Church asks Mexican president-elect to promote reconciliation to ‘achieve social peace’

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 20, 2024 / 15:06 pm (CNA).

With Claudia Sheinbaum set to take office as Mexico’s new president on Oct. 1, Catholic Church leadership in the country’s capital is calling on elected officials and citizens alike to “work together as a country for reconciliation.”

Sheinbaum, who won the June 2 presidential election representing the political alliance Let’s Keep Making History — made up of MORENA, the Labor Party, and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico — will succeed outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In an Aug. 18 editorial published in its weekly Desde la Fe, the Archdiocese of Mexico urged the president-elect to take advantage of the transition process to “build a reconciliation with solid foundations, which will help overcome the conflicts that divide us, strengthen national unity, and open the doors to dialogue and mutual listening.”

The invitation was also extended to the legislators of the federal congress who will take office on Sept. 1 as well as to the head of government of Mexico City and the new governors of Chiapas, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Morelos, Tabasco, Puebla, Veracruz, and Yucatán, who will take office before the end of the year.

The Archdiocese of Mexico clarified that reconciliation does not imply “deciding for the other, nor pigeonholing everyone into preestablished schemes” but rather “learning to walk together.”

“When we talk about reconciliation, we are referring to reconciling ourselves with the incidents that have hurt us, that have caused us suffering, with the memory that has been wounded and the injustices that have been suffered,” the archdiocese said.

The Mexican capital city’s archdiocese emphasized that reconciliation should not be a “fragile peace” or an “imposed embrace,” warning that if it were based on “individualistic foundations and partial interests, it runs the risk of breaking down quickly.”

In addition, it invited citizens to join this collective work, since “building a united country requires combined efforts.” The archdiocese pointed out that “most reconciliation activities occur in small groups, in families, among friends, at work, and from there they grow to strengthen an action that can unite millions.”

“We are convinced that this is how we can achieve social peace,” the archdiocese stated.

Finally, it proposed “Jesus on the cross” as an example of reconciliation, pointing out that his witness shows that “he embraces everyone and everything, and shows the peace that comes from the heart.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.