The Diplomat
The Spanish cardinal and bishop of David (Panama), José Luis Lacunza, was found alive yesterday, after two days of being missing, the Panamanian Episcopal Confederation confirmed yesterday. The Panamanian press reported that the 79-year-old cardinal was found inside his car in the town of Boquete, in good condition but disoriented, and was taken to a hospital.
The Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Chiriqui (Panama) began last Wednesday an ex officio investigation into the presumed disappearance of the Cardinal, an Augustinian Recollect religious from Navarra, after the personnel of the Bishopric of David (Chiriqui) filed a complaint because they did not know the whereabouts of the Cardinal, who was last seen last Tuesday afternoon.
José Luis Lacunza was born in Pamplona on 24 February 1944 and at the age of 12 he entered the Minor Seminary of San José, Artieda (Navarra) of the Augustinian Recollects; he studied philosophy in the Convent of Valentuñana (Sos del Rey Católico, Zaragoza) and the Novitiate and theology in the Seminary of Pamplona (Berriozar), reports Europa Press.
He was ordained priest on 13 July 1969, in Pamplona, and was soon assigned to Panama, where he graduated in Philosophy and Letters. He was professor and rector of the Colegio San Agustin in Panama and was professor and rector of the Catholic University of St. Mary La Antigua, Panama (USMA).
He became a Panamanian citizen in 1982 and was appointed auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Panama in January 1986, at the age of 42. He was president of the Panamanian Episcopal Conference for two three-year terms and has worked in the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) in various positions. It was there that he met, collaborated and became friends with the Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, especially at the Assembly of Aparecida (Brazil, 2007).
As auxiliary bishop of Panama, he had to stand up for the Panamanian Church against the dictator Manuel A. Noriega between 1987 and 1990. Later, as bishop of David, “he defended the indigenous people of his diocese, who demanded respect for their lands, against the government of the nation that did not listen to their demands”.
On 14 February 2015, Lacunza was created a cardinal by Pope Francis, in a consistory in Rome in which Ricardo Blázquez also received the cardinal’s purple. Lacunza thus became the first cardinal of the diocese of Panama in its 500 years of history and the first of the Augustinian Recollect Order in its more than 400 years of foundation.
