In the cold night of July 4, 1976the neighbors of the Saint Patrick Parish of Buenos Airescalled the police after suspecting a black car parked in front of the church.
Moments later, a patrol car pulled up next to the parked black car but after a brief encounter, drove away without intervening.
After midnight, the occupants of the parked car entered the community of the Pallottine Fathers in the parish St. Patrickbeat the religious (three priests and two seminarians) and the they shot by the back.
It was one of the most horrendous crimes of the Argentine military dictatorshipin which the parents were murdered Alfredo Leaden57, superior of the Pallottines in Argentina; Peter Duffau68, parochial vicar and retired professor, and alfie kelly, 43 years old, parish priest of San Patricio and Dean of the area. With them were killed the young seminarians: Salvador Barbeito30 years old, about to be ordained and the applicant Emilio Barletti24 years old.
On the gray morning of that 4th of July, Roland Savinoa 16-year-old who was the parish organist, discovered the tragedy. According to his account, he came to church early. Some impatient parishioners rang the bell and banged on the doors, without getting an answer. So Rolando went around the house, found a half-open banner, climbed up and went inside.
In the community room, he found the bodies of the five religious, lying on the ground.
The mobile issue saint patrick massacreIt is still the subject of controversy today. The authors of the crime were never known and the shadows continue to protect the men who carried out that massacre.
In that political context of the country’s history and in a neighborhood where many people linked to power lived, the community had been accused more than once of “communists”. They did not know much about politics, but they transmitted a very deep inner peace. Some religious worked with young people in very poor neighborhoods, and the parson Alfie had strong preaching of social awareness.
The murderers had written on the carpet: “These lefties died for being indoctrinators of virgin minds and they are MSTM” Let us remember that the termleft handed” is applied to the thinkers of leftist ideologies, while the acronym “MSTM” correspond to Movement of Priests for the Third World).
Justice never clarified the fact. But according to statements made in the case by authorities at the local police station, the perpetrators would have been members of a task force of the ESMA.
The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge bergoglioauthorized in 2005 the beginning of the process of canonization that he will have to determine —after substantial studies in Buenos Aires and the Vatican— if the religious died as martyrs.
If this condition is effectively established, the religious will be declared Venerable Servants of God. Then, it will be necessary to establish that God worked a miracle through the intercession of the five Pallottines (generally a healing impossible for science) for them to be declared blessed. If a second miracle is determined, they would be declared saints. Sources of the cause said that there would already be several cases of supposed miracles to present.
The former Argentine president, Nestor Kirchnerduring his visit to the Vatican on the occasion of the initiation of the pontificate of Benedict XVIvisited the parish of Saint Patrick of Rome and placed a floral offering on the plaque that commemorates the five religious.
In 2008, the documentary “4th of July, the massacre of Saint Patrick”, directed and written by the filmmakers John Paul Young Y Pablo Zubizarretawho claim to have based their film on more than 50 interviews, several versions, and extensive research.
“It was the bloodiest massacre that the Latin American church suffered and there are people in the same neighborhood who did not know what had happened. Such was the fear that everyone kept their mouths shut and today, moreover, there is no one responsible”, they concluded.
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