The Archbishop Leaves Victorious

Well, the archbishop won.

Readers of this blog will remember the 19-month long inquisition of the archbishop, who was alleged to have committed various wrongs: selling a school without permission, covering up pederast priests, supporting legislation that would allow straight or gay couples living together to get insurance, and—here was the real dirt—setting up an altar to the patria—or motherland—in the cathedral.

Archbishop Roberto González Nieves is an independentista, and is perfectly happy to have everyone know it. So he set up the altar in the cathedral—take a look:

OK—not a problem, right? Well, seen through Puerto Rican eyes, there was just a little omission, namely the absence of another flag, called la pecosa, or the freckled one. Puerto Rico, you see, has but one star on its flag—the US flag has fifty. Hence, freckles—see?

Nor was that all. González conceived the wonderful idea of digging up the bones of a long dead statesman, Ramón Power y Giralt, a man who had represented Puerto Rico in a fledgling attempt at representation in Spain. And there he had died, and there he was buried—away from his beloved Puerto Rico, and away from his beloved friend, the first Puerto Rican bishop, Juan Alejo de Arizmendi. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if these two great Puerto Ricans at last could be united, these many centuries later, here at the Altar to the patria, in the land which they had loved so much, and for which they had battled so arduously?

“He was buried in a mass grave,” sputtered Mr. Fernández, referring to Alejo de Arizmendi, “he died of yellow fever, or some such thing. So the damn Spaniards dug up some old bones, and sent them over here! They’re probably still laughing!”

Well, it was true—the Spaniards sent over their training ship: it docked; a troop of cute Spaniards got out in their best ornamental uniforms; trumpets and fifes and drums got played; the Spaniards carried with great formality the “remains” to the state capitol, where they were received with Caribbean effusion. 

Well, the other music in the room—or on the island—was the collective gnashing of the teeth by those who favor statehood. The archbishop, they frothed, was injecting politics into religion; he was shoving his belief down their throats. They complained to the papal nuncio, who lives on the next island over. Being a territory, Puerto Rico cannot have a nuncio of its own, so we have to share.

And apparently the nuncio, Jozef Wesolowsky, was all too happy to launch an investigation, which he did by calling in a bishop from Ecuador, Guayaquil Antonio Arregui Yarza. Letters flew back and forth, leaked to the press—and in May, it was rumored that the archbishop had been asked to resign.

Ah, but by then the archbishop had gotten his break—Benedict decided to thumb his nose at half a millennium of church history and resign. And guess who got the job? A fellow Latin American—a guy who was both a pana and a pala.

Translation—a buddy and a connection.

In June, the archbishop was crowing victory. And in August?

Well, this is a dish that was served on ice, if not completely deep-frozen. For the papal nuncio, Jozef Wesolowsky, has been sacked, and charged with molesting young boys.

Here’s an account from Pedro Espinal, the bird who decided to sing:

“Nosotros una vez fuimos a Juan Dolio con 48 monaguillos de lo cual, eeehh, yo dormía en la parte afuera de la casa del Nuncio apostólico, que está en  Juan Dolio, de vacaciones. Y  nos repartimos, como entre cinco adultos que estábamos, los niños; cinco dormían conmigo, cinco con otro y cinco con otro, y así sucesivamente. Pero él (el padre Wojciech) siempre escogía  los niños más pequeños.”

Translation: Once we went with 48 altar boys to Juan Dolio, where I slept outside of the house of the Papal nuncio, who was there on vacation. We shared, among the five of us adults, the kids: five slept with me, five with the other, and five with another, and so on. But he (father Wojciech, a friend and fellow priest) always chose the youngest.

And so on the 21^st of August, the papal nuncio was stripped of his positions. And where is he? Nobody knows. Oh, and the friend mentioned above, Wojciech? He went on the lam to his native Poland.

