Could Catholic actor Eduardo Verastegui be the next President of Mexico?

Santiago, Chile, Aug 11, 2018 / 06:01 am (ACI Prensa).- Police seized documents and equipment from the office of the bishop of Chile’s military diocese Thursday as part of an investigation into accusations that Church officials in the country covered up clerical sexual abuse.

Personnel from Chile’s Carabineros arrived at the headquarters Aug. 9 in Santiago with a court order from the O’Higgins Regional Prosecutor’s Office. The offices of eight senior Church officials have been raided as part of the investigation, according to Reuters.

Chile’s military diocese was led from 2004 to 2015 by Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid. Attention to clerical sex abuse has heightened since Bishop Barros’ 2015 transfer to the Diocese of Osorno. Barros had been accused of covering up abuses committed by Fr. Fernando Karadima, who was convicted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2011 of abusing minors.

In a statement, the military diocese said it turned over the requested documents and equipment and expressed its willingness to cooperate in the investigative process “in everything that is required.”

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, prosecutor Mariano Arias ordered the raid because the investigations “indicate that a cover-up by the military diocese may have been committed”, considering that the head of this office must report these incidents in his capacity as a public official of the armed forces.

The raid was authorized by the Chilean defense minister and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Bishop Santiago Jaime Silva Retamales of the military diocese was outside Chile at the time of the raid. Bishop Silva is also head of the Chilean bishops’ conference.

As part of the investigation, the Rancagua Regional Prosecutor’s Office summoned Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of Santiago to testify Aug. 21 concerning his possible responsibility for the crime of cover-up in cases of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience.

On Aug. 9, the Archdiocese of Santiago reported that Cardinal Ezzati will be hospitalized for two days for a routine checkup following the insertion of a pacemaker in March.

On June 13 and July 12 the O’Higgins Regional Prosecutor’s Office seized documents of the Diocese of Rancagua and the Santiago archdiocese respectively in the process of this investigation.

Other dioceses, including Villarica and Temuco, also were the target of orders to seize their files as a result of the investigations being conducted on sexual abuse. Files from the Archdiocese of Santiago have been seized on two occasions.

On Aug. 9, the Diocese of Talca reported a new complaint of sexual abuse against Fr. Luciano Arriagada Vergara, who was in charge of the diocesan youth ministry.

Following the accusation, a preliminary investigation was initiated in order to determine the credibility of the allegation. A complaint was also filed with the regional prosecutor’s office.   

The diocese stated that while this process is going on, the accused is barred from the public exercise of priestly ministry.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Mexico City, Mexico, Nov 16, 2018 / 03:33 pm (ACI Prensa).- As part of their work at the 106th Plenary Assembly, the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM) is discussing and could approve a commission for the protection of minors, to deal with cases of sexual abuse in all the dioceses of the country.

The CEM Plenary Assembly is taking place Nov. 12-16 at Casa Lago, Cuautitlán Izcalli, a church facility on the outskirts of Mexico City.

At a Nov. 15 press conference, Bishop Alfonso Miranda, Secretary General of the CEM, noted that “the proposal for the creation of a commission for the protection of minors in the Catholic Church in Mexico will be presented this afternoon.”

This proposal for a commission, he explained, “is to make official what we are already doing in practice at the General Secretariat.”

However, he added, currently “there does not exist a body within the structure” of the Church in Mexico to address abuse accusations.

“It does not exist, rather each bishop in his diocese deals with this situation and this issue, but on the national level it hasn’t yet existed.”

“What we intend is that there be a regulatory body which would oversee, which would serve in an advisory capacity to address not only “the issue of the bishop but also what they have to do with the victim, the perpetrators, with the regulations under Mexican law and also under canon law, in complete liaison with the Vatican, with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.”

He said that this body would also work in coordination with other bishops’ conferences. “We want to be a step forward, we want to be proactive in such a crucial issue for the Catholic Church worldwide and also of course in Mexico.”

In February 2019, the presidents of national bishops’ conferences around the world will gather in Rome to meet with Pope Francis to address the issue of sexual abuse in the Church.

Bishop Miranda said the Mexican bishops will prepare “something more specific for the coming meeting in Rome which our new president of the CEM,” Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera of Monterrey, is scheduled to attend.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Brasilia, Brazil, Aug 7, 2018 / 03:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- Catholic churches throughout Brazil rang their bells at 3 p.m. Thursday to sound a warning regarding the possible decriminalization of abortion in the country.

The Aug. 2 initiative took place on the eve of a Supreme Federal Court hearing which was to consider the constitutionality of Brazil’s current law governing abortion. Abortion is permitted only in cases of rape, risk to the mother’s life, or if the fetus has anencephaly.

A suit was brought by the Socialism and Liberty Party, an opposition party which has six members in the Chamber of Deputies.

The hearing could allow for the legalization of elective abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation.

Debora Diniz, a law professor at the University of Brasilia and a pro-choice who testified before the court, received death threats in June, Reuters has reported.

The court has not set a date for its decision.

At a bell-ringing at the foot of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Orani Tempesta said that “we want to call to the attention of all of society the importance of life. Just as this fog is over Rio de Janeiro, today, we know that a threat always exists: the ‘culture of death’ which covers our country and all of humanity.”

He also expressed his desire that throughout Brazil the bells would “call attention to this important moment in our history with the aim of guaranteeing the inviolability of the right to life, set in stone in the constitution, changes or repeals resulting in the loss of fundamental rights therefore not being possible.”

Prior to the hearings, a number of bishops spoke out against the legalization of abortion, denouncing  judicial activism in support of this procedure and exhorting citizens to speak out in defense of life.

Archbishop Washington Cruz of Goiania, together with his auxiliaries and the Union of Catholic Jurists of Goiania, denounced the judicial activism which seeks to legalize abortion in Brazil after it could not pass the legislature.

“At no time did the National Congress fail to address the issue and they never allowed, as legitimate representatives of the entire nation, the normalization of this abominable practice of killing children in their mothers’ womb,” they said.

They charged that “the issue was run through the court to get around and exclude the National Congress from the legitimate and democratic debate which governs the legislative branch.”

“This act offends the constitutional organization of powers and constitutes activism within the Judicial Branch which is highly injurious to the foundations of the state of democratic rule of law in which we live, because it effects an invasion of the powers of the legislative branch by the judicial branch,” they added.

Bishop Odelir Magri of Chapecó said that  that “abortion is not an achievement, but a social tragedy that corrodes the very roots of human coexistence.”  

He also called on the Supreme Federal Court to “defend life from conception to natural death” and to guarantee the prerogative of the National Congress “as the body authorized to regulate the issue.”

Bishop Luiz Guedes of Campo Limpo noted that “the majority of the Brazilian population is pro-life and against abortion,” and what is happening is “an invasion of the ‘culture of death’ already denounced by St. John Paul II.”

To address this situation Bishop Francisco Bach of Joinville has urged the National Congress to pass the “Unborn Child Statute”.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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