WATCH: Costa Rica’s new Catholic president entrusts her gov’t to Our Lady during Mass

(LifeSiteNews) — One day after the inauguration on May 8 of new Costa Rican President Laura Virginia Fernández Delgado, she made a notable public gesture of her Catholic faith by entrusting her government to Our Lady of the Angels, the nation’s beloved patroness.

On May 9, President Fernández visited the historic Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels in Cartago for a special Mass presided over by Bishop Javier Román Arias, president of the Costa Rican Episcopal Conference. The liturgy brought together government officials, legislators, and representatives from various sectors of society, marking her first major public appearance after the swearing-in ceremony.

After Holy Communion, Fernández symbolically placed her presidential sash before the revered image of Our Lady of the Angels — affectionately known as “La Negrita” — as part of a personal promise. This act of devotion publicly entrusted the beginning of her administration and its responsibilities to the protection of the Virgin Mary.

Costa Rican President Laura Fernández, a Catholic, began her presidential term by attending a Mass in which she entrusted her government to God and to the Virgin Mary.

Video: Presidential office pic.twitter.com/F6iWX33I6n

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In Bishop Román’s homily, he highlighted the significance of the president beginning her public service grounded in faith and trust in God. “How meaningful it is that, as the country enters a new era, the president chose to come here, before the Negrita de los Ángeles, to entrust her mission and responsibilities to God,” he noted.

The bishop of Limón emphasized that authentic faith must extend beyond special moments into everyday challenges. “Whoever walks hand in hand with God never loses the light,” he affirmed, urging discernment amid “so many voices that distract, confuse, and harden the heart.” He prayed for the Holy Spirit to grant government leaders “wisdom to decide, prudence to listen, and clarity to act,” always prioritizing “the well-being of the people.”

Bishop Román also addressed pressing social issues, calling for more humane policies to alleviate suffering. He pointed to rising violence, insecurity, drug trafficking, and an employment crisis affecting families, especially in the Caribbean region.

“Behind every layoff there are households, children, the elderly, and people who look to the future with anguish,” he lamented, adding that long medical waiting lists as “a national pain and a wound to the heart.”

The prelate concluded by calling for strengthened national unity through dialogue and mutual respect. “We need to rediscover that we remain one people,” he said before entrusting the new government term and all Costa Ricans to the maternal care of Our Lady of the Angels.

Public servants owe ‘reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ’

Costa Rica is a confessional state with its constitution recognizing the Catholic faith as the official religion. Article 75 explicitly reads:

The Roman Catholic and Apostolic Religion is the religion of the State, which contributes to its maintenance, without preventing the free exercise in the Republic of other forms of worship that are not opposed to universal morality or good customs.

Throughout the centuries, the Catholic Church has consistently taught that not just individuals or families but also nations themselves have a duty to confess respect and submission to the authority of Jesus Christ the King. Pope Pius XI taught in 1925 that the rulers of nations have a “public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ.”

And “once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony,” the pontiff wrote.

These uncontested truths were reaffirmed Thursday morning in a profession of faith by Fr. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X.

“The submission of institutions and nations, as such, to the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ flows directly from the Incarnation and the Redemption,” the priest wrote. “Therefore, secularism of institutions and nations constitutes an implicit denial of the divinity and universal kingship of Our Lord.”

“Christendom is not a mere historical phenomenon, but the only order willed by God among men,” he wrote. “It is not for the Church to conform herself to the world, but for the world to be transformed by the Church.”

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