ROSARITO BEACH The Archdiocese of Tijuana received an unprecedented letter Friday confirming that the Vatican had dismissed Father Raymundo Figueroa as a Catholic priest, the latest chapter in the saga of a beloved figure known in this region as "the disobedient father."
"The Vatican decree takes way his rights and duties of being a cleric, but also liberates him of the obligations inherent in ordination," said Tijuana's Archbishop Rafael Romo.
Two days later, however, Figueroa, 44, was officiating Masses as usual in the patio adjacent to the Santísimo Sacramento Church that he directed for several years before being ousted.
"More parishioners came on Sunday than usual, about five hundred. It was like we had all gotten together to show our support for Father Raymundo," said one of those who turned out, Rita López, 74.
The priest's fall from the Church's grace began on May 3, 2009, when he gave Mass despite a directive from health authorities to cancel all public events to avoid the spread of the H1N1 flu. In response, the Archdiocese of Tijuana ordered his transfer to another parish.
But Figueroa refused to leave his church, where he had served since February of 2007, arguing that he had made a commitment to the people of his community who had pitched in to finish the construction of the building.
Besides censuring him for defying the health order, the archbishop accused the priest of poor management.
What ensued was an unprecedented battle first verbal then legal between the archbishop and a priest who had been invited to come to Tijuana in 1991, even when he was a seminarian, so he could reinforce the archdiocese.
The Archbishop of Tijuana has suspended Father Gabriel Figueroa, pictured in the altar built by parishioners in the patio of their church.
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Archbishop Romo never wavered and succeeded, backed by police, in evicting the so-called "disobedient father" last spring.
The parishioners never wavered, either. They organized and built an altar – adorned with images of Christ, the Virgen de Guadalupe and Pope John Paul II – in land they had bought to serve as a patio for their church.
There, Father Raymond and his brother, Gabriel Figueroa, also a Catholic priest, began to give Mass.
"We did this as an act of desperation because of the injustice that's been done to Father Raymundo," said one of his parishioners, María Dolores Hernández, 52. "He's done so much for this community: He's helped the sick, he's pulled many people from drug addiction, he's restored marriages that had fallen apart, all of that in addition to working to construct the church."
Archbishop Romo said he had exhausted all dialogue with Figueroa and proceeded with the ecclesiastic trial against him, a case referred to the Sacred Congregation for the Cleric of Rome, which analyzed it exhaustively.
Finally, that authority ruled on Nov. 9, ordering the dismissal Father Raymundo. The letter announcing the decision arrived in Tijuana last week.
"The supreme order explicitly says that it cannot be appealed nor is there any recourse to reverse it," the archbishop said.
On Tuesday, however, about 30 people gathered as usual at the church patio at 8 a.m. sharp for Mass, which on this day was given by Father Gabriel, whom the archbishop has suspended for supporting his brother and is also trying to oust from the Church.
Parishioners built an altar in the patio of their church their former parish priest.
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Father Gabriel considers what has happened to him and his brother a matter of politics being played by the archbishop.
He expects that the conflict will end with Romo's departure from the archdiocese, which could happen in three or four years.
"The question of faith has nothing to do with politics. We are going to continue to give Mass as long as God allows us to," Father Gabriel said. "We have this vocation and we're not going to abandon it because of a whim."
He said a Vatican official should have visited the parish to do a complete investigation, talking to all of the parties involved, before taking the extraordinary step of dismissal, he said.
In an interview last year, Father Raymundo recalled the roots of his vocation and why he fought so hard to remain with his church.
He said he felt the calling to become a priest when he was nine years old, inspired by the cleric in his hometown in Michoacán state.
"He was cheerful, had so much charisma," he recalled. "He was a social leader."
He was ordained in June of 1997. The Archdiocese of Tijuana recruited him to work in the city. First he was a vicar in the Inmaculada Church downtown, then became the spiritual director of a seminary, and then was assigned to lead the Cristo Resucitado Church in the city's southeast side.
In February of 2007 he was transferred to the Santísimo Sacramento Church in Rosarito Beach.
"When I arrived only ten or fifteen people attended daily Mass," he recalled. "Today, more than 120 attend and we have five Masses on Sunday."
He said he feels very close to the faithful of this church.
"I have been in this community during very difficult times and that's why they are now with me. Some have told me that they would give their life for me," he said. "It's not fair that you work for your church and then, on a whim or something that was told to the archbishop, they move you. We are working for God. Justice comes first before disobedience."
Omar.millan@sandiegored.com
