MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The priest of Paraguay and the Catholic Church in Latinamerica

Former bishop Fernando Lugo, a controversial figure

“The Priest of Paraguay: Lugo and the change in Latin America” is the name of the book recently launched in London and dedicated to the current president of the landlocked country former bishop Fernando Lugo.

The book was written by British journalist Hugh O’Shaughnessy and his Paraguayan peer Edgar Venerando Ruíz Díaz from Asunción’s ABC Color.

The event took place at the Bolivar Hall in London before an audience of academics, diplomats, business people, politicians and political scientists interested in the evolution of Latinamerica.

“The idea of my colleague from Paraguay Edgar Venerando Ruiz Diaz and mine was to write a book shedding some light on the politics of a country (Paraguay) and examine the situation of the Catholic Church in Latinamerica, a very much talked about phenomena but rarely examined outside a small circle of theology experts and specialists”, said O'Shaughnessy.

”Fernando Lugo is the latest of a new generation of Latinamerican leaders that have risen to defy the comfortable consensus of the past”, said the British journalist who added that the book analyzes the irruption of the former bishop from San Pedro in the Paraguayan and Latinamerican political scenario breaking the traditional schemes which are known in the region.

Hugh O’Shaughnessy is Sunday columnist at The Observer; The Independent, The Guardian; has worked with the BBC and has written several books among which “Pinochet: the politics of torture”.

Other distinguished visitors at the ceremony and who addressed the gathering included Andrew Nickson from the University of Birmingham; Paraguayan researcher Ricardo Medina; former diplomat Michael Lillis author of “Elisa Lynch: Courage and Scandal: biography of Paraguay”, which will soon be launched in Ireland.

In a message from Asunción, Ruiz Díaz details how Lugo wearing “his sandals” was able to capitalize during the electoral campaign the errors, greed and arrogance of the Colorados, then under the leadership of former president Nicanor Duarte Frutos (2003/2008).

The hegemonic Colorado party ruled virtually undisputedly for over six decades in Paraguay.