As the news of the almost complete domination of Napoleon Bonaparte's troops in Spain arrived in the Indias, cries for autonomy started to be heard throughout the crumbling Spanish Empire.
Catholic would fight against Catholic (there were many Catholics, and, yes, there were several Freemasons, but on both sides) until the dust settled in Ayacucho, Peru, in 1824. But the autonomy claimed by the vecinos of City of the Most Holy Trinity in the Port of Saint Mary of Buenos Aires on May 25 1810 would never be reverted.
On this Argentine Bicentennial, we salute all Catholic patriots in the Americas in this "Bicentennial Year" for many of their nations, remembering the words of a Catholic, General Manuel Belgrano, in his will signed on May 25, 1820:
"In the name of God, and with his holy grace, Amen. Let it be known that I, Manuel Belgrano, a native of this city, brigadier of the armies of the United Provinces of South America, legitimate son of Domingo Belgrano y Peri and of María Josefa González, both deceased; being infirm with what Our Lord God has deigned to give me, but by his infinite mercy in possession of my complete judgment, fearful of the death which infallibly comes to every creature and of the uncertainty of its time, in order that it will not come without the things related to my conscience and to the welfare of my soul are not ordered, I have decided to established my will, believing, before everything else, as I firmly do, in the great mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons and one only true God, and in the other mysteries and sacraments which are possessed, believed, and taught by our Holy Mother the Roman Apostolic and Catholic Church, under whose true faith and belief I have lived and profess to live and die, as a Catholic and faithful Christian that I am, taking as my intercessor and advocate the Most Serene Queen of the Angels, Mary Most Holy, Mother of God, Our Lady and devotion [and Lady] of the Heavenly Host, under whose protection and help I order my will in the following manner:"1st. I first deliver my soul to God Our Lord, who created it from nothing, and I deliver my body to the earth from which it was formed, and, when His Divine Majesty decides to take my soul from the present life to the eternal one, I order that my body, wrapped in the habit of the patriarch of Saint Dominic, be buried in the pantheon that my family holds in said convent [Dominican Convent of Buenos Aires]..."
Picture: Belgrano delivers his command baton to the Virgin of Mercy, naming her General of the Argentine Army (1812).
