Colombian Cardinal Known for His Courage
Apr 09, 2005
In a country where dozens of priests have been killed for their straightforward talk, Cardinal Dario Castrillon has a reputation for courage and outspokenness.
(Associated Press, April 8, 2005) BOGOTA, Colombia -- Over the years, he has called on a Colombian president whose election campaign was financed by drug traffickers to step down, branded lawmakers bribed by traffickers a national disgrace and urged voters to reject another presidential candidate because he supported the right to divorce.
Castrillon, the 75-year-old head of the Vatican's office for priests, is among several Latin American cardinals considered a contender to become pope. In Pereira, a city in the coffee-growing region where he spent 22 years as a bishop, he is remembered as fearless in actions as well as words.
He would walk at night through the streets of the mountain town with a huge cup of hot coffee and bread for beggars and mentally ill people who slept on the sidewalks, recalled Monsignor Francisco Arias.
"We would find him in the worst places of Pereira. He was never afraid of anyone, of anything," Arias told The Associated Press.
From his pulpit, Castrillon accused Pereira police of killing prostitutes, street kids and beggars in a lethal "social cleansing" program.
"After he denounced them in his sermon, the killings stopped and the Pereira police chief left town," Arias said.
In Colombia, mired in a 40-year guerrilla war and plagued by drug trafficking, such blunt talk can bring an assassin's bullet. An archbishop, a bishop, at least 50 priests and three nuns have been murdered in Colombia in the past 20 years.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author, said the silver-haired, bespectacled Castrillon is a priest who is not afraid to do battle for what he believes is right.
"Since he was ordained when he was 23, he understood his priesthood as a militia of social justice," Garcia Marquez wrote in a 1999 magazine article.
Castrillon once met with Medellin cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar to ask him to surrender. Escobar refused, and in 1993 was shot dead by police.
Castrillon also rode on horseback to several meeting with guerrillas in the jungles, and was instrumental in peace talks that ended with the demobilization of the M-19 guerrilla group.
A native of Medellin, Castrillon earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, then rose through the church's ranks, from a village priest, to general secretary of the Colombian Episcopal Conference, bishop in Pereira, archbishop of Bucaramanga and finally cardinal in 1998.
Summoned by Pope John Paul II in 1996 to head the Congregation for the Clergy, Castrillon follows the orthodox line of the church on moral issues such as abortion and euthanasia. Sexual abuse by priests has been a more sensitive subject.
At a 2002 Vatican news conference, Castrillon blamed a culture of "pan-sexuality and sexual licentiousness" for some priests committing pedophilia and said formulas must be found to punish abusers that do not conflict with "fundamental principles of the church," leading some critics to wonder if the Vatican was taking the matter seriously enough.
In his home country, Castrillon is known for his blunt talk.
In 1982, he spoke out against presidential candidate Alvaro Gomez -- who ultimately lost the election -- for backing the right to divorce. In 1994, he asked Catholics not to vote for presidential candidate Ernesto Samper, saying Samper had supported legalization of marijuana and was too close to non-Catholic faiths.
Samper won the election -- after his campaign received millions of dollars from the Cali drug cartel. Samper denied knowledge of the contributions, but that did not spare him from further attacks by Castrillon.
"One cannot obtain power with money from crime, and if one has obtained it, even without knowing of it, you cannot keep exercising (power), which would stain the honor of the republic and damage democracy in the present and the future," Castrillon said.
A lawmaker allied with Samper once accused Castrillon of having received "narco-donations" from drug trafficker Carlos Lehder while Castrillon was based in Pereira in the early 1980s. Castrillon rejected the accusation as slanderous.
Colombian Cardinal Known for His Courage