Crisis pregnancy center opens in Argentina shanty town

Iquique, Chile, Jan 18, 2018 / 07:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At Mass in Iquique Thursday morning, Pope Francis drew attention to the care Mary shows at the Wedding at Cana, pointing to her as an example of how we can help others share in the joy and celeb… […]

San Justo, Argentina, May 9, 2018 / 12:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When Fr. Juan Carlos Cagliani goes on prison visits, he is not only seeking to bring Christ to the inmates, but to encounter Christ in them as well.

“I’m not going to bring Christ to the prison, I am going to meet Christ in the prison. I am not bringing Jesus, I am going to meet Jesus!” said of priest, who belongs to the Diocese of San Justo in Argentina.

Fr. Cagliani, who has spent 37 years working with prisoners, participated in the Prison Ministry Regional Meeting held in Neuquén, Argentina, April 28-30.

The theme of the regional meeting was “Where is your brother?” (Genesis 4:9) In addition to ministers, government officials were present and spoke about recent changes to the Criminal Code.

Approximately 70 delegates from the Diocese of Patagonia listened to the presentation given by Fr. Cagliani, who said that “to embrace Christ behind bars is to discover the merciful gesture of knowing that we love each other as brothers.”

“You begin to discover the face of Christ in those faces, where you don’t look at the crime but only go to find the love and mercy that come from God,” he said. “You find in those visits, in that human contact, in that closeness, in that presence, in that sharing, a God who loves you.”

The priest said that he experiences the love of God when he encounters each particular brother or sisters who is serving a sentence in prison.

“Often hated, cursed by so many brothers, including Christians, and they don’t realize that Jesus is there in that place.”

Bishop Pedro Maria Laxague of Viedma, a member of the Bishops’ Prison Ministry Commission, said that “God challenges us to take responsibility for our brothers.”

“He invites all of us to shepherd our brothers, the way he did,” the bishop said.

Bishop Laxague also noted that “prison ministry challenges us to be a Church closer to the people.”

He suggested that “the world of the prison” reveals underlying problems in society.

“Many things are going wrong in the neighborhoods, in the cities, in the towns,” he said, “and that is where all of us who are baptized live, where we carry out our service.”
 
 

[…]

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 14, 2018 / 02:03 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Argentine Bishops’ Conference will release to the justice system, in accordance with Pope Francis’ wishes, dozens of baptismal records from the country’s dictatorship period.

The conference said it will release the records of 127 baptisms performed in the Stella Maris chapel of the Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada, a naval school for technical instruction in Buenos Aires.

The school functioned as one of the largest clandestine centers for detention, torture and extermination during the military dictatorship in power from 1976 to 1983.

The Military Diocese recently found the records, which will be turned over to federal judge Sergio Gabriel Torres and attorney general Pablo Parenti.

According to the Associated Press, local courts have discovered a “systematic plan of stealing the children of disappeared women and illegally adopting them out during the dictatorship.” After detained women gave birth, the children were reportedly given new identities and illegally adopted out to military families.

However, the records to be turned over by the local Church are not believed to be illegally adopted children of the detained-disappeared, but rather children of soldiers who were baptized, said Bishop Santiago Olivera of the Military Diocese.

He clarified to the Argentine National News Agency Telam that an investigation into the records will bring certainty on this point.

“Sharing the sentiments and earnest desire of the Holy Father, the Argentine Bishops’ Conference is making available to the justice system the totality of the recorded information and the aforementioned documentation, in continuity with the procedures of this conference as to the requirements of the justice system in recent years,” the committee said in a statement.

They also stressed that “these records can be accessible to well-recognized human rights organizations and researchers from various academic fields.”

“We have the firm conviction that the Church must maximize its efforts to contribute to the path of remembrance, truth and justice in all fields, especially in face of the gravity of the crimes against humanity perpetrated under State Terrorism,” the statement said.

The Executive Committee of the Argentine Bishop’s Conference also stressed its “commitment to immediately inform the judicial authorities of any data and information that may come forth in the future.”

In January this year, Pope Francis authorized the publication of the chapel’s baptismal records when he met in the Vatican with the Bishop for the Military Diocese, Santiago Olivera, Telam reported.

Also with the Holy Father’s authorization, the Vatican initiated a system in October 2016 for relatives of those who were detained-disappeared to access the archives that the Holy See has on the dictatorship in Argentina.

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

[…]