֎Red Hat Fest '24: II: Carlos Gustavo CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO

IMAGE Uriel jesusfb, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons LINKS Carlos Gustavo CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:

https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcasmat.html

Carlos CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO on Gcatholic.org:

https://gcatholic.org/p/62393

2019 Official Biographical Summary of Carlos Gustavo CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO (Italian):

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2019/01/25/190125a.html

2021 Catholic News Agency feature on Archbishop CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO:

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248671/lima-archbishop-proposes-replacing-priests-with-laity-as-pastors

2024 Pillar Catholic coverage including Cardinal-Elect CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO:

https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/who-are-latin-americas-new-cardinals

Cruxnow coverage of Catacos community situation:

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2024/04/peru-farmers-meet-lima-archbishop-amid-dispute-with-catholic-group

NOTE: Free Adobe Podcast AI was used to help clean up some of the audio on this episode, as my setup and voice were both struggling this recording session but the show must go on. https://podcast.adobe.com/enhance# TRANSCRIPT

GREGG: Hello everyone, welcome to Cardinal Numbers, a rexypod reviewing and ranking all the Cardinals of the Catholic Church from the Catacombs to Kingdom Come. Today we’re looking at our second bishop from the list of new Cardinals Pope Francis will be officially elevating on December 7th 2024, the vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, because apparently the schedule was already too full for the 8th itself, despite that being the originally announced date of the consistory. Thankfully, through the magic of vigils, it’s still falling on the same important feast day, but it’s a glimpse into how closely guarded such things are until they are announced that the apparent scheduling conflict wasn’t caught earlier. Anyways…

Carlos Gustavo CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO was born on February 28th 1950 in Lima, Peru. He’s *our* first Cardinal from Peru, though of course that’s not to be confused with being *the* first Cardinal from Peru. Not counting Carlos, there have been five Cardinals who were born in Peru, most of then, like Carlos, hailing from Lima specifically, including two who both happen to turn 80 this year, freeing up spots for more Peruvian electors in the college. Attentive listeners may also recall the case of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who, though originally from Chicago, spent much of his career in Peru before being called to Rome.

But enough about Peru’s other Cardinals, let’s get back to young Carlos, our Cardinal of the day. By 1968, he was 18 and studying at the Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences at the San Marcos Higher National University of Lima, eventually obtaining a bachelor’s degree in social sciences, graduating in 1973. You may have noticed that that’s not a seminary, but don’t worry, Carlos rectified that with his next move, entering the Santo Toribio di Mogrovejo major seminary of the archdiocese of Lima. Soon enough he was sent to the Gregorian in Rome, getting a degree in philosophy in 1979 and one in theology in 1983. Finally, he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Lima in 1984 at the relatively advanced age of 34.

Carrying on at the Gregorian, Father Castillo followed up with a licentiate and then a doctorate in 1987 before returning to Peru for decades of pastoral work at various parishes and posts. Accompanying his pastoral work, Father Castillo served as assessor of the National Union of Catholic Students as well as lecturing in theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. That last role brings some real spice to the conversation, as one bit that his Vatican bio just happens to leave off is the part where Father Castillo was suspended by the then-Archbishop of Lima Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani in 2013 due to vague “allegations of heterodoxy” and slightly more specific “attacks on the ecclesiastical hierarchy”, that is, the bishops. BENJAMIN JACOBS: Mein Gott! What a twist! GREGG Yes indeed, cohost Ben from Wittenberg to Westphalia. It’s funny you’ve been silent the last, oh I don’t know, forty odd episodes, but I appreciate you giving a good reaction there Just when I really needed my cohost to step up. Anyways, I should say, Archbishop Cipriani *tried* to suspend him, but the University didn’t enforce the ban, so Castillo kept teaching. I’msure there’s more to this story, especially because six years later Archbishop Cipriani was helping consecrate Father Castillo as his successor as Archbishop of Lima. *That* was *probably* awkward.

We get a bit more insight on what now-Archbishop Castillo’s “heterodoxy” may have looked like with some quotes from 2019, his first year as Archbishop: for example when he acknowledged “abortion is the destruction of a life” but indicated that “people should reflect and decide freely” rather than having legal bans and interference from the Church, which is definitely an eyebrow-raising take coming from a Catholic Archbishop. The old “attacks on the ecclesiastical hierarchy” charge might also be clarified when we see that he was also then calling for the Vatican to give him permission to quote “appoint families, couples or groups of spouses or lay older people to lead parishes.” You know, stuff generally very much reserved for priests.

One aspect of Archbishop Castillo’s tenure that definitely made it onto Pope Francis’ radar is his engagement with the Catacaos peasant farming community from Piura in the north of the country. You see, in a nutshell, developers are trying to seize control of their lands and drive them off. And when I say “their lands”, I mean like this farming community was established in 1578, so we’re talking many generations. Unfortunately from what I can tell they may not have full proper legal title for the land, which any lawyer will tell you is bad news.

One of the groups attempting to take over the land is a Catholic group known as the Saint John the Baptist Civil Association, which could not be happy with the Archbishop posing for photos with a delegation from Catacaos, although that would have been a drop in the ocean compared with a video message from Pope Francis to Catacaos, in which the Holy Father said “I know what happened to you.” and “Defend your land, don’t let it be stolen”, a deeply personal level of involvement in what comes across as a fairly tangential crisis for the Pope to be getting involved in, but then again it’s disadvantaged folk--unabashedly his favorite demographic–in his old stomping grounds of Latin America. In any event, clearly Pope Francis *did* choose to get briefly involved to personally show his support for the Catacaos traditional farmers, alongside their more local ally, Archbishop Castillo. Whether this all put Archbishop Castillo on Pope Francis’ red hat radar is an open question–it did go down earlier this year, so I’d say you can make a case for it, though I think a stronger case can be made for two other Peruvian Cardinals turning 80 and the Archbishopric of Lima being the most prominent see in the country.

Now, after I wrote my first draft of this, I went back and made a note that I should talk about Fr. Gustavo Guitérrez (whose name I am obviously botching here). Then, Fr. Guitérrez died. Now, I’m not saying I killed Fr. Guitérrez–the man was 96–but I’m taking it as a sign that rather than shoehorn in him and liberation theology here, I should do something more to mark the occasion. So, allow me a few month’s time for research, as I definitely didn’t have anything going, but sometime next year I’ll be posting a special episode on Gustavo Gutiérrez and Liberation Theology on the main Popeular History feed. That’ll also mark the last time I check off an episode from the original original request list, back in 2016 or so when I told my friends I was planning a Popeular podcast and asked for topic suggestions. I’m not saying I crossed everything else off the list, but I *am* saying I’ve lost track of the list and can’t recall what else was on it to keep checking things off. It’s a very special kind of milestone. In any event, when you eventually do hear that special, just recall that Cardinal CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO, was, like many others, influenced by Fr. Gutiérrez, a fellow cleric from Lima.

After he is officially elevated on December 7th, Carlos Gustavo Cardinal CASTILLO MATTASOGLIO will be eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.

Today’s episode is part of Cardinal Numbers, and there will be more Cardinal Numbers… well actually, later today, since this episode got put on hold last week due to my voice being a mess so we’re doing a double header today. Anyways, thank you for listening, God bless you all! And thanks, Joe!