This past Saturday, July 2, 2016, a contingent of Assumptionists, family, and friends went to the Buenos Aires neighborhood of La Manuelita de San Miguel, in response to an invitation from the local Comisión de la Memoria por los desaparecidos (neighborhood Commission of Remembrance for the Disappeared), those who disappeared during the dictatorship of the years 1976 and 1982.

The invitation included a Mass in the nearby chapel of St. Francis Xavier where two of our Assumptionist brothers, Carlos Antonio Di Pietro and Raúl Rodríguez, had worshiped regularly Their ministry back in that period was social outreach in this neighborhood under the direction of Jesuits stationed at the Colegio Mäximo, whose director was a certain  Fr. Jorge Bergoglio.

40 years have passed since that fateful day of their disappearance, June 4, 1976, although the chapel and other buildings and rooms seem hardly to have changed.... apart from a few modifications to the chapel and the former Assumptionist house.

It was a great joy to meet Fr. Juan Carlo Scanonne, SJ, once again, a theology teacher at the time who spent much energy in social ministry and who oversaw the pastoral insertion of many Assumptionist brothers in formation.

In addition to a number of Assumptionist religious, there was a contingent of Argentinian lay Assumptionists who came with us to this memorial.

In the house where the brothers once lived, the room that was theirs has been converted into a memorial in their honor by the Etchenique family that currently owns the house.

It was very moving to return to the places that our brothers knew so well. But what is most important was the witness that these two brothers of ours, Carlos and Raúl, bore.... two true disciples of the Lord, generously committed to the people with great humility and conveying everywhere the joy of knowing that they were chosen by God. That is how we wish to remember them.

Moreover, this occasion was an opportunity for the new members of the Assumptionist international house of studies, recently founded in Buenos Aires, to know a part of the history of the Assumption in Argentina.

Fr. Luis Ramón Rendón A.A.
former companion of Carlos and Raúl,
Lourdes, Santos Lugares July 4, 2016.