“Church, arise and shine”.
In view of the upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV to our Argentina, we must ask the Lord that it may serve, fully, to confirm us in the Faith through the Supreme Pontiff. For that is, above all, the mission of the Successor of Peter, according to the mandate of Christ Himself: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers (Lk 22, 32). We too must ask the Lord, increase our faith (Lk 17, 5). The words of Christ must always challenge us: When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Lk 18, 8).
Prayer, penance, and almsgiving are the means available to all Catholics. And in these days, we must intensify them in view of the announced journey. It would be most fitting to implore God to free us from merely sociological or political outlooks devoid of supernatural references. The fruits of those November days will be reaped only by the Lord, in His time and in His way. It is not for us to calculate them with numbers and statistics. The silent work of God in souls cannot be measured by the number of attendees at stadiums or at massive events and celebrations.
It is evident, in any case, that Leo XIV will not find along his way that Paradise –in his own words– which the then-Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, found at the International Eucharistic Congress of Buenos Aires in October 1934. Nor will it be the case to draw comparisons with the crowds that welcomed Saint John Paul II during his two visits to our country in 1982 and 1987. Leo XIV will encounter another Argentina, increasingly degraded both spiritually and materially. And a Church that has seen, alarmingly, in recent years –especially since 2013– a decline in the number of the faithful and in religious practice.
It is fitting, then, almost forty years later, to meditate once more on the words of Saint John Paul II at the Mass for consecrated persons celebrated in Buenos Aires on April 10, 1987. There, the Polish Pope issued an urgent call to us: Church in Argentina! “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (cf. Is 60, 1). It is evident, four decades later, that this is a task to be fulfilled. Trapped in various ideological snares, a large part of the Argentine ecclesiastical hierarchy has diluted the evangelical message and watches impassively the steady hemorrhage of the faithful. It should move us to know that in 1960, 90 percent of Argentines declared themselves Catholic; today barely 57 percent do so. And the decline continues unabated.
Having abandoned the bold, firm, and prophetic proclamation of Jesus Christ and focusing almost exclusively on the “political and social” has led countless baptized persons to join various evangelical denominations. And worse still, many others have swelled the ranks of those who present themselves as having no religious affiliation or as professing a tailor-made “religion.” In our country, faith has by no means become culture. Episcopal statements, anchored in what I have called “centrism extremism” (to avoid offending either the “right” or the “left”), have minimal impact beyond a few political sparks. And in recent years, as a consequence of the growing progressive bias, there has been a practical renunciation of raising one’s voice decisively in defense of life, marriage, and the family, on the grounds that they are “right-wing issues.” The so-called “new paradigms” run rampant through the dioceses. And just as has occurred economically, we also have “hyperinflation” of bishops in the ecclesial sphere. Since 2013, for example, the number of auxiliary bishops, quite young and aligned with the line of the previous Pontificate, has multiplied.
The “theology of liberation,” its native version “theology of the people,” and “third-worldism” (prophetically denounced in his book “The Clandestine Church” by Carlos Alberto Sacheri, assassinated by terrorists of the People’s Revolutionary Army) wreaked havoc on the Church pilgrim in Argentina. They emptied convents and seminaries, prompted massive defections among the clergy and religious life, relaxed cloistered discipline, and even dragged young parishioners into armed violence. Seminaries that stood out for their fidelity and sound doctrine, such as those of San Rafael and San Luis, have been closed. Others that sought to form virile, upright, fervent, and missionary priests have likewise been denatured and today waver between shipwreck and probable disappearance. There are dioceses with more bishops than seminarians.
The “assembly-style” model that the Church of Buenos Aires experienced at the end of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first has been exported to the universal Church under the much-heralded “synodality.” Almost no one speaks any longer of Church as communion. And one watches with astonishment the growing challenges of the German Church –and others– against sound doctrine and discipline. Is the aim to move toward a “federation of national churches”? Are we perhaps seeking to imitate the Anglicans, who seem to be heading decisively toward extinction? May the Lord enlighten Pope Leo XIV to put an end to this permanent state of deliberation. The Church is not meant to “vote” on a new faith, but to fulfill the Will of God, who desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tm 2, 4).
Another great challenge facing the Pope is to confirm, with clarity, the Church’s teaching on non-negotiable values, on the natural beginning and end of life, on marriage and the family, on the freedom of parents to choose freely the education of their children, and on the common good. It will not be easy, certainly, to remedy the grave consequences of documents such as Amoris laetitia, Traditionis custodes, and Fiducia supplicans, among others.
Yesterday, today, and always, the true reform of the Church is carried out, by the grace of God, by confessors and martyrs. On the 22nd of this month, while ordaining 14 priests in the diocese of Makurdi, in the state of Benue, Nigeria, the Archbishop of San Francisco (United States), Monsignor Salvatore Cordileone, emphasized that “the West needs not only the voice of Africa, but also its witness, in particular the witness of Nigeria.” There, once again, Tertullian’s words are fulfilled: “The blood of martyrs is the seed of new Christians.” Africa will be, in the twenty-second century, the continent with the greatest number of Catholics in the world. There, in truth, the Church arises and shines. –
+ Héctor Aguer.
Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata.
Buenos Aires, Saturday, August 29, 2026.
Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist. –