The diocese of Cartago is part of the ecclesiastical province of Cali, north of Valle del Cauca. It is bordered by the Dioceses of Pereira, Armenia, Buga and Chocó. Lately there is a common border made so difficult due to the situation of violence caused by drug trafficking. Its location is strategic. It is the exit to the Pacific. It is a relatively young diocese. They are celebrating the 50th year of its establishment by Pope John XXIII, in 1962.
P.- Could you give us some data about Cartago?
R.- The farthest parish is three hours by road; it is very different from the other colombian dioceses where the ranges are much greater for a much reduced number of priests. Cartago has a clergy relatively young with an average of 43 years. I have to attend to 16 municipalities and some 400,000 inhabitants, more or less. I have 83 priests at the moment. The last group of ordinations, for the jubilee year, had been five priests, and the incoming year we will have two ordinations more. We have our own seminary, and the number of seminarians is around 40.
Social work
P.- Can you highlight some special feature of your diocese?
R.- I pay homage to our first bishop, Msgr. José Gabriel Calderón (1919-2006), since everything that the diocese has in land and in properties were donated by him from his personal patrimony. One important work that he initiated is the Diocesan Corporation. He was motivated to help some indigents who passed by his house and who had nowhere to live. He allowed to construct houses with the patrimony he inherited from his family, and that is what this diocese did for 35 years. He has managed to build 12,000 housing solutions for the poor people. I know not of other diocese in the region with a social work of similar breadth.
Violence
P.- Being in the environment of Cali, to what extent does drug trafficking affect them?
R.- I should confess that a very great fear invades us due to the effects of drug trafficking. There are names that are commonly known as big drug lords and they live in the valley of Cauca. As many of them disappear, persecutions were created to acquire leadership, and the most affected are the youth who used to see this path as the realization of an easy and comfortable life. For example, in the town of Roldanillo last year 70 young people were assasinated. Other sectors of violence in the diocese, because of their strategic location, are La Unión, Toro and Zarzal. During the past Assembly of the Episcopal Conference, I had the opportunity to address myself to the President of the Republic asking him that he offer the young greater opportunities of realization, without limiting himself only to suppressing their violent acts.
Ecology
P.- Another workhorse in many countries of the Americas is ecology, about everything that has to do with mining, to what extent does this affect them?
R.- The diocese of Cartago is also wrapped up in respecting the ecological balance. We have places that are very rich in natural resources, but it should be made known that not everything consist in exploiting those riches. It is also necessary to respect nature. I am a witness of how, in the neighboring diocese of Istmina Chocó, mineral exploitation has been abused and how the rivers have been contaminated when before they were potable and with abundant fish, in addition to the indiscriminate felling of forests. And it must also be denounced that not all those who exploit the minerals pay tribute to the State. In concrete, being one of the most rich sectors in mineral resources, Choco is also one of the poorest in social investment.
Peace process
P.- Finally, if some Colombian reality is in the world press today, they are the peace talks that are taking place in Oslo and Havana: what can you tell us about it?
R.- The official vision of the Colombian episcopate is now presented by Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez, in his capacity as President of the Episcopal Conference. All this creates in me a kind of anxieties. I, as bishop, try to be most objective if possible, and I say in my personal capacity what I think, but it has been 20 years since this peace process was initiated, also with talks in Oslo and different European countries, likewise in Cuba. We all want peace, but what we do not want is that frustrations of the past peace process be repeated. And we want justice be complied to the full, since so many families have been destroyed by violence. A law cannot be made where everything in the past is forgotten without doing justice. I also consider myself a fruit of displacement, because when I was a child, I had to leave with my family from the east of Antioquia to the central capital searching for a better place of security. Failed dialogues have been many, and we hope this not be repeated.
Bishop and friar
P.- The Augustinian Recollects in Colombia have a history of more than 400 years, and they just celebrated the three and a half centuries of their arrival in Casanare. They are an authentic institution. What can you tell us of your feeling toward the Order?
R.- As an Augustinian Recollect Bishop, I wish to express my enormous gratitude that I have toward my community, because what I am I owe it to her; and despite my being called to the episcopate, I do not cease to be friar. I take again the experience of our father St. Augustine that, being bishop he favored fraternal life in his diocese. This first bishop of this diocese, Msgr. Calderón, had it as desire that an Augustinian Recollect Bishop would preside it someday. Well then, his desire has seen fulfillment today, after ten years of his death. He was a bishop who was so fond of St. Augustine and I admired the Augustinian Library I found upon arriving at the diocese.
Academics
P.- Before becoming Bishop, Your Excellency possessed a prominent intellectual profile in Colombia: have you been able to continue to cultivate it?
R.- In the bosom of Episcopal Conference it corresponds to me to stay at the front of the Department of Universities, Culture and Religion. And particularly I continue as president of the Colombian Academy of Ecclesiastical History. Also the ties of affection and closeness with the Institute Caro and Cuervo bind me. To one and other institution the meritorious jesuit, Manuel Briceño Jáuregui, deceased just about twenty years now, was pleased to introduce me when he was director of the Colombian Academy of Languages.