Leo XIV Appoints Bishop Who Celebrates Jewish Passover with Seminarians.
Leo XIV today appointed Bishop Ramón Salazar Estrada, 63, until now
auxiliary bishop of Guadalajara, as the new Bishop of Mazatlán, Mexico.
Salazar
was ordained a priest in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Guadalajara. He
holds a doctorate in moral theology from the Alphonsian Academy in Rome.
Allegations of Homosexual activity at the seminary
In
the Archdiocese of Guadalajara there is an anonymous church watchblog,
GdlSantaIPecadora.blogspot.com. According to this source the seminary
was suffering in 2012 from “delicate cases of homosexuality”, alongside
alcoholism. In May 2014 the blog alleged an internal network of
seminarians arranging homosexual encounters by phone, connections with
priests outside the seminary, and protection or tolerance by some
formators. It also claimed that at least seven seminarians had been
dismissed after accusations concerning homosexuality.
Salazar was
already closely involved in seminary formation when these allegations
surfaced. He had worked as a spiritual director and formator since the
1990s. From 2006 to 2015, he was spiritual director of the Institute for
Adult Vocations and also taught at the seminary. From 2015 to 2021, he
was spiritual director of the seminary. In 2021 he was consecrated
auxiliary bishop.
GdlSantaIPecadora.blogspot.com wrote a 2014 profile
about Salazar, because his name was already rumoured as a possible
future bishop. The blog described him as a quiet, patient, studious and
hardworking seminarian who later became a respected but demanding
formator.
However, it added, that his years working with
seminarians had helped him “become more flexible”. And: Those who knew
him said that the Ramón of that time had changed from “the Ramón of
fourteen years ago.”
Already a 2013 post similarly remarked that, despite being a moral theologian, Salazar was “not rigid at all”.
Celebrating Jewish Passover
The most striking episode in Salazar's later record was documented by Salazar himself on facebook on 8 April 2022.
Auxiliary
Bishop Salazar ate a Jewish Passover meal with seminarians at
Guadalajara’s Major Seminary. Seminarians can be seen wearing kippahs
around tables prepared for the occasion.
Salazar himself
captioned the photographs: “Jewish supper at the Major Seminary. A day
of prayer and praise in the Jewish celebration of Passover.”
Catholics
are forbidden to observe the Jewish Passover as an Old-Covenant
religious rite because its ceremonies looked forward to the Messiah who
has already come in Jesus Christ and accomplished the redemption they
prefigured.
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