The news of the beatification of Cardinal Eduardo Francisco Pironio, on December 16, at the Shrine of Luján, has filled the Teresian Association with joy throughout the world for the ties maintained with the new blessed since the 1960s in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and throughout his entire career as a priest. bishop and later cardinal.
“He was our theology professor and frequented the University Residence,” recalls Nora Rosso, a TA member from Argentina. “He considered himself a friend of the house. Always with his smiling face, happy to be there making us feel like important people to him.”
Born on December 3, 1920 in the district of Nueve de Julio, the last of 22 children, he entered the seminary at the age of 14 and was ordained a priest at the age of 23. Father Pironio lived an intense pastoral and academic life as a professor at the St. Pius XII Seminary in Mercedes. He studied in Rome in 1953 and upon his return served as Vicar General. In 1960 was appointed Rector of the Metropolitan Seminary.
At the age of 43 he was appointed auxiliary bishop of La Plata and ordained bishop on May 31, 1964. He participated in the Second Vatican Council.
Secretary General of CELAM
In November 1967, at the Eleventh Assembly of the Episcopal Council of Latin American Bishops (CELAM), he was elected Secretary General, prepared the Meeting of Bishops in Medellín and received pope Paul VI for the Eucharistic Congress In Bogota, Colombia. He was appointed President of CELAM, and had to spend long periods in Colombia. Carmen Gianturco, of the Teresian Association was secretary of CELAM. She and TA members in Colombia continued to offer their support and welcome to the bishop outside his homeland.
At the end of the 60's he was treated in a hospital in Boston and Ana Mandiola and the members of the TA in that city were there accompanying him.
He would travel to Miami for the Inter-American Meetings of the Bishops of the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. From then on, the places where members of the Institution lived in South Florida became, on several occasions, his place of peace and rest.
He talked and prayed with TA members, preached Spiritual Exercises, walked along the beach remembering his homeland and enjoyed a visit to Disney World like any other child.
“It’s the place where I rest the most,” he said in a letter, “because I go unnoticed and no one knows me. They treat me with affection and a sense of Church that does me a lot of good. There I can pray, rest and watch the sun rise in the morning.”
In 1972 he had been appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Mar del Plata amid growing social and political tensions in the country. Pope Paul VI knew him from his trip to Colombia and invited him to preach the Spiritual Exercises of the Roman Curia in 1974. The bonds of friendship were strengthened. That same year, Msgr. Pironio traveled to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem he stayed at the residence of the Teresian Association.
Transfer to Rome
Due to the growing tensions in Argentina, the figure of Msgr. Pironio was the target of threats that endangered his life. Pope Paul VI recalled his friend to Rome as head of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life. He received the cardinal's hat in the consistory of May 24, 1976 and the Pope asked him to be his confessor.
With the death of Pope Paul VI, his successor, John Paul II confirmed him in his service for five more years. In Rome, the Teresian Association continued to offer him its support and friendship. In 1984 he was asked by the Pope to preside over the Pontifical Council for the Laity, a service he rendered for 12 years. On his travels, he maintained close contacts with the TA in the countries to which he traveled.
In his team at the then Council and now Dicastery, he had the collaboration of Carmen Aparicio, a TA member who was part of the preparations of WYD and accompanied him in several countries: Santiago de Compostela (1989), Czestochowa (1991), Denver (1993, picture on the right), Manila (1985) and the European Youth Meeting in Loreto (Italy) in 1995.
“I can say that he was a man of God, who communicated tenderness and mercy,” Aparicio recalls. “This was reflected in everything, but I especially remember his attention to people: each one had the feeling of being unique to him.”
In 1986 he was the Pope’s representative for the Cuban National Ecclesial Meeting in Havana, the first National meeting allowed to the Church after 25 years of Revolution. I was there as a journalist whom he knew well from his sojourns in Miami. His support of my journalistic work before the Cuban bishops won their trust. That first contact with the Church on the island has borne fruit years later and today the presence of the Tereisan Association in Cuba is a reality, with new Cuban associates.
TA Statutes
The figure of the Cardinal and his knowledge of the TA were instrumental in recovering the foundational form desired by the Founder, Saint Pedro Poveda, when, 100 years ago, in 1924, the TA received Pontifical approval from the Church, as a Pious Primary Union.
Arantxa Aguado was TA President at the time and acknowledges that in the meetings with the Cardinal “the associative and ecclesial matters dealt with always left room for the personal calling to look to the Lord, the center of life and events, to let hope emerge and to welcome a blessing.” The new statutes of the TA as an International Private Association of the Faithful bear the signature of Cardinal Pironio.
Members of the Laity Council and TA members in 1990.
Beatification process
In 1996 the Cardinal had to resign from the Presidency of the Pontifical Council for the Laity for health reasons. He suffered for years from a very painful bone cancer that kept him bedridden the last five months, but lucid until the end, offering his life “for the Church, the priests, the consecrated life, the laity, the Pope, the redemption of the world.”
He died on February 5, 1998. His faithful secretary for 23 years, Father Fernando Vérgez Alzaga was by his side and worked tirelessly to get the Argentine bishops to begin the beatification process.
On February 18, 2022, Pope Francis recognized his heroic virtues by declaring him Venerable. On November 8, 2023, the Holy Father authorized the promulgation of the decree allowing his beatification, after the Church recognized a miracle obtained through his intercession.
The Eucharist and rite of beatification will take place on Saturday, December 16 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Luján, where his remains rest, at 11 a.m. It will be officiated by his former secretary, now Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, President of the Governorate of Vatican City State.
“Twenty six years ago I accompanied the coffin of the Cardinal so that it could be buried at the feet of the Virgin of Luján,” he said in response to a congratulatory message. “I return to Luján to proclaim him Blessed in the name of the Holy Father. So much to be thankful for!”
Araceli Cantero, Miami.
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