Chilean churches looted during protests

Montevideo, Uruguay, Mar 18, 2018 / 03:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An Uruguayan non-profit organization called “Godmothers for Life” has been serving mothers in crisis pregnancies for more than 17 years, working out of a facility at Saint Jerome Chapel in Montevideo.   

Offering talks, one-on-one conversations, and job training, these “godmothers” help vulnerable moms face their pregnancies with dignity and hope, and not to see abortion as the only way out of their situation.

Being chosen as a godparent is a significant honor in Latin America, where godparents are typically highly involved in the lives of their godchildren, which gives the group’s name a special meaning.

The organization has its origins in 2000 at Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Marta Grego and her husband traveled from Uruguay to visit the shrine where they experienced in prayer what they described as “Our Lady of Guadalupe’s call” to dedicate themselves to the cause of life.

Marta felt in her heart that God was asking her to fight abortion and save babies when she got back to Uruguay. However, she did not see a clear path forward at the time, because she was working and supporting her family. Nevertheless, she felt God telling her, “You take care of my things and I’ll take care of yours.”

When the couple returned to Uruguay, a pregnant woman rang their doorbell asking for food. She had made up her mind to get an abortion. That encounter was how Godmothers for Life got its start, with Marta Grego as its founder and director.

Although the original purpose of the organization was to help women decide to keep their babies, Teresa Rodriguez, the group’s current president, explained that they eventually saw “that besides the girls who wanted to abort, there were pregnant girls who were not thinking of aborting but were in a very vulnerable situation.”

In response, the group expanded its work by providing free job training courses and workshops on Christian and human formation, “always focusing on the mom and her baby, helping her to value motherhood, but also helping the family,” so they can find their way out of poverty. Currently, Godmothers for Life is serving about 60 at-risk women in Montevideo, relying solely on donations for their work.

“A bond is created between us and the mothers which is not based on dependency but on affection. We are one big family,” Rodriguez said.

In addition to their main location in Montevideo, Godmothers for Life has a place at Saint Eugene Chapel in the administrative district, where they care for an additional 60 women. They hope to extend the project to other areas of Uruguay. They have already begun plans in several other districts.

[…]

Mexico City, Mexico, Jun 11, 2019 / 03:03 pm (CNA).- The Mexican bishops’ conference expressed its concern Monday about the immigration and tariffs agreement reached between the governments of the United States and Mexico.

Mexico has agreed to take measures to reduce the number of migrants to the US, in order to avoid tariffs being imposed.

Some 6,000 National Guard troops will be assigned to Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, and some asylum seekers in the US will be sent to Mexico to wait while their claims are processed.

The Mexican bishops’ conference expressed “its concern for the lack of a truly humanitarian reception for our migrant brothers which reflects our convictions regarding the equal recognition and protection of the rights of all human beings” in a June 10 statement.

“Deploying 6,000 National Guard troops on the southern border is not a fundamental solution that addresses the true causes of the migration phenomenon. The fight against poverty and inequality in Mexico and Central America seems to be replaced by fear of the other, our brother,” the bishops said.

“If we as Mexicans have rejected the construction of a wall, we ourselves can’t become that wall,” they added.

For the bishops’ conference “it is completely legitimate and necessary to make courageous decisions to avoid the imposition of tariffs on Mexican products traded with the United States.” Nevertheless, the bishops said, “our migrant brothers must never be a bargaining chip.”

The Church will continue to be committed “without hesitation to provide migrants with the humanitarian aid they require in their transit through our national territory,” the said.

“And so we express our respect and gratitude to the thousands of men and women of the Catholic Church, other churches, and civil society, who for decades have defended, at the risk of their lives, the fundamental rights of migrants in Mexico, the United States, and Central America.”

Bishop Alfonso Gerardo Miranda Guardiola, auxiliary bishop of Monterrey and secretary general of the Mexican bishops’ conference, told CNA that the Church’s care for migrants continues “both in Tapachula, particularly at the entrance point into Mexico, and the country’s north, as well as in all the migrant centers that we have, thanks be to God, provided throughout the national territory.”

“They remain full to the brim and the assistance continues day by day,” Bishop Miranda noted.

He lamented that “this feeling and this attitude of xenophobia, of rejection of the migrant, has arisen in many Mexicans.”

“An anti-immigrant climate or a climate of the criminalization of the migrant has arisen in many parts of Mexico, as if they all were thieves or evildoers.”

For the prelate, it is clear that out of a country “come all kinds of people, but there is a factor at the origin which has to do with violence, poverty and the lack of opportunities, on the levels of education and jobs and also driven by threats from criminal gangs.”

For the Church, he recalled, to assist migrants is to follow “the direct command of Jesus.”

“Even today, in today’s Mass, there are the Beatitudes. That’s our creed, that’s our doctrine, by which we govern our actions: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, no matter if it’s a migrant or a Mexican.”

“It is a person suffering need, so we extend a hand,” he said.

Bishop Miranda pointed out that the causes of migration and how governments address them “are not the Church’s direct responsibility, that belongs to the governments, the international organizations.”

“The Church, Christians, when we see a brother suffering, who’s hurting, we can’t be indifferent, we can’t deprive him of his rights.”

The bishop also emphasized that neither Mexico nor the United States are isolated from the migration problem, and he encouraged “a dialogue, negotiations, international agreements in which large scale solutions are sought.”

If they are not resolved on a global level, he said, “we’re just going to patch up the problems but not provide fundamental solutions.”

As to what pertains to the Church, he added, “it will not cease to do its work on the individual level, the family level, on the level of persons. But politics, in the highest sense of the term, does not just look to the common good of the nation, but also the international, global common good.”

“Sooner or later the repercussions will be global and sooner or later any country that closes itself up is going to suffer the inescapable consequences, because we are all connected,”  he concluded.

[…]

The flogging of Christ. / Credit: Public Domain – Wikimedia Commons

ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 6, 2023 / 13:45 pm (CNA).
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