Posted on 04/23/2026 10:13:44 AM PDT by ebb tide
A new report shows how the criteria for appointing bishops under Francis have been predominantly political.
On April 22, Spanish blog El Wanderer published a report that, through various documented cases, argues that the criteria for episcopal appointments adopted by Pope Francis have been political in nature rather than pastoral or doctrinal – based on personal sympathies, ideological affinities, and even forms of susceptibility to blackmail. The dossier focuses in particular on the case of Jorge García Cuerva, metropolitan Archbishop of Buenos Aires since May 26, 2023.
According to the report, the appointment of García Cuerva “was [Francis’s] revenge: to appoint as archbishop [of Buenos Aires] someone who would cause permanent irritation among the clergy."
READ: 17 bishops have attended conferences organized by heretical New Ways Ministry: report
The author maintains that “one of the most regrettable legacies of Francis’s pontificate has been the bishops he has left to the Church.” In the specific case of Argentina, the homeland of the late pontiff, one can speak of a real “compulsion” to replace the episcopal class with bishops “lacking the minimum qualifications for the position.”
“I speak of compulsion because, during his pontificate, Francis appointed 67 bishops in Argentina, almost six per year. Pope Leo XIV, in his first year of ministry, appointed only one,” the author explained. However, “the problem is not quantity, but quality,” namely “the criterion of selection.”
The report recalls that, “on at least three occasions, Francis nominated bishops in Argentina who, after accepting the appointment … declined the consecration a few weeks later. The reason, it was said, was ‘skeletons in the closet.’”
The would-be bishops referred to here likely also include the cases of José María Baliña and Gustavo Manuel Larrazábal, both of whom renounced episcopal consecration between December 2023 and January 2024, all linked to the diocese of Mar del Plata, one of the most important in Argentina. The reasons were never officially clarified.
Better known, however, is the case of the Indonesian would-be cardinal Pascalis Syukur. As the report recalls, he was “chosen as a cardinal by Bergoglio in 2024, joyfully accepted the appointment … but resigned a few days later. We later learned that he was having an affair with a woman with whom he had two children. Pope Leo accepted his resignation as diocesan bishop a few months ago.”
In short, more and more news of this kind seems to confirm the analyses of many, according to which, in all these years, “Francis appointed as bishops priests he liked or with whom he had some affinity, bypassing the usual selection procedures through the nunciatures.”
In this regard, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has also often suggested that, in addition to ideological affinity, the criterion for selecting bishops by Francis was their susceptibility to blackmail. These reports and others, such as those concerning the former Substitute of the Vatican Secretariat of State Edgar Peña Parra, or the scandalous case of Emanuel Shaleta, ordinary of the Eparchy of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego in California, seem increasingly to confirm this interpretation.
The El Wanderer report also notes that “the Jesuits who in the 1980s formed the group of Bergoglians opposed to Father Víctor Zorzín, the Jesuit provincial imposed by Superior General Hans Kolvenbach, are now bishops.”
Furthermore, “during the years Bergoglio was provincial and later rector of the Colegio Máximo, he made sure that as many religious congregations as possible sent at least one candidate to study there. These men, once ordained, became unofficial ‘correspondents’ (spies, some say) for Bergoglio in their respective institutions. Well, many of them are now bishops.”
The report then dwells on a case which the author notes is emblematic of Francis’ style of governance, namely that of Jorge García Cuerva, who was appointed archbishop of Buenos Aires on May 26, 2023, and still head of this archdiocese today.
To understand why Francis chose this particular candidate, despite his evident inadequacy for the role, it is necessary to start from July 2022, when “the Vatican completed a financial audit of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, in which, over rather dubious matters, it reprimanded Archbishop Cardinal Mario Poli and several priests for the sale of a property. Of course, the report had the approval of Pope Francis.”
