In July, “maximum August”, the musicians of the Catholic Church of Montevideo will begin to rehearse. In the repertoire, still undefined, “it is very likely that it will include the papal hymn.” Because the arrival of Jorge Bergoglio in Uruguay -in a visit that includes Argentina and Brazil- is at its closest point to completion, since he became Pope Francis in 2013.
The bishops of Uruguay, as well as their peers in the region, have already expressed their intention that Pope Francis arrive in the Southern Cone between March and May 2024. And as he learned The ObserverThe possibility is being discussed that Uruguayan Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo will travel “in the next few days” to the Vatican to hand-deliver to the Holy Father the formal invitation from the Uruguayan government.
It happens that Pope Francis fulfills a double role in his travels: he is the highest figure of the Catholic Church and is, at the same time, the head of State of Vatican City. That is why governments have to manage the formal invitation.
“My idea is to travel to Argentina next year, but we will have to see if it is possible,” the Pope had said last Thursday, when he participated in the inauguration of a new educational center in the community of Scholas in Barrio Mugica.
What has to happen for it to happen? Bergoglio will be 87 years old in December and last March he had been hospitalized for a respiratory infection. In his last public appearances, he was seen moving around with difficulty, often in a wheelchair. Therefore, the visit to South America depends on his state of health.
In turn, Argentina begins its electoral cycle in August and on October 22 defines the future president at the polls. Pope Francis, who was born in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Flores, wants to prevent his presence in the region from affecting the elections.
“I am not a Peronist. And if it were, what would be wrong with it?”, the Pope had declared, who called Vice President Cristina Fernández (Peronist) after the assassination attempt. This link of rapprochement and distancing with the government on duty became clearer when, in front of 32 Jesuits, in Hungary, the Pontiff pointed out that Kirchnerism tried to put him in jail, questioning his actions during the last dictatorship: “You wanted to cut off my head” .
Holy See sources explained to The Observer that the pope has already expressed his intention to visit Argentina and that they do not want the announcement to be conditional on the electoral results. And also that the arrival would be in 2024 after the electoral cycle. Although that year there will be elections in Uruguay, since it is not an authority born in this country, there was no incident.
Faced with these two warnings —the state of health and the elections in Argentina—, arrival planning is handled with caution. Much more in Uruguay, where the fleeting visit of the former Pope John Paul II to the city of Melo, in 1987, led to the film The Pope’s Bath. The fiction recreates how the town has been preparing for a long time to receive more than 50,000 tourists, but that, when the time comes, it ends up being a disaster.
Carlos Medina, coordinator of the Ministry of Music of the Catholic Church of Montevideo and who will lead the team of musicians who will rehearse for Francisco’s visit, had been the keyboard player at the Tres Cruces mass and subsequent celebration of the word at the Centenario Stadium during the arrival of John Paul II.
As happened then —and as happened recently at the beatification of Jacinto Vera— “a list of possible songs is drawn up and then approved by the liturgical team.” Of course: the pope’s anthem “is very likely to be in the repertoire” and that is why they are waiting for confirmation to rehearse since the middle of this year. Shall we visit?
