Monsignor Antonio Arregui Yarza, who
is in charge of the investigation against Catholic Monsignor Roberto González
Nieves, is not only a member of the Opus Dei but has been described as a
conservative person who frowns upon priests who support popular causes.
Arregui Yarza was allegedly sent by
the Vatican to Puerto Rico to investigate a complaint that González intervenes
in political causes.
According to his official biography,
Monsignor Antonio Arreguí has a doctorate degree in cannon law from the
Pontificio Ateneo Angelicum of Rome and a law degree from the University of
Navarra. He was a professor at the Catholic University in Ecuador and coordinator
of Pope John Paul II to that country in 1985.
He was born in San Sebastián, Spain
where he joined the Opus Dei in 1957 and became a priest in 1964. In Quito, he
has directed the National Catholic Radio and the area of social communications.
In 2009, the group Human Life International gave Monsignor Arregui Yarza the
“Cardinal Von Galen Award,” for his defense of human rights and the defense of
life, according to another statement from Ecuador.
The statement read that the
Monsignor Arrequí Yarza is a staunch defender of the causes of the poor and of
the unborn children.
During the process to select the
president of Ecuador’s Episcopalian Conference, for which he was elected, the
daliy Ecuador newspaper, Expreso, put forward a theory as to who will be selected
president, noting that the person will be a conservative.
“Looking at what has happened since
1939, when the first Episcopalian meeting took place, the person who will be
designated will probably be a Bishop of a conservative ideology, who identifies
with the groups in power, avoid progressive people identified as communists for
promoting the church of the poor,” the newspaper read.
Early today, Eduardo Ibarra, a
physician and former head of the Medical Association, wrote to the Vatican,
praising González’s job in Puerto Rico and noting that in a highly politicized
country like Puerto Rico, people get upset with those that promote cultural
values.
González Nieves, in the past,
supported efforts to get the U.S. Navy out of Vieques and objected efforts to have
the Legislature legalize domestic partnerships in the proposed Civil Code.
