Mexican archbishop laments attack on priest, death of taxi driver

July 27, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Mexico City, Mexico, Jul 27, 2019 / 04:47 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Carlos Garfias of Morelia expressed his solidarity with the Diocesis of Tlapa and with their bishop, Dagoberto Sosa, after a recent attack against a priest that resulted in the death of his taxi driver.

Fr. Juvenal Candía Mosso was shot in the city of Cuernavaca while riding in a taxi for a prison ministry meeting, the archdiocese said in a July 23 statement. The priest was shot and taken to the hospital. The driver was also injured in the attack, and died from his wounds.

According to local media, the attack took place Monday night in front of San José Seminary in the village of Chamilpa, part of metro Cuernavaca.

“We lament the death of the taxi driver who was transporting Fr. Juvenal and with pray for the prompt recovery of the priest who was wounded,” said Archbishop Garfias, who is also the vice president of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference.

“Above all we join in prayer that peace reign in all of our communities. May all of us be committed to continue to strive to build peace in our country in face of the alarming situation of violence that is being experienced,” he added.

“May Mary Most Holy, Our Lady Health of the Sick, Mother of the Holy Family of Nazareth, intercede for us, intercede for Fr. Juvenal Candía Mosso, and help all of us to imitate her son Jesus, who invites and calls us to live in his peace.”

Recent months have seen an uptick in violence in Mexico, including violence against priests. Some two dozen priests have been killed in the country since 2012, according to reports.

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Colombian bishop to bless entire city to counter violence

July 11, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Buenaventura, Colombia, Jul 11, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA).- Bishop Rubén Darío Jaramillo Montoya of Buenaventura will perform blessings throughout his cathedral city Saturday, hoping to counter it’s extreme violence, including kidnappings and murders.

Buenaventura is Colombia’s main port on the Pacific, and so is a key point in the international drug trade.

In recent years, Human Rights Watch has said the city’s neighborhoods are controlled by “paramilitary successor groups” which engage in extortion and violence.

Bishop Jaramillo had originally shared the idea of performing a blessing on the city from a helicopter. The news has been erroneously reported by some media as an exorcism.

The Bishop of Buenaventura told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, July 10 that the blessing will be done July 13, but not from a helicopter.

“We are going to form a line of vehicles with a firetruck and a statue of Saint Bonaventure. We’re going to go to all locations, to the most difficult neighborhoods where people have been killed in recent years,” he explained.

The caravan and the people who will be waiting throughout the city “will form a people who are going to reinterpret those places of death so they will now be places of life,” Jaramillo said.

At every place the caravan stops, the bishop will offer a prayer, there will be a hymn, and the community will gather together to hear a testimony. “We’re going to pray for the victims and to then do a blessing,” he said.

“Where blood flowed, where blood was shed, we are now going to pour holy water as a sign of reparation at the place where those who died were struck down by violence,” the bishop stated.

Last month, the prelate told Agenzia Fides, “we’ve had 54 violent deaths so far this year, but there are a lot of people who have disappeared. And people don’t report it. The problem is there is still not a culture of reporting because there is fear, we have a society that is afraid to report.”

The bishop also denounced the existence of so-called “torture chambers” or “chop-up houses” where people who were kidnapped are tortured and killed because they got in the way of or did not support gangs and organized crime, something thought to have disappeared in 2015.

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