Nor, apparently, did Wesolowsky engage in this behavior only while on vacation—he was well known in the old city of Santo Domingo, where he plied kids with alcohol, and then had sex with them in an abandoned monument to Fray Antón de Montesinos. Here’s an account:

SANTO DOMINGO, República Dominicana.-La periodista Nuria Piera denunció que el hasta hace poco embajador del Vaticano en Santo Domingo, Joséf (o Joseph) Wesolowski, era un habitual visitante de la Zona Colonial, lugares donde tomaba alcohol y luego pagaba a niños para sostener relaciones sexuales en el abandonado   a Fray Antón de Montesinos, en el malecón de Santo Domingo.

Well, the district attorney in Santo Domingo, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, has decided to open an investigation, even without having spoken with the victims. So Wesolowsky, if they can find him, is cooked.

Anybody want to bet he’s in the Vatican?

The Archbishop Sighs Relief

Readers, you can now stop worrying. The archbishop of San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, is off the hook. Subject to a 19-month long apostolic visit—and one imagines the small talk and social chitchat wearies after 19 months—he came up clean.

Or so the Vatican Insider says; the site quotes González Nieves saying this:

Exonerado de toda culpa. El Vaticano confirmó que el arzobispo de San Juan de Puerto Rico, Roberto González Nieves, no es rebelde y que las denuncias en su contra nunca tuvieron fundamento. Lo confirmó él mismo, hace unos días durante una conferencia de prensa en su país. Ahora sus seguidores piden que se limpie su nombre.

Rough translation: Exonerated of all guilt. The Vatican confirmed that the archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, Roberto González Nieves, is no rebel and that the denunciations against him never had a base. He himself confirmed it, some days ago during a press conference in his country. Now, his followers request that his name be cleared.

You may remember the case. The archbishop, born in New Jersey but raised in San Juan, arrived on the island after serving in New York, Boston, and Corpus Christi. He soon ruffled feathers of the statehood flock by more or less openly being an independentista. He spearheaded efforts to get the navy out of Vieques—OK, we were all pretty much on that page—and brokered a deal when the government shut down in 2006.

Then, he got it into his head to create the Altar de la Patria.

“What actually is “patria?” I asked Mr. Fernández, those many years ago before I was sufficiently politicized.

He gave me an explanation that made no sense. So I asked my friend Tony, who gave me the story. Loosely, it runs like this: there was a politician who was ostensibly for the commonwealth, our current status. But he referred constantly to the “patria,” which became a code word to indicate independence. So if you want to talk about independence without talking about independence, you talk about the patria.

See?

Actually, González Nieves threw a bit more salt into the wound by setting up, as well, what he called, “Capilla del Santísimo Cristo de toda la nación puertorriqueña.” This is guaranteed to set statehood mouths frothing, since it translates into “The Chapel of the most holy Christ of all the Puerto Rican nation.”

The opposition pushed back, charging that the archbishop was inserting politics into the church. And certainly the last governor—rumored to have ties to Opus Dei, and very much pro-statehood—was no particular fan of the archbishop.

Hence the apostolic visit, which, according to González Nieves, found nothing. But there were four charges:

1.     Sheltering pederast priests

2.     Supporting a bill that would allow roommates of either sex health benefits

3.     Selling a parish school without authorization

4.     Creating the famous Alta de la Patria

Things got a little hot for the archbishop, but he’s a fighter. On May 8 of this year, he organized 100 religious groups to come and see him celebrate mass, on the anniversary of his entering the priesthood. He passed the word to send letters to the Vatican, and then came out and said, “please, please, don’t send letters to the Vatican. I beg your prayers instead.”

Smart, hunh?

Then a letter got leaked, in which the archbishop expressed his horror at the gravity of the charges against him, and the hurt that the strong suggestion that he should resign caused him. Never, he said, would he resign. The charges against him were lies and defamations.

Unafraid of pushing any more buttons, González Nieves then decided to get a great Puerto Rican patriot, who had died in Spain and had been buried in Cádiz, back home and re-interrate him, presumably, in the Capilla del Santísimo Cristo de toda la nación puertorriqueña. There, his remains would rest in heavenly harmony with those of his great friend, the first Puerto Rican bishop.

“Ridiculous,” said Mr. Fernández, “The guy was buried in a mass grave during an outbreak of yellow fever. Of course they don’t have DNA evidence—how could they? Nah—they scooped up some bones, conjured up a lab result, and shipped it off to Puerto Rico, probably laughing their heads off. You know the Spanish.”

