At the announcement of the news, the Superior of the Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá Province of Southern Argentina (ARS), Fr Darío Perera, communicated to the provincial community: "We are happy because this appointment recognises the work, capacity and solidity that we all know Fr Horacio has". And he added: "We pray that your service will help the schools that depend on men and women religious in Argentina and that are associated with FAERA to grow".
A week later, on Monday 15 April, the first meeting of the Commission was held, in which the members of the outgoing Commission also participated. At this meeting, the vacancies of Secretary and Treasurer were filled and the Board of Directors that will accompany Fr López was formed, as follows:
Vice-President: Brother Sergio Franco (Lasallian)
Secretary: Sister Adriana Ruis (Clarissa Franciscan Missionary of the Blessed Sacrament)
Treasurer: Brother Victor Hirch (Verbita)
Full members: Sister María Lucía Cantini (Daughter of Mary Help of Christians), Fr Marcelo Benítez (Scolopio) and Santiago Peluso (of the Marianist Educational Network).
Substitute members: Sister María Cristina Mandali (Servants of the Holy Spirit), Andrea Sensi (Daughter of Mary Help of Christians), Gerardo Suárez (representative of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Mother of the Divine Shepherd).
The members of the accounting body are accountants Diego Alejandro Cantón, Juan Carlos Gonzalo Muñoz and Sister María Inés Castellaro (of the Sisters of the Virgin Child). Silvia Saguir, also an accountant, was appointed as a substitute member.
Fr Horacio López, 59, from Argentina, has been a Salesian since 31 January 1985 and was ordained a priest on 8 May 1994. After the initial formation phase, he was a teacher at the secondary Don Bosco school in Mar del Plata, animator for the educational area of this Salesian house, chaplain of the General Juan Martín de Pueyrredó Battalion 21 of the Argentine Explorers of Don Bosco, and animator of the local Salesian Youth Movement. He was then Rector of the same work between 1997 and 1999, a period during which the then bishop of the area, Bishop José María Arancedo, appointed him President of the Regional Council of Catholic Education (JUREC) of Mar del Plata.
In 2000 he was appointed Vice-Provincial and Delegate for Youth Ministry in the then Salesian Province Our Lady of Luján, based in La Plata, and Rector of the Provincial House, first, and of the Centennial Oratory-House in Avellaneda, during the period in which there was the pre- and post-novitiate formation house.
In July 2005 he was appointed Provincial, a position he held until the unification of the Provinces and the creation of the new Salesian Province of Southern Argentina, which took place on 31 January 2010.
In 2006 he became a member of the National Council of the Argentine Conference of Men and Women Religious (CONFAR), first as an ordinary member, then becoming Second Vice-President.
In March 2010 he was called to Rome, first to collaborate with the Formation Sector and then, since 2014, as Personal Secretary of the Rector Major, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime. Returning home in February 2020, he was appointed Rector of the Salesian house in Bernal. From 2023, after the Salesian reconfiguration in the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires, he became Rector of the religious community for presences in Bernal and Avellaneda which passed to lay management.
Since 2021 he has been part of the FAERA Board of Directors, first as an ordinary member, then as Secretary, and now as President.
Today, 77 religious congregations are members of the FAERA, created in June 2014. Among its objectives, the Federation seeks to promote an educational vision of Catholic inspiration; to care for unity and communion between the federated institutions and between these and other bodies of the Catholic Church; and to foster the vocation of educators of Christian inspiration, to promote their formation and to provide the means for their continuous improvement.
Source: ARS Inspectorate
