֎Red Hat Fest '24: III: Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC, C.M.

The Popeular History Podcast

IMAGE
Vida Católica Mundial, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
LINKS
Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:

https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbokalic.html

Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC on Gcatholic.org:

https://gcatholic.org/p/33395

2010 Vatican Biographical Summary of Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC (Italian)):

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2010/03/15/0147/00347.html

2010 Vincentian newsletter with Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC bio:

https://cmglobal.org/en/files/2018/06/VT-2010-01-01-ENG-G.G.GAY_.pdf

1911 Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Congregation of Priests of the Mission (often called the Vincentians or Lazarites), “CM”:

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10357a.htm

2024 Vincentian Family Office coverage of

Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC’s appointment as Primate of Argentina:

https://famvin.org/en/2024/07/25/pope-francis-appoints-monsignor-bokalic-iglic-cm-as-primate-of-argentina/
NOTE: Free Adobe Podcast AI was used to help clean up some of the audio on this episode, as my setup and voice were both struggling this recording session but the show must go on. https://podcast.adobe.com/enhance#
TRANSCRIPT

Hello everyone, welcome to Cardinal Numbers, a rexypod reviewing and ranking all the Cardinals of the Catholic Church from the Catacombs to Kingdom Come. Today we’re looking at our third bishop from the list of new Cardinals Pope Francis will be officially elevating on December 7th 2024, and you probably heard my spiel ab out the date change last episode, so let’s dive on in.

Vicente BOKALIC IGLIC was born on June 11th, 1952 in Lanús, Argentina, the city immediately south of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, right across the Matanza River if my modest cartography has served me well.

In 1970, young Vicente signed up with the Congregation of the Mission, aka the Lazarites, also AKA the Vincentians. He’s our first Vincentian here on the show, but he won’t be the last, and honestly I’ve already written a bit of history for the Vincentians I’ve filed with the other gentlemen that I think I’ll just leave in place there for future fun. If you happen to be a listener from the distant future and you happen to go listen to Cardinal Sauraphiel’s episode next because you’re a big fan of them and it’s important to you that you hear my history of the Vincentians like now, but when you go there you hear something about how I had had a history of the Vicnentians in his episode but decided to skip it since Cardinal Bokalic Iglic wound up coming first and therefore the history is in his episode, well, that will give you some hints about how the sausage is made here–that is to say, badly,–and I will fix the error that came from me not double checking my own decisions. If that or anything else weird happens, just write in and I’ll fix it.

While we’re well clear of todays’ real meat and potatoes, I might as well mention that young Vincente is going to be our *third* cardinal from Argentina, though you’d be forgiven for forgetting our first two because they’re from the 2023 batch and that was a relative while ago at this point. But that fact does help underscore the reality that it would not be too wild to consider accusing Pope Francis of somewhat favoring his native land in his more recent consistories. Then again even with about a fifth of the new Cardinals coming from South America as a whole, the reality is even that larger than usual rate of representation comes shy of their share of the global Catholic population–if you’re wondering, over one in four Catholics alive today live in South America.

Anyways let’s get back to Vincente, who was ordained a priest–Father Bokalic–for the Vincentians in April of 1978, not long before his 26th birthday. He initially worked in a classic one-two combo post for young priests, directing youth ministry and vocations for the order. By 1981 he was Parochial Vicar of the parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, assuming I’m translating Nuestra Señora de la Medalla Milagrosa correctly, or at least better than I pronounced it. I don’t always name parishes, so just know I’m doing that for a reason here. Starting in 1983, he began to serve the local Vincentian Seminary, first as formator–more vocation coordinating–and bursar–moneyman–and then as its head starting in 1987. In 1991, ten years after his first start there, Fr. Bokaglic returned to minister at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal for a few years before recalling he belonged to a religious order with “Mission” in its name and apparently made a bit of an effort to travel beyond the neighborhoods of the capital, instead going to the outskirts of Argentina’s *second* largest city, Cordoba. I’m sure it wasn’t actually like he went from New York to LA even though I’m strongly implying that for comedic effect, either way for what it’s worth his official title was “Missionary” at this point. By ‘97 he was doing another stint as the Superior of a Vincentian seminary, this time in San Miguel, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires, which may or may not be the same seminary he was running previously. Look, I’m working with what I have here.

From 2000 to 2003, he served as a missionary and a parish priest in the Diocese of Goya in the northeast of the country, but it was December 2003 when he really hit the medium leagues, becoming Provincial Superior for the Vincentians in Argentina. As a reminder, you can roughly think of a province as a given religious order’s equivalent of a diocese, though provincial superior is not a specially consecrated role, unless I missed something, which is always possible. And frankly, generalities are dangerous in the world of religious orders, because while there are patterns, there are also differences from one order to next among the dozens of major religious orders worldwide. For example, the Vincentians describe Fr. Bokaglic’s role here as “Visitor” rather than “Provincial Superior”, which is the term the Vatican used for the same stint.

In any event, in December 2009, Father Bokalic returned once again to the parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, which is where he was when Pope Benedict dialed his white phone and named him Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires and Titular Bishop of Summa in Algeria. Naturally, the actual episcopal consecration was handled by the then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires, one Jorge Mario Bergoglio–the future Pope Francis.

A few years later, in his first year as Pope, Pope Francis transferred Bishop Bokalic to the Diocese of Santiago del Estero, which may have had some interest for nerds well versed in the ecclesiastical history of Argentina but not much beyond that until earlier this year, when it became apparent that Pope Francis or at least someone in his circle a nerd well versed in the ecclesiastical history of Argentina because he promoted Santiago del Estero to an archdiocese and officially named now-Archbishop Bokalic Primate of Argentina. The history nerd connection here is that the primate of a country is traditionally the head of the oldest diocese in a country. In this case, yes, Santiago del Estero is at least arguably the oldest Diocese headquartered in Argentina, but that point is indeed arguable because it had ceased to exist for many years after its 1570 founding, vanishing from the late 17th century until its reconstitution apparently under a new name in 1910. That journey is definitely on the list of things I’ll be exploring if Archbishop Bokalic makes it to the next round, along with the surprise of Pope Francis formally establishing a new primatial see in his native country, when, well, that’s not something I would have expected Pope Francis to do, though he does like to surprise people. Of course with the promotion to Archbishop and new Primatial title already in place by the time he was announced as a new Cardinal, the actual inclusion of Bokalic on the list of new Cardinals was significantly less surprising than it might otherwise have been.

One bit of flavor that came through several of my sources was Cardinal Bokalic’s closeness to the poor. I didn’t get the sort of specific examples I like to share, but it was a pretty consistent observation, so there’s a bit of flavor for you.

Anyways, after he is officially elevated on December 7th, Vicente Cardinal BOKALIC IGLIC will be eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2032.

Today’s episode is part of Cardinal Numbers, and there will be another one of the new Cardinals next week. Thank you for listening, God bless you all, and thanks, Joe!