Who is Rolando Álvarez, the bishop persecuted by the Nicaraguan dictatorship?

Caracas, Venezuela, Mar 26, 2019 / 03:03 pm (CNA).- The Justice and Peace Commission of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference has repudiated last week’s arrest of Roberto Marrero, chief of staff to opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

In the early hours of March 21, agents of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service stormed the homes of Marrero and Sergio Vergara, an opposition legislator and Merror’s neighbor.

Marrero was arrested along with his driver, Luis Páez. The Argentine daily Clarin reported that Marrero is being held in El Helicoide, a government facility often used to house political prisoners. He has been accused by the government of Nicolas Maduro of terrorism and treason.

Guaidó reported on Twitter that Marrero alerted him that the agents “planted two rifles and a grenade” in his house.

The Venezuelan bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission stated March 22 that it “repudiates” the detention of Marrero and the raid on Vergara, “in the face of the actions committed by officials of SEBIN, with the authorization of judges and the participation of prosecutors from the Public Prosecutor’s Office.”

They stated that these acts “attack and violate the fundamental rights provided for in our Magna Carta”, such as personal freedom and parliamentarian immunity, “which the members of the National Assembly enjoy in the exercise of their functions.”

“This ecclesial body laments these violations and denounces them to the pertinent bodies so that they may exercise and comply with the powers that the constitution and laws confer on them in order to restore the violated rights of these citizens,” they said.

The bishops’ conference’s commission reminded “the judicial officials, prosecutors of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the arresting police officers that they cannot justify their actions alleging compliance with orders from superiors. The consequent crimes of those actions are imprescriptible.”

“In accordance with our Magna Carta, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, we reiterate that no individual should be apprehended and deprived of his freedom by arbitrary decisions,” the bishops stated.

In face of this incident, they called on Venezuelans “not to lose hope and to trust in the power of Jesus Christ, which is the power of love.”

Under Maduro’s socialist administration, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval, with severe shortages and hyperinflation leading millions of Venezuelans to emigrate.

Guaidó declared himself interim president in January and has been recognized by a number of Western governments, but has been unable to secure the support of Venezuela’s military.

Caracas faced blackouts March 25-26. The government has blamed an attack by the opposition, while the opposition has noted decades of corruption and a lack of investment.

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Mexico City, Mexico, Apr 4, 2019 / 02:10 pm (CNA).- Fr. Hugo Valdemar, the canon penitentiary of the Archdiocese of Mexico, said Monday that through Spanish missionaries we have received from Spain “the greatest thing we Mexicans have, the true faith.”

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote last month to Pope Francis and the King of Spain, Felipe VI, asking for an apology for the abuses committed during conquest of Mexico by Spanish Catholics in the 16th century.

Spain dismissed López Obrador’s request, while the Vatican recalled that Pope Francis, as well as his predecessors, have asked forgiveness for the “many and grave sins” committed during the conquest of the Americas.

In his April 1 column at the Mexican publication Contra Réplica, Fr. Valdemar noted that “we cannot fall into an historical Manecheism without doing ourselves profound harm: that the good ones were the original peoples, almost in the state of original grace, and the bad ones were the Spanish conquistadors who came to destroy great cultures.”

“The historic truth is very complex, the truth is that the Spaniards didn’t make the conquest but the indigenous did, the peoples subjugated by the Aztec empire, tired of the cruelty and exploitation they were subjected to.”

“This resulted in entire peoples such as the Tlaxcaltecas joining the handful of 200 Spaniards, along with other subjugated peoples joining together, to make possible what just the Spanish alone could never had done,” he said.

The priest acknowledged that “there is no doubt that there were also excesses in planting the faith, but in reality, the Church and the missionaries were the great protectors of the indigenous peoples.”

“Thanks to them, their dignity as persons was recognized, they were freed from slavery, their culture was protected and above all, thanks to the Spanish Catholic Church the greatest gift came to us, faith in Jesus Christ, the sole savior of men, and Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, the model and star of evangelization, as John Paul II called her.”

Fr. Valdemar stressed that “it’s of no use to nurse and dwell on the wounds of the past, and the Nobel laureate in literature Octavio Paz has already spoken of the national trauma of not being able to properly integrate our dual origin: indigenous and Spanish.”

“From Spain we received through extraordinary missionaries such as Pedro de Gante, Motolinia, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, and Tata Vasco de Quiroga, the greatest thing we Mexicans have, the true faith, faith in Jesus Christ, and therefore access to eternal salvation