Panama’s Police found Cardinal José Luis Lacunza, who had been missing since Tuesday, safe on Thursday in a rural area, the institution reported.
Lacunza, 79 years old and born in Spain, was found by the agents inside his all-terrain vehicle in a semi-wooded area more than 40 km from the city of David (west), where he had last been seen on Tuesday afternoon, after leaving the diocese driving.
“Analysis of surveillance cameras made it possible to guide investigations towards [the town of] Boquete, where the location of Cardinal José Luis Lacunza, who had been missing for two days, was found,” the Police said on social media.
The cardinal “was inside his vehicle, somewhat disoriented,” but in “good health condition,” the newspaper La Prensa said on its website.
The city of David and the municipality of Boquete, the latter famous for its coffee plantations, are in the agricultural province of Chiriquí, bordering Costa Rica, 400 km west of the Panamanian capital.
The public prosecutor’s office had opened an investigation and sent a team of officials from the capital to Chiriquí, after diocese personnel reported Lacunza missing Wednesday night, which also motivated expressions of solidarity in the country and abroad.
The Police published a video in which its general director, John Dornheim, appears standing next to the cardinal’s car window talking to him, who is seen sitting behind the wheel.
Lacunza, a resident of Panama since the 1970s, was born in Pamplona (Spain) on February 24, 1944 and was ordained a priest in 1969. He was elevated to bishop in January 1986 and proclaimed cardinal on February 14, 2015 by Pope Francis. He is Panama’s only cardinal.
He was a professor of various subjects at a Catholic school in the Panamanian capital and served for five years on the board of directors of the Santa María La Antigua Catholic University, before being appointed rector in 1985.
He was also president twice of the Panamanian Episcopal Conference (2004-2007 and 2007-2013), according to local media.
