Report: “Married” Bolivian Bishop Will Be Made Cardinal

On May 2nd, 2018, Pope Francis announced that in the consistory to be celebrated on June 29th this year, Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, he will raise to the cardinalate monsignor Toribio Ticona, titular bishop of Timici and prelate emeritus of Corocoro, Bolivia. The 81-year-old bishop was born on April 25, 1937. He was ordered priest in 1967 and consecrated as Timici’s bishop and axiliary bishop of Potosí, Bolivia, on May 31st, 1986. In 1992 he was appointed prelate of Corocoro, retiring in 2012.

During his frequent visits to Oruro at the beginning of his office, the then bishop of Oruro and future Third World ideologist cardinal, Julio Terrazas Sandoval, CSsR, boasted visiting Oruro’s bishop and called him his “padrino” or sponsor, since he said he had been promoted to the bishopric thanks to Terrazas, who on several occasions as president of the Bolivian Conference of Bishops, and was obviously very influential on the other bishops and the Apostolic Nunciature.

Ticona participated in two ad limina visits, in 2008 and 2017. He served as alcalde, according to the local traditional customs of a 12-person community in Bolivia. During his ten year tenure in the Corocoro prelature, the Catholic flock went from 94.6% down to 87.6%, while the Protestant sects’ following grew. It is a well-known fact that while he was serving his office in Corocoro, he was living more uxorio with a lady in Oruro’s bishopric. She and her children are proud to be called wife and children of the Patacamaya bishop, as Bishop Toribio Ticona is also known.

The family of Monsignor Toribio Ticona, Patacamaya’s bishop, lived in up to three different places of residence in Oruro.

Since the 9th and 10th centuries, known as the Iron Century of Papacy, there has been no sure, reliable news of a concubinarian bishop being rewarded with the title of cardinal. Being a Prince of the Church entails an important responsibility for the office holder, since he directly serves the Petrine ministry. Therefore, a concubinarian cardinal’s promotion sends two messages: one, the Pope’s wish to eliminate priestly celibacy, and the other and more serious, that he has a “scapegoat” with which he can break the hierarchy of the Bolivian bishops. Two bishoprics and three other church circumscriptions are to be renewed this year. We can be sure that Bishop Barros’ case will be repeated in Bolivia, thanks to which Pope Francis would have, with [Bolivian president] Evo Morales’ backing, control over Bolivia’s Church, which would then have a marked leftist imprint.

Adelante la Fe

P.S. We have used the term, married, because his co-habitant partner properly speaks of “her husband”.