The report “was published in the national media, generating a major scandal, as was predictable, and, most seriously, the Vatican’s accusations were unfounded,” El Wanderer notes. “A few days later, Cardinal Poli published a letter in support of the priests defamed by Francis’ Vatican, and 250 priests from the archdiocese wrote another letter in support of those same priests, attesting to their honesty and good faith. As anyone could have guessed, this enraged the Roman Pontiff, who, following in the footsteps of Juan Domingo Perón, wasted no time in ‘making the punishment thunder.’”
Francis then removed Poli from the see of Buenos Aires and appointed his friend García Cuerva in his place. Many interpreted the episode as “papal revenge against the humiliated archbishop and the Buenos Aires clergy who had defied him.”
There would also have been a political intention: “The year after [García Cuerva’s] nomination, there were presidential elections in Argentina, and the Peronist candidate would be Sergio Massa … a personal friend of García Cuerva. It was a little gift from Bergoglio to his Peronist friends and a way to obstruct the arrival of another candidate,” according to the report.
To underscore his inadequacy for the role, El Wanderer reports that, according to what was testified by the “clergy of San Isidro,” García Cuerva’s priestly ordination was at the time “postponed by his bishop – we will refrain from detailing the reasons – who presented himself as a Peronist, celebrated militant masses , and cultivated close friendships with the most corrupt Peronist leaders and defenders of the worst causes – the legalization of abortion, for example – as is the case with Malena Galmarini, whom we see in the photo [here] embracing and making the Peronist V sign.”
As if that were not enough, “in 2014 [García Cuerva] was at the center of a scandal for many faithful when he baptized the children of a well-known transvestite, Florencia de la V, who was ‘married’ to another man, in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament.” A similar episode occurred in 2021, when “a Salesian priest of his diocese” tried to unite in marriage, with the participation of the highest authorities of the province, “a transgender man and a non-transgender man. Although Bishop García Cuerva claimed he had not authorized it, the details of the incident were never fully clarified, and the priest received only a warning.”
As happened with other friendships of Bergoglio, the relationship with his successor in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires soon deteriorated, apparently due to poor management of local economic resources, and thus, “a few months after the fateful appointment, he regretted his decision.… However, death overtook Bergoglio before he could carry out the punishment.”
“Everything was in place. In the second half of 2024, I had sent a lengthy letter to Bishop Jorge García Cuerva detailing my disagreements with the measures he was taking, despite their prior agreement on others. These were not, of course, minor issues like doctrinal or moral orthodoxy. They concerned truly significant matters, such as García Cuerva’s notorious greed for money,” the report ironically notes.
The frictions even led Pope Francis in July 2024 to remove the primatial see from Buenos Aires, assigning it to the “insignificant see of Santiago del Estero, without sustainable historical reasons,” and “appointing its archbishop, the Lazarist Vicente Bokalic … as cardinal.”
García Cuerva’s inadequacy is also evident, according to the report, in the way he has cared for the priests of his diocese. “[He] exercises an authoritarian style,” writes the author, “ignoring or mistreating those over 45, an attitude that intensifies with the elderly. The paradigmatic case is that of Bishop José Luis Mollagham, 79, who was found dead after four days in the apartment where he lived.”
“If we look at his colleagues in Greater Buenos Aires,” the report concludes, “we will see that many share the same pedigree: militant Peronists, members of some colored mafia that we will not name and with more than deficient theological formation.”
Greater Buenos Aires is the metropolitan area that surrounds the Argentine capital, composed of dozens of municipalities that form a single urban agglomeration. The “colored mafia” is a clear reference to the so-called lavender mafia, a journalistic term used to refer to the homosexualist lobby, active in the Vatican at least since the time of John Paul II and becoming fully operative only under the pontificate of Francis.
Perhaps all these tensions and situations never clarified are also at the origin of the fact that Francis, in all his years on the papal throne, never visited Argentina.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Dictator Pope Ping
Not surprising. Liberation theologists are marxists first, christians second. The Pachamama pope was no exception. He knew what cause he was there for.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.