Bishop Jacinto Vera, first bishop of Montevideo, “guided the South American Church, especially in difficult times, revitalizing life and the grace of the Gospel among all, without distinction”.
Newsroom (31/12/2022 9:00 AM, Gaudium Press) The Bishops and Catholics of Uruguay received with enthusiasm the announcement of the Holy See’s approval of the miracle obtained through the intercession of Bishop Jacinto Vera y Duran, the first Bishop of Montevideo, which will lead to the beatification of the Servant of God.
After the announcement, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, Archbishop of Montevideo, said that the Uruguayan Church expects the beatification to take place in May 2023, in the country’s capital.
The canonization process of Bishop Jacinto Vera began in 1935. Years later, the Church determined that there was cause to begin the process, granting him the title of Servant of God, the first step toward being declared a saint. In 2015, Pope Francis declared him Venerable, and last December 17, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, with the Holy Father’s approval, recognized the miracle that will allow his beatification.
The miracle recognized by Pope Francis was the healing of María del Carmen Artagaveytia, which occurred in 1936. The process states that María del Carmen, who was 14 years old at the time, contracted an infection after an appendicitis operation, which worsened to the point that her life was in danger. One of her uncles brought a photograph of the Servant of God with a relic to the hospital, asking that it be placed over the wound and that the whole family pray. That same night, the fever broke and the pain stopped. The next morning, the doctors verified the girl’s complete healing, which was considered scientifically inexplicable. María del Carmen Artagaveytia lived to be 89 years old, passing away in 2010. The case had been under study by the Vatican since 2017.
The beatification allows the image of Bishop Jacinto Vera to be venerated in churches and altars, as well as designating a day to celebrate his life and figure, as happens with the saints.
Renewal of missionary zeal
The Episcopal Conference of Uruguay published a communiqué celebrating the news, in which it emphasizes that the future beatification “is a reason for joy and gratitude for all of Uruguay. Bishop Jacinto Vera was a missionary and apostle, in the city and the countryside. He traveled, three times, throughout the country, rescuing the wounded from civil wars and promoting peace missions. Considered a father of the poor and a friend of the priests, he promoted the integration of lay Christians into the life of society, Catholic education, and the Catholic press. He founded the capital’s seminary for the formation of future priests and encouraged the coming of numerous religious congregations to the country: Salesians, Dominicans, Vincentians, Capuchins, Jesuits…”.
The Uruguayan Bishops also emphasized that Bishop Jacinto Vera “guided the South American Church, especially in difficult times, revitalizing life and the grace of the Gospel among all, without distinction. At the end of his earthly life, the Bishop was unanimously admired by the society of his time, even by his opponents. His imminent beatification leads us to renew our missionary ardor and the desire to serve the country and the Uruguayan people.
Who was Bishop Jacinto Vera?
Don Jacinto Vera y Duran was born on July 3, 1813 on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean during his family’s journey to Uruguay from the Canary Islands. Upon arriving in the country, the young man worked with his family in farming in Maldonado and Toledo. At the age of 19, he felt called to priestly life. For this, he was excused from serving in the army. Unable to study in his country, due to the lack of religious institutes, he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he received his formation and priestly ordination. He celebrated his first Mass on June 6, 1841.
After his ordination he was assigned as parochial vicar and then pastor of the Villa de Guadalupe in Canelones, where he worked for 17 years. On October 4, 1859, he was named Vicar Apostolic of Uruguay, receiving episcopal ordination in the Matrix of Montevideo on July 16, 1865.
In 1870, he participated in the First Vatican Council. In 1878, with the creation of the diocese of Montevideo, which covered all of Uruguay, he was named its first bishop. Bishop Jacinto died during an apostolic mission, on May 6, 1881. At his funeral, the people already considered him a saint.
A writer converted by Bp. Jacinto
In 2012 the book Don Jacinto Vera, the holy missionary was published. The book, which tells the life of the future Blessed, quickly became a bestseller in Uruguay, however, what is curious is the story of its author, the lawyer and writer Laura Inés Álvarez Goyoaga, who was not a Catholic and was converted when investigating the life of Don Jacinto.
In an interview the writer confessed that she was not Catholic and was brought up in anti-clericalism. “I was not Catholic, I come from a family that was non-Catholic on both sides, through my mother and father, and also quite anticlerical. But one day, somewhat compulsively, I went to a Mass where I met an exemplary priest, now Bishop Sanguinetti, Bishop of Canelones, who showed me a totally different view of the faith, and of the prejudices I was bringing from a society as secularized as ours.”
From that Mass came the invitation for a conference. She went, somewhat skeptical, but there, she came across the story of the Servant of God, and this encounter led her to embrace the Catholic faith. She says: “I said to myself: I’m going because it will be something interesting; and I met this character, Dom Jacinto Vera, a wonder who really changed my life and made me grow tremendously together with him, in a process of conversion in faith.
From then on she decided to research the life of Dom Jacinto and wrote the book, which was a great success in Uruguay and brought the life of the exemplary pastor closer to thousands of Catholics and non-believers.
For the writer, “in a world where secularism increasingly stifles the Catholic to the private sphere, Bishop Jacinto Vera brings back, through his message of such great commitment to faith and to the mission, that possibility that we have, all Uruguayans and all Catholics of the world, to face adversity, to surrender ourselves to Providence and, from there, to achieve results of excellence against every negative prognosis. The story of Bishop Veras lifts us up and makes us live in a really different way the faith and the life of every day, everyday life.”
Compiled by Dominic Joseph