Right—so the remains of somebody arrived on the island, and were greeted with great Caribbean formality and enthusiasm. Now the question—what to do with them?

Well, they lay around in the State Department for a while, and then, González Nieves announced that he had received authorization from the Vatican to place the remains in the capilla. This they did, on 10 June, in an elaborate celebration, marked by the very finest vestments, incense, altar boys, and the 100-strong Mita choir, singing nationalistically or perhaps just patriotically.

González Nieves announced it all several days before; The First Hour, or Primera Hora, published it all in an article titled “I Survived the Storm” or He sobrevivido a la tormenta. He said:

“Le pido a Dios la fuerza de perdonar porque no es fácil”, aseguró en una rueda de prensa en referencia a quienes lo acusaron en Roma.

“La visita apostólica entra ya a su fase final. Yo creo que puedo decir que el visitador apostólico no encontró que yo hubiera protegido a sacerdotes pedófilos y además hay un informe de la Congregación de Doctrina y Fe que indica que he tratado esos casos con los debidos protocolos”, expresó.

“I ask God for the strength to forgive because it’s not easy,” he stated in a press conference referring to those who accused him in Rome.

“The apostolic visit is now entering its final stage. I believe I can now say that the apostolic visitor didn’t find that I had protected pederast priests and that I had as well a report from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith that indicated that I have treated the cases with the correct protocols,” he said.

Note carefully that phrase, “the apostolic visit is entering its final stage.” To me, that means it’s still going on, and the jury’s still out. The Vatican, as far as I can see, has not made an announcement on the matter.

Think the archbishop is bluffing?

Do You Know Where Your Prócer Is?

Well, having taken care of the decision, yesterday, of whether to charge the Boston bomber in civilian courts or treat him as an enemy combatant—thanks, Barry, for following my guidelines—we can turn our heads to local news.

Not much of which, typically, is particularly cheerful. We have fallen arms (brazos caídos) in the police department—which is to say that almost 1000 cops called in “sick” today. This, states the chief, is putting us all in danger.

This is questionable, at least for me, since the principal activity of our local force seems to be chatting. But my mind may have been poisoned, those decades ago before I moved to Puerto Rico, by the descriptions of the police given to me by my friend Harry, who also told me the following joke, common throughout Latin America.

An old lady hears noises in her living room late at night. She peers through the keyhole and sees two robbers stealing her silver. She then rushes to the window and cries out, “Thieves in the house, call the police!” The next night, she again hears noises, peers through keyhole, and rushes to the window. She shouts, “Police in the house, call the thieves!”

Right—Harry tells it better.

I will say, however, that I caught myself thinking, absentmindedly one day, “Wow, I can’t believe they give those guys guns….”

Well, the police are protesting because of changes to the retirement plan, which is broke, and which had to be amended by a recent law—an action that was basically forced on us by the likes of Moody’s and Standard and Poors. We are, sadly, one small step away from junk bond status, and any degradation would be, if not fatal, at least quite sickening. So we passed a law pretty much in the dark, since, in fact, we have absolutely no knowledge of how much money we need. Why not? Because nobody has ever done any actuarial work on the plan. In fact, it may be that nobody could do actuarial work—it’s not clear that we have the data.

So we passed a bad law and now people are, to say the least, grumpy. Actually, some people are predicting that there will be a massive retirement before the new law goes into effect on June 1, and nobody is quite sure what that will do.

People in our gated communities are grumpy, too—a federal judge has just told them that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a constitution right to enter their communities, walk the neighborhood, knock on doors, and spread the good news. Well, churlish individuals don’t, apparently, want the news—“how do I know,” they are thundering, “that the Jehovah’s Witness isn’t really a delinquent?” (or delincuente, as it works better in Spanish….)

Well, it raises all sorts of questions. The Witnesses are allowed in because they sued, and won. But what about the Mormons? Or what about just Marc—shouldn’t I be allowed to walk down a street provided and maintained by the government? Among the many things that I never quite got, the right of a community to gate themselves in is one.

