Candid cardinal unfazed by danger
Advocate for poor in Guatemala
HUEHUETENANGO, Guatemala — As more than 100 men carrying an elaborate float of Jesus halted before him, Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini lost no time in calling for social justice — the hallmark of the Catholic bishop’s decadeslong front-line ministry.
“Let’s hope that this procession may revive in the heart the willingness to discover Jesus Christ present in the person who suffers,” Ramazzini said in an impromptu speech, pointing to the dozens of elderly and disabled lining a street in Guatemala City’s oldest neighborhood. “If we don’t have that ability, don’t tell me you’re Christian — I won’t believe that.”
Elevated by Pope Francis to the top hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Ramazzini has continued his unflinching focus on the poor, the Indigenous, and the migrant. That has garnered him great affection from the marginalized and many threats of violence, including rumors of an arrest warrant, as his native Guatemala struggles through political turmoil and remains a hotspot of migration to the United
States.
At the procession during the
Easter season, he didn’t mince words for
Guatemala’s government.
He denounced the lack of social security provisions for the elderly, which left many feeling like “indigent beggars,” before placing on the float a plaque honoring the eldercare volunteers at whose invitation he had driven six hours from his diocese.
Many of the elderly whom volunteers had taken in their wheelchairs and walkers to the processional route could hardly believe their eyes when they saw the 76-year-old cardinal saunter down the street to mingle with them, said group organizer Teresita Samayoa Bautista.
“This is to evangelize with actions,” she said. “To me, he was the voice of a people who can’t speak and are suffering. Just like Jesus would do. This is what you call commitment to a people, no matter if they’re religious or not.”
In a recent interview in his modest office in Huehuetenango, Ramazzini said experiencing Guatemala’s challenges, from the civil war onward, cemented his commitment to translating faith into action.
“Here’s how we will be judged at life’s end, right? I was hungry, you didn’t give something to eat. I was thirsty, you didn’t give me something to drink. I was in prison, and you didn’t visit me,’” Ramazzini said, referring to the Gospels. “I try, as far as my human weaknesses and my limitations allow, to make this what guides my life.”
Out of more than 400,000 Catholic priests in the world, there are only 128 cardinal electors – the role Ramazzini assumed in 2019 — charged with serving the pope as his main counselors in governing the church, and electing the next one.
That opens doors across continents “at levels to which many Guatemalans have no access,” Ramazzini said. He tries to leverage his meetings with church and political leaders “to convey the concerns and needs of the people I serve with every day.”
For most of the 50-plus years since his ordination, Ramazzini has been bishop in San Marcos and then Huehuetenango.