03/09/2020 - 11:33
Clarín.com
Society
After Monsignor Agustín Radrizzani died last Wednesday of "respiratory failure due to bilateral pneumonia," the swab confirmed this Thursday that the former archbishop emeritus of Mercedes-Luján
had coronavirus
and put the nursing home where He lived in the Buenos Aires town of Junín, faced with the possible existence of other infections.
In this way, Radrizzani became
the first Argentine bishop to die from the consequences of the coronavirus
and the third to contract it, since the former bishop of Avellaneda Lanús, Rubén Frassia, is currently hospitalized with the virus, while the bishop of Mar del Plata, Gabriel Mestre, has already recovered favorably after suffering from the disease.
After his resignation from the archbishopric due to age, Radrizzani had moved to the Hogar el Hogar San José in the Buenos Aires town of Junín, belonging to the sisters of the Ancianos Desamparados de Santa Teresa de Jesús Jornet, along with his 97-year-old mother.
Last Tuesday, after presenting a picture of fever, he was admitted and transferred to an isolation room at the Junín Interzonal Acute Hospital, where they performed a swab for possible Covid-19.
Radrizzani became notorious because in June 2016 he had to face the scandal of the bags
with several million dollars that the former Secretary of Public Works José López of the Kirchnerist governments threw in a convent erected within his archdiocese.
Hugo Moyano with Agustín Radrizzani, at the mass organized by the Truckers union with Hugo.
Photos Emmanuel Fernández
He also came to the fore in the news in October 2018, when he officiated a mass to ask for the work in front of the Luján basilica that trade unionists led by Hugo Moyano had requested, in what for many was an oppositional act.
Radrizzani had to go out to clarify days later that it was not a political act, but a religious celebration, that he had not received any financial contribution for it and that Pope Francis had no interference in its realization.
Radrizzani had entered the Salesian Congregation of Don Bosco for which he was ordained a priest on March 25, 1972 in Turin, Italy and in 1991 he was appointed bishop of Neuquén.
In 2001 he was appointed bishop of Lomas de Zamora and finally in 2007 he became archbishop of Mrecedes-Luján.
He was second vice president of the Episcopal Conference.
PJB
