Bishop Raúl Vera arrives at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on September 26, 2014. File image.
(Credit: ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP via Getty Images)
Editor's Note:
Camilo Egaña is
Camilo's
driver
.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
(CNN Spanish) ––
Bishop Raúl Vera is one of the last representatives of liberation theology in Mexico, and perhaps the most threatened priest in the country by drug traffickers and certain military personnel, businessmen and politicians.
He is 75 years old and has just retired after 45 years dedicated to the Church, of which the last 20 have been of pastoral activity in the Diocese of Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila.
At the farewell ceremony there were about 90 people.
No more, because of the pandemic.
But Raúl Vera has also been accompanied by photos of the disappeared, women victims of sexist violence and murdered environmentalists.
The photographs were displayed on the benches of the Saltillo Cathedral.
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In the Chiapas of the Zapatistas, he says that he learned that "you had to risk your life if you wanted to side with the poor."
And in his last homily he asked his successor for something that must have upset more than one: «Keep in your heart the families of those disappeared due to impunity (...) and keep in your eyes children and young people who are denies a dignified future.
Raúl Vera has not left a single scheme to destroy, nor a prejudice to criticize.
He is one of the men who only kneel before God and before a child.
In 2014 he baptized a girl, the daughter of a lesbian marriage.
Regarding the right to abortion, she had the guts to say in 2014: “It is very easy to go against an abortionist woman.
He has no problem and also the conservative ultra-right supports us.
He has supported gay marriage, the rights of immigrants, peasants, prostitutes, miners, transsexuals.
And with the same impetus he criticized drug traffickers, certain powerful politicians and the Catholic high hierarchy for being immobile.
He considers it uncomfortable for the Vatican, but never for Pope Francis.
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.
Who can know if Pope John Paul II was clear about what would happen when he named this student of Chemical Sciences and intellectual son of May 68, of the Dominicans, of Saint Thomas Aquinas and of the Vatican Council bishop of Saltillo in the year 2000 II.
But John Paul II knew more than he seemed to know.
This man announces that he is not going to hang up his habits, even though he has retired.
This man warns that he will not shut up.
He assures that this is something impossible for someone who lives the gospel that it liberates.
Indomitable and immense even though he is short;
not because of its stature, short like an oak or holm oak plant, which has many branches, but little height.
And a lot of sap.
Lots of energy.
"We have run into the Church, friend Sancho," reads Don Quixote.
We have run into Raúl Vera.
Bishop Raúl Vera