Peru: Cardinal Calls on Police to Stop Faithful Praying the Rosary

Cardinal Carlos Castillo Matassoglio, Archbishop of Lima
A group of faithful gathered in front of the house of the Archbishop of Lima (capital of Peru) to pray the Rosary in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary following the performance of a blasphemous play presented by the Catholic University. Cardinal Carlos Castillo called for police intervention to dissuade the faithful.
Background
The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) had scheduled a play for the 24th Saliendo de la Caja Festival, which is organized by the Scenic Creation and Production Section of the Faculty of Performing Arts of the PUCP. The festival is usually used by students to present their final projects.
The play is called "Maria Maricon," a title that is difficult to translate. The word "Maricon" designates vulgarally a homosexual. As for the poster, it represents a man disguised as a woman, with a mantilla and the Immaculate Heart of Mary on his chest.
Faced with the outcry, the play was quickly withdrawn from the program. The university expressed its rejection of "the inappropriate use of religious symbols" and apologized in an official statement.
Reactions from the Episcopal Conference and the Ministry of Culture
The Peruvian Episcopal Conference (CEP) called the play an offense to the Catholic Faith and strongly criticized its programming. It pointed out that the poster and the content of the play distort religious symbols deeply rooted in the country's Catholic tradition and devotion.
The CEP also stressed that, although it defends freedom of expression, it considers that "it is not an absolute right and that it has limits, especially when it conflicts with other rights such as religious freedom, culture, and devotion of the Peruvian people."
The Ministry of Culture also spoke out, questioning the use of religious images. The ministry stressed the importance of respecting religious symbols as an integral part of Peru's cultural heritage and insisted that freedom of expression has limits, especially when it conflicts with other fundamental rights.
Finally, the mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga, also protested, and did not hesitate to call the work "filth." He said that "it is an insult to the Catholic Church and to the millions of Catholics in Peru and around the world: what is Catholic about this university? Just the name? They should remove it and call it something else,” he wrote on his “X” account.
The Cardinal Archbishop of Lima Defends the Play
Things seemed pretty clear, but one element was going to provoke the ire of the faithful: Cardinal Castillo in fact affirmed that there was no intention to offend in this play, and defended the retention of the play, after the testimonies reported above, provoking confusion and indignation among many of the faithful.
Cardinal Castillo confuses intention and reality. Regardless of the author’s intention, the play is objectively blasphemous. It is astonishing to hear such reasoning from the mouth of a cardinal.
It was then that about 20 faithful gathered in front of the cardinal’s house to pray the rosary in reparation for the offense made against the Virgin and her Son. The situation became even more tense when the Archbishop of Lima responded to this demonstration by requesting the intervention of the police to push back the faithful.
The conclusion of the Rosary coordinator is not surprising: "This eminence must leave our country urgently, no one wants him for having allowed such an offense to our Mother," he declared.
(Sources : InfoVaticana/Cep – FSSPX.Actualités)
Illustration : Romanuspontifex, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons