This Friday - in a meeting with local authorities at the municipality and the subsequent inauguration mass at the San Antonio cathedral - the priest from Santa Fe, Gustavo Gabriel Zurbriggen, assumed his responsibilities as Diocesan Bishop of Concordia.
As announced, Monsignor Zurbriggen was received by the mayor Enrique Cresto, provincial senator Armando Gay, and members of the local government in the Assembly Hall of the Municipality of Concordia.
On the occasion, Cresto highlighted the work carried out by Monsignor Luis Armando Collazuol in his pastoral labor (which extended from 2004 to the present) and welcomed Bishop Zurbriggen, renewing the commitment to deepen joint work between the municipality and the church, mainly in the social and territorial sphere.
“In these few days that I have been here, as the Mayor was just telling me when he received me, I was able to realize that the culture of solidarity is something common in this area. And this encourages me, heartens me, and tells me that we will be able to work together on many things, always for the good of our brothers, especially the poorest and most vulnerable,” said Zurbriggen on the occasion.
“We are going to work hard, with government officials and institutions, always caring for and respecting the first human right, which is life, human life, the dignity of the human being. So I am very grateful for this reception and from now on I will stay in Concordia, so surely we will be meeting in the course of the days to get to know each other better and agree to work together,” the Bishop highlighted.
For his part, Collazuol noted that “the diocese of Concordia lives today the joy and hope that is born from receiving a new bishop, a pastor who comes to walk among us, with his illusions and his desire to do,” he pointed out.
“This People of God who peregrinate in these lands of the northeast of Entre Ríos, in their communities, in the departments of Federación, Federal, San Salvador, Colón, and Concordia, in their parishes and chapels, receives Monsignor Gustavo Zurbriggen with joy,” the priest remarked.
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA OF MONSIGNOR GUSTAVO GABRIEL ZURBRIGGEN
He was born on November 26, 1963, in the town of Curupaytí, San Cristóbal department, province of Santa Fe. After completing his higher studies, he entered the Nuestra Señora de Loreto Major Seminary, of the archdiocese of Córdoba. He obtained the titles of Professor in Religious Sciences and a Bachelor's degree in Theology at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina Santa María de los Buenos Aires (UCA).
He was ordained a priest on October 26, 1990, in Curupaytí, his hometown. After his priestly ordination, he exercised his ministry as a parochial vicar at Santa Catalina de Siena, in the town of Suardi; at Nuestra Señora de Fátima, in the city of Rafaela; and at the San Rafael Arcángel cathedral.
In 1996 he was sent to Rome to perfect his theological studies and obtained a licentiate in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Back in the diocese, he served again as parochial vicar of the cathedral and later, in the year 2000, he was appointed parish priest of Santa Catalina de Siena, in Suardi. In 2006 he was appointed parish priest of the San Rafael Arcángel cathedral, an office he held until his appointment as bishop.
He was ordained bishop on December 9, 2011, in the cathedral of Rafaela and began his pastoral ministry as the fourth prelate bishop of Deán Funes, by succession, on December 21, 2013. In June of the current year, Pope Francis appointed Zurbriggen Bishop of the Diocese of Concordia.