Leo XIV Appoints Bishop Who Celebrates Jewish Passover with Seminarians.
Pope Leo XIV today appointed Bishop Ramón Salazar Estrada, 63, until now auxiliary bishop of Guadalajara, as the new Bishop of Mazatlán, Mexico.
Salazar was ordained a priest in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Guadalajara. He holds a doctorate in moral theology from the Alphonsian Academy in Rome.
Allegations of Homosexual activity at the seminary
In the Archdiocese of Guadalajara there is an anonymous church watchblog, GdlSantaIPecadora.blogspot.com. According to this source the seminary was suffering in 2012 from “delicate cases of homosexuality”, alongside alcoholism. In May 2014 the blog alleged an internal network of seminarians arranging homosexual encounters by phone, connections with priests outside the seminary, and protection or tolerance by some formators. It also claimed that at least seven seminarians had been dismissed after accusations concerning homosexuality.
Salazar was already closely involved in seminary formation when these allegations surfaced. He had worked as a spiritual director and formator since the 1990s. From 2006 to 2015, he was spiritual director of the Institute for Adult Vocations and also taught at the seminary. From 2015 to 2021, he was spiritual director of the seminary. In 2021 he was consecrated auxiliary bishop.
GdlSantaIPecadora.blogspot.com wrote a 2014 profile about Salazar, because his name was already rumoured as a possible future bishop. The blog described him as a quiet, patient, studious and hardworking seminarian who later became a respected but demanding formator.
However, it added, that his years working with seminarians had helped him “become more flexible”. And: Those who knew him said that the Ramón of that time had changed from “the Ramón of fourteen years ago.”
Already a 2013 post similarly remarked that, despite being a moral theologian, Salazar was “not rigid at all”.
Celebrating Jewish Passover
The most striking episode in Salazar's later record was documented by Salazar himself on facebook on 8 April 2022.
Auxiliary Bishop Salazar ate a Jewish Passover meal with seminarians at Guadalajara’s Major Seminary. Seminarians can be seen wearing kippahs around tables prepared for the occasion.
Salazar himself captioned the photographs: “Jewish supper at the Major Seminary. A day of prayer and praise in the Jewish celebration of Passover.”
Catholics are forbidden to observe the Jewish Passover as an Old-Covenant religious rite because its ceremonies looked forward to the Messiah who has already come in Jesus Christ and accomplished the redemption they prefigured.
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