Amid Colombia protests, archbishop urges overcoming visceral hatred with the love of God

Mexico City, Mexico, Dec 12, 2018 / 05:40 pm (ACI Prensa).- With 26 priests murdered in the last six years, Mexico received a prominent mention in the 2018 Report on Religious Freedom in the World, recently published by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Julieta Appendini, ACN’s director in Mexico, explained that although the country is not experiencing “a persecution such as in the Middle East,” where religious minorities are being killed, they are instead seeing “new forms of persecution.”

The majority of the murders of priests are due to their “getting in the way” of organized crime and drug trafficking, since the priests “provide stability to society,” Appendini told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency.

She added that confrontations between Catholics and Protestants in southern Mexico are also recorded in the ACN report, as well as cases of looting churches and extortion.

The ACN director in Mexico explained that the religious freedom report analyzes the right to religious liberty in 106 countries.

“Every two years, we see how each country is doing based on this right which is founded on Article 18 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights,” she said.

Appendini said the situation in 2018 “has gotten worse,” since “in 38 countries out of 196 there is serious, heavy persecution and discrimination,” which is primarily concentrated in the Middle East and Africa.

In addition to China and Russia, India is also a critical case, where the government promotes Hinduism and encourages discrimination and repression of religious minorities such as Christians.

“Out of the world’s population, 61 percent, we’re talking 2.5 billion people, live in a country where there is religious persecution or discrimination.”

Faced with this situation, she said, ACN is seeking to inform and raise awareness, encourage prayer, and be bridges of charity.

“The foundation has helped financially, through all the donations of our benefactors throughout the world, especially for the persecuted Christians,” she said.

Appendini said that ACN has provided “emergency aid on all levels. Not just with spiritual support, but with food, building their churches, schools, and with emergency aid so they can survive.”

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

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Eduardo Verástegui attends "Familia y Entretenimiento" press conference as a part of second day of XIV World Congress of Families Mexico 2022 at Expo Santa Fe México on Oct. 1, 2022, in Mexico City. / Credit: Jaime Nogales/Medios y Med… […]

Puebla, Mexico, Sep 21, 2017 / 02:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sept. 19, a family in Puebla, Mexico was attending the baptism of their daughter when a 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook the church, cracking the dome above them, which collapsed and fell on top of them.

At least 11 people were killed when the Church of Saint James the Apostle collapsed, including the baby Elideth Torres de Leon, there for her baptism, her sister, mother, godmother, and a local alderman named Jacinto Roldan Capistran.

Graciano Villanueva, Elideth’s godfather, managed to escape from the wreckage, along with the church’s pastor and sacristan.

Villanueva told the El Universal newspaper that he lost his wife in the earthquake, along with his daughter, his son-in-law and his two granddaughters. “I have nothing left of my family,” he said.

One of Villanueva’s relatives told reporters that the victims died while they were praying, and therefore “the only thing left to do is to resign oneself to the Lord’s will.”

After the earthquake, the people of the town of Atzala worked all night to recover bodies lying beneath the ruins of the 17th century church.

On Wednesday morning they placed the bodies they managed to remove in coffins and wrote their names on them. Dozens of people came by to pray and to leave flowers.

The El Sol de Puebla newspaper reported that after the dome fell, three injured people were taken to a hospital and that two people remain unaccounted for.

Shortly after the earthquake, the Archdiocese of Puebla released a statement expressing their condolences to the families of those who died in the church.

“We profoundly lament the deaths that occurred due to the quake, especially the…people who died because of the collapse of the church in Atzala near Chietla; and the three in Jolopan,” the text states.

The Archdiocese of Puebla said in the statement released this Wednesday that there are 163 damaged churches in their jurisdiction, including the Church of Saint James the Apostle.

They also encouraged people to “stay calm, be attentive to directions from the authorities, be in solidarity with those asking us for help and not risk our lives and those of others unnecessarily.”

On Wednesday, the auxiliary bishops of Puebla, Rutilo Felipe Pozos Lorenzini and Tomás López Durán, celebrated a Funeral Mass in Aztala for those who died in Saint James the Apostle Church.

To date, the 7.1-magnitude earthquake has left more than 200 dead throughout the country, including 43 in Puebla state, which was one of the hardest hit.

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