Bishops attacked by pro-government mob at basilica in Nicaragua

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2020 / 05:57 pm (CNA).- A total of 434 human rights organizations from 16 countries have released a manifesto condemning the push from external groups to promote abortion in their nations during the coronavirus pandemic.

The “International Manifesto for the Right to Life” was delivered this week to the foreign ministry offices of Costa Rica, Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador.

It repudiates the U.N.’s Humanitarian Response Plan COVID-19 for Ecuador, which requires “safe, legal abortion” as a condition for aid.

The plan claims to be “humanitarian aid” but “includes a $3 million allocation to train health care personnel in so-called ‘safe and legal abortion,’ in violation of the Constitution and Ecuadoran laws,” the manifesto says.

The manifesto also rejects the “Joint Statement on Protecting Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Promoting Gender-responsiveness in the COVID-19 Crisis” signed by representatives of 59 countries – including Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru – which promotes access to abortion.

The International Manifesto for the Right to Life argues that there is a major disconnect between the efforts to promote abortion and the broader society’s focus on safeguarding human life amid the coronavirus crisis. Many of the countries in question have protections in their constitutions, criminal codes, and civil codes to protect human life of the moment of conception, the document notes.

Instead of advocating for pro-abortion policies, the right to life manifesto calls for a “focus on public policies based on human dignity, and for effectively putting an end to any attempt to interfere with or attack the sovereignty of our countries, in particular coming from the U.N. and its principal agencies.” It pointed specifically to the United Nations Population Fund, UN Women, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

Martha Villafuerte, a representative of Ecuador for the Family, argued that international aid “must come without conditions or financial coercion.” She noted that Ecuador currently has the highest level of coronavirus deaths per capita recorded in Latin America.

“[I]t is unacceptable to try to take advantage of the situation to slip in through the back door a crime that the Constitution rejects,” she said.

Luis Losada, director of CitizenGO Campaigns for Latin America, called the U.N. effort to promote abortion in Ecuador a textbook example of “ideological interference.” A CitizenGO petition opposing the international pressure for abortion has garnered more than 32,000 signatures.

“[The international interference] violates the statutes of the United Nations that expressly commit it to not interfere in national policies or legislation, respecting the sovereignty of nations,” Losada said. “It violates the Constitution of Ecuador that protects the right to life from the moment of conception. And it violates the parliamentary debate (in Ecuador) that took place last year on the proposal to decriminalize abortion, which fortunately did not succeed.”

Losada said the U.N.’s humanitarian proposal is “an insult not only to the sovereignty of Ecuador but to that of the rest of the countries in the region, which take note of the impunity with which this interference is being done.”

“[T]he government of Ecuador must defend its sovereignty, national dignity, the Constitution and the right to life by rejecting this illegal and immoral proposal by the United Nations,” he said.

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

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Aboard the papal plane, Jan 15, 2018 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- En route from Italy to Chile on Monday, Pope Francis told journalists of his concerns about war, and especially the use of nuclear weapons, giving each of them a photo of a child in Nagasaki.

On the back of the photo is printed “the fruits of war”, and it is signed by Pope Francis.

“I was moved when I saw this photo, and I dared to write only ‘the fruits of war’. I thought of printing it to distribute it because it is more moving than 1,000 words,” the Pope told journalists Jan. 15.

The photo is of a boy carrying the body of his brother while in line at a crematorium in Nagasaki in the wake of the Aug. 9, 1945 atomic bombing of the city by the US.

Pope Francis made his remarks at the beginning of the nearly 16 hour flight.

He also noted that he studied in Chile for a year and knows the country well. He will also be visiting Peru, where he has visited two or three times.

The Pope will be in Chile through Jan. 18, visiting Santiago, Temuco, and Iquique. He will have lunch with the Mapuche residents of the Araucania region, and visit the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

From Chile he will go to Peru, visiting Lima, Puerto Maldonado, and Trujillo. He will meet with indigenous Amazonians and pray before the relics of Peruvian saints before returning to Rome Jan. 22.

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Gabriel Boric, who won the 2021 Chilean presidential election, speaks after a candidates’ debate, Oct. 10, 2021. / Mediabanco Agencia via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Concepción, Chile, Dec 21, 2021 / 14:22 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib of Concepción has expressed his hope that Gabriel Boric Font, Chile’s president elect, “will recognize and value the religious soul of the Chilean people.”

Boric, of the Apruebo Dignidad alliance, won the Dec. 19 runoff presidential election.

Out of almost 15 million registered voters in the country and abroad, about 8.3 million people voted. Of these, Boric won 55.87% or about 4.6 million votes; while his opponent José Antonio Kast of the Christian Social Front coalition won 44.13% or about 3.6 million votes.

The 35-year-old president-elect will succeed Sebastián Piñera in March 2022 and will serve a four year term. In his campaign platform Boric proposed the incorporation of a feminist perspective, the implementation of policies such as “legal, free and safe abortion on demand”, and changes to the gender identity law.

To carry out his political agenda, Boric will have to negotiate with the Senate, whose political affiliations lean slightly to the right.

In the Chamber of Deputies, 44% of the 155 representatives are on the right of the political spectrum and the rest consists of the left and other parties.

Archbishop Chomali, who is vice president of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference’s Standing Committee, told the El Mercurio newspaper Dec. 20 that he hopes Boric “will recognize the immense work that the Church and so many other institutions do” and that the new president will value “the family as the place where people learn to grow”  and as such is an “irreplaceable source of happiness.”

The prelate said he hopes Boric will act decisively on behalf of the vulnerable such as the unborn child in the womb, the patient in a hospital bed, the immigrant on the border without documents, the homeless, or the disabled.

Archbishop Chomali also encouraged Boric to promote employment, “because it is a privileged path to overcome the poverty that afflicts so many Chileans.”

“I hope he sets an example of probity and works on everything necessary to end corruption, cronyism and quotas of all kinds as they are a significant source of injustice,” he added.

The Archbishop of Concepción said he hopes Boric “will never under any circumstances endorse violence in any form, wherever it comes from.”

“Lastly, I hope it goes well for him in his presidential term,” Archbishop Chomali concluded.

The Chilean Bishops’ Conference  reminded the president-elect that the “country has expressed a vote of confidence and entrusts you with a great mission, destined to direct the destiny of our country as its first authority and first servant.”

“We pray that God will give you his wisdom and his strength, which you will undoubtedly need,” the conference said.

“The mission is always greater than our possibilities and capabilities, but we trust that—with the collaboration of citizens, the work of various social and political actors, and the spiritual strength that comes from faith and from the deepest human convictions—you can face your task with generosity, commitment and prudence,”

The bishops also said that the Catholic Church in Chile “wants to continue contributing, from its particular mission, to building a more just and fraternal humanity, where especially the poor and those who suffer are respected in their dignity.”

“Count on our support and prayer, and on the contribution of our pastoral action, which we will always develop with due respect for the democratic order of our country and its legitimately elected authorities,” the message concluded.

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