Dominican bishops encourage citizens to respect life at all stages

July 13, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Jul 13, 2018 / 03:50 pm (ACI Prensa).- The bishops’ conference of the Dominican Republic published Wednesday a statement affirming the importance for the Church of forming persons to value and respect life in all its stages.

“The bishops, conscience of the challenges facing our society, consider the integral formation of a human being to permit him to value and to respect life in all its stages a very important challenge,” reads the July 11 statement from the Dominican bishops. The nation’s episcopal conference had held a plenary assembly July 1-6.

The bishops’ focus on respect for life comes as various groups, including the Christian Alliance of the Dominican Republic, press for the decriminalization of abortion in cases of the mother’s life, fetal inviability, or rape.

Moreover, the bishops said there must be work done “so that the people do not let themselves be discouraged, because what the Church encourages is that we fight for all lives. We have reaffirmed, before science, law, and before God that no-one has the right to condemn to death an innocent, and much less an indefensible child.”

“We promote public policies, which rather than leading to death, are the foundation for defending all human rights, beginning with the first and most important: the life of all,” they exhorted.

The bishops also noted that they are anticipating the celebration of the 525th anniversary of the first known Mass to have been said in the Americas, on Epiphany in 1494.

That Mass was said during Columbus’ second voyage to the New World, on the northern coast of Hispaniola, in what is now the Dominican Republic.

“The congresses, pilgrimages, and gatherings around this festivity demonstrate to us a Church which responds to its faith, despite the great challenges which continue regarding evangelizing and revealing the face of the love of God, amid a society seduced by evil, and the boredom of the realities which it suffers.”

 

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

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They lost everything in Peru’s floods. Now they’re asking for Bibles.

April 25, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Lima, Peru, Apr 25, 2017 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop José Antonio Eguren of Piura and Tumbes, Peru visited the inhabitants of one of the areas most affected by the recent floods in northern Peru, who asked him to help them get some Bibles.

According to the Archdiocese of Piura, a group of victims from the Pedregal Chico settlement in Baja Piura approached the archbishop last week and asked him for some Bibles because the ones they had were lost in the flood.

“They said that the Word of God is essential for them and for the continuity of their family catechetical programs and ongoing catechesis they have implemented in their village,” said a news brief from the archdiocese.

Archbishop Eguren promised to get the Bibles and assured the victims that “the love of God does not abandon them nor has he forgotten them.”

The archbishop, accompanied by volunteers and authorities from the charitable group Caritas, brought three tons of food supplies for the more than 300 families in this area, who were hard hit by the Piura River overflowing in recent weeks.

The river waters obliterated homes, workshops, plazas, ranches and farm fields, completely flooding the village and reaching a level of five feet.

To save their lives, the villagers had to leave everything behind and flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Much of the village has been buried under a thick layer of much. Some 80 percent of the homes have been demolished, while rice and cotton fields have been destroyed.

Today, the almost 1800 inhabitants of this village, devoted mainly to farming and handicrafts, “spend the day in makeshift and uncomfortable tents, without basic services, living together with sickness and extreme poverty,” the Archdiocese of Piura reported.

“They just ask that we don’t forget about their situation and that we help them so they can recover.”

“They are people of deep faith and despite everything they have suffered they have not lost hope or the desire to go on, since they’re sure that with the help of the love of God, their desire to work and our aid they will be able to again see their people better off than before,” the news brief concludes.  

 

 

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