Enrique Angelelli

Angelelli was the son of Italian immigrants and was born in Córdoba. He entered the seminary of Our Lady of Loreto at 15 years of age. He was then sent to Rome to finish his studies. He was ordained a priest on 9 October 1949.

Returning to Córdoba, he worked in a parish, founded youth movements and visited Córdoba's slums. He focused his pastoral work on the conditions of the poor. Pope John XXIII appointed him auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Córdoba on 12 December 1960. He became involved in labor union conflicts and worked with other priests looking for a renewal of the church, which led to his arrest. The newly appointed Archbishop of Córdoba, Raúl Primatesta, relieved him of his duties for part of 1965, exiling him to Colegio Villa Eucharistica as chaplain in the convent of the Adoratrices. He took part in the first, third, and fourth sessions of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, 1964, and 1965.

Angelelli gave tacit authorisation to the May 1968 first Encounter of the Movement of Priests for the Third World, though he never joined the movement himself.

On 3 July 1968, Pope Paul VI appointed Angelelli bishop of the Diocese of La Rioja, in northwest Argentina.

In La Rioja Angelelli encouraged miners, rural workers and domestic workers to form unions, as well as cooperatives to manufacture knitting works, bricks, clocks and bread, and to claim and work idle lands. One of these co-operatives asked for the expropriation of a latifundio (large estate) that had grown through the appropriation of smaller estates whose owners could not pay their debts. Governor Carlos Menem promised he would deliver the estate to the co-operative.

On 13 June 1973, Angelelli went to Anillaco, Menem's birth town, to preside over the patronal feasts. He was met by a mob led by merchants and landowners, among them Amado Menem, the governor's brother, and his sons César and Manuel. The mob entered the church by force, and when Angelelli suspended the celebrations and left, they threw stones at him. Governor Menem withdrew his support for the co-operative citing "social unrest". Angelelli denounced conservative groups, called off religious celebrations in the diocese, and declared a temporary interdict against the Menems and their supporters.

The Superior General of the Jesuits, Pedro Arrupe, and the Archbishop of Santa Fe, Vicente Faustino Zazpe, sent by the Holy See as an overseer, visited La Rioja and supported Angelelli, who had offered his resignation and asked the Pope to ratify his actions or withdraw his trust. Before Zazpe, the interdicted demanded Angelelli's removal, while military marches were broadcast through a loudspeaker. Almost all priests of the diocese met with Zazpe to support Angelelli and told him that "the powerful manipulated the faith to preserve an unjust and oppressed situation of the people" and to take advantage of the "cheap, underpaid workforce".

On the other hand, the president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, Adolfo Tortolo, said that the Conference should not mediate, and Papal Nuncio Lino Zanini openly supported the interdicted, to whom he gave crucifixes as gifts.

Zazpe concluded his inspection by concelebrating Mass with Angelelli and expressing his full support for his pastoral work and doctrinal orthodoxy.

The brief presidency of Isabel Martínez de Perón (1974–76) was marked by the beginning of the Dirty War, which soon escalated into bombings, kidnappings, torture and assassinations, triggering a persecution of those holding left-wing views.

On 12 February 1976, the vicar of the diocese of La Rioja and two members of a social activist movement were arrested by the military. On 24 March, a coup d'état ousted Isabel Perón and all the nation's governors, including Carlos Menem of La Rioja (whom Angelleli had served as confessor). Angelleli petitioned General Osvaldo Pérez Battaglia, the new military interventor of La Rioja, for information on the vicar's and the activists' whereabouts. Getting no response, he travelled to Córdoba to speak to Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, then Commander of the Third Army Corps. Menéndez threatened and warned Angelelli: "It is you who have to be careful."[4]

Angelelli allegedly knew that he was being targeted for assassination by the military; people close to him had often heard him say, "It's my turn next." On 4 August 1976 he was driving a truck, together with Father Arturo Pinto, back from a Mass celebrated in the town of El Chamical in homage to two murdered priests, Carlos de Dios Murias and Gabriel Longueville, carrying three folders with notes about both cases.

According to Father Pinto, a car started following them, then another one, and in Punta de los Llanos, people forced the truck between them until toppling it. After being unconscious for a while, Pinto saw Angelelli dead in the road, with the back of his neck showing grave injuries "as if they had beaten him".

The area was quickly surrounded by police and military personnel. An ambulance was sent for. Angelelli's body was taken to the city of La Rioja. The autopsy revealed several broken ribs and a star-shaped fracture in the occipital bone, consistent with a blow given using a blunt object. The truck's brakes and steering wheel were intact, and there were no bullet marks.

The police report stated that Pinto had been driving, momentarily lost control of the vehicle, and when trying to get back on the road a tyre blew out; Angelelli was said to have been killed as the truck turned several times. Judge Rodolfo Vigo accepted the report. A few days afterwards, prosecutor Martha Guzmán Loza recommended closing the case, calling it "a traffic event".

Other bishops (Jaime de Nevares, Jorge Novak and Miguel Hesayne) called the event a murder, even during the dictatorship, but the rest of the Church kept silent.

On 19 June 1986, with the country under democratic rule, La Rioja judge Aldo Morales ruled that it had been "a homicide, coldly premeditated, and expected by the victim". When some military personnel became involved in the accusation, the Armed Forces tried to block the investigation, but the judge rejected their claims. The case passed to the Supreme Court of Argentina, which in turn sent it to the Federal Chamber of Córdoba. The Córdoba tribunal said it was possible that orders had come from Commander Menéndez of the Third Corps.

In April 1990, the Ley de Punto Final ("Full Stop Law") ended the investigation against the three military accused of the murder (José Carlos González, Luis Manzanelli and Ricardo Román Oscar Otero). This law and the Law of Due Obedience were repealed in 2005, and in August of that year the case was re-opened. The Supreme Court split the case in two: the accusation against the military was sent to the tribunals in Córdoba, and the possible participation of civilians in the murder was sent to La Rioja. Former Commander Menéndez was called on by the La Rioja tribunal on 16 May 2006 but made no statement. On 5 July 2014, Menéndez and Luis Estrella, who had headed the Air Force base and torture center at El Chamical, were sentenced to life for Angelelli's murder.[5]