prayer, to the encounter with Jesus, who frees us from bondage to go out into
the streets to seek our brother, to touch the flesh of Christ in those who suffer
and who need the love of God. This is the only way we will taste the joy Cura Brochero
experienced, the foretaste of the happiness he now enjoys as a Blessed in heaven.”