The first Paraguayan cardinal will take office on Saturday, August 27, Mario Abdo will travel to Rome for the imposition of the cap and the cardinal’s ring from Pope Francis to Monsignor Adalberto Martínez.
The President and the First Lady, together with an official delegation, confirmed the trip to Rome, and will be present on Saturday, August 27, at Saint Peter’s Basilica, and on Sunday, August 28, the Paraguayan Cardinal will celebrate his first mass as such in the company of the priests Paraguayans who come and pilgrims who will be accompanying him that day.
The country will be left in charge of the significantly corrupt Hugo Velázquez, who refuses to leave his functions as Vice President of the Republic.
Let us remember that the United States refused to offer more details about the accusation of corruption against the Paraguayan vice president, Hugo Velázquez, so as not to jeopardize the investigations.
Velázquez, who last week said he was willing to resign after the US included him on its corrupt list, changed his mind on Thursday and announced that he will ask for more evidence of the accusations against him.
“For now, we cannot reveal any more details than those that are already public for fear that it could affect ongoing or future police investigations,” a State Department spokesman told Efe.
The same source affirmed that the sanction against Velázquez is not due to “political reasons” and claimed that the United States Government “has the right to decide” who can and cannot enter their country.
He recalled that the law obliges the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to sanction foreign government officials and their close relatives when he has “credible information” that they are involved in serious cases of corruption, as may be the case of the Paraguayan vice president.
The State Department spokesman added that the United States “will continue to work” with the president of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, in “areas of common interest.”
On August 12, the United States announced the inclusion of the Paraguayan vice president on its corrupt list, for which he was automatically banned from entering the country.
Velázquez would have asked the also sanctioned legal adviser of the Yacyretá company (EBY), Juan Carlos Duarte, to offer a bribe of more than one million dollars to a public official to obstruct investigations against him.
Following the US announcement, the vice president denied the accusations but said he would resign to defend himself as an ordinary citizen.
However, this Thursday he retracted and stated that he will wait for more evidence of the accusations against him.