Right, so The New Day (El Nuevo Día, the local rag) reports that the Archbishop of San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, is very likely grumpy, too. Or maybe not—he’s a scrappy guy, always up for a fight. And what is it, this time? Well, two years ago he decided to name one of the chapels in the cathedral the Altar de la Patria.

Time for a language break—patria has a particular meaning. It’s the motherland, the homeland, the native land. It also, unfortunately, may mean nation, and here the battle starts. The archbishop has made no bones about his views on the status of Puerto Rico—he supports independence. No problem, says some of his parishioners, but don’t drag it into the church.

What González did drag in, a couple of weeks ago, are the remains of a guy—all right, a prócer or patriot—named Ramón Power y Giralt and another guy named Juan Alejo de Arizmendi.

OK—Power first. He was born in 1775 in Ponce, and then was sent at age 13 to Spain, to continue his studies. He joined the navy, and distinguished himself in the blockade of Santo Domingo against the French. None of that is controversial.

What is controversial—at least potentially—is his work as a prócer / statesman. He was appointed to represent Puerto Rico in the Spanish Cortes, a parliamentary assembly meeting in 1810 in Cádiz. And he must have impressed—he was named vice president of the assembly, and fought hard for more autonomy for Puerto Rico. He succeeded in passing the Power Act, which established five tax-free ports on the island, eliminated the monopoly on flour, reduced tariffs, and provided for economic reforms.

The Cortes also wrote a constitution, passed in 1812, and called—get ready—The Constitution of 1812. It was the most liberal of its time; it established universal male (of course) suffrage, freedom of the press, constitutional monarchy and—here you really should get ready—national sovereignty.

This was not a great time in Spain—the French controlled much of the country, what they didn’t control were controlled by juntas—, Bonaparte had deposed Ferdinand and installed his own brother Joseph as king. The Constitution of 1812, says Wikipedia, was never really enforced. At any rate, Ferdinand regained power in 1814, and guess what the first thing he did was?

Right—tear up the constitution.

For those people who support independence, Power y Giralt is a major figure since, for two tumultuous years, it was through him that Puerto Rico enjoyed autonomy. The rest of the island, of course, doesn’t spend much time on him.

Important—Ramón Power y Giralt died and was buried in Cádiz, Spain, in 1813.

Right—on to Arizmendi. First important fact—he was the first native-born bishop in Puerto Rico. He was a strong defender of the poor, and made straw baskets, sold them, and used the proceeds to buy food and clothes for the poor.

He was also a strong supporter of Power y Giralt, and most famously gave his bishopric ring to him, saying it was "as sure pledge that will sustain you in the memory of your resolution to protect and maintain the rights of our fellow countrymen, as I myself am resolved to die for my beloved flock."

Seems pretty innocuous, right? Well, I’ll step back from the controversy and let Wikipedia tell the story:

A modern day interpretation, which has no historical foundation that can be found in the footnote, is that for Arizmendi this was also a national symbol of Puerto Rico by joining his country and God in his heart.  

Well, two years ago the current Archbishop of San Juan dreamed up the idea—why not dig up the remains of Power, over there in Spain, and bring him over to be re-united with the remains of his old friend, Arizmendi? We could have the two great próceres together and put them—guess where?—¡en la Altar de la Patria! Wow—who could object?

If you don’t know, you’re not Puerto Rican. And since there is a group that is both Catholic and pro-statehood, they began petitioning the Vatican, which last year sent over a guy from Ecuador, Antonio Arregui Yarza, to check into the matter.

And Arregui—what did he find?

Not known, says the New Day, but what is known is that the Archbishop of San Juan has been told twice—enough with the Altar de la Patria and nix to the idea of interring the remains of the two patriots in the chapel.  

And so it was that on 6 April 2013, the remains of Ramón Power y Giralt were escorted solemnly into the old city by a group of very dignified—you can see them below—young sailors from the Spanish navy training ship. The remains went first to the capitol, where everybody received them with much formality and respect and protestations of good will. Then, they went to the Department of State, where the process was repeated.

And now?

Well, the New Day doesn’t quite say where the remains are, but…

…I’m running up to the Cathedral to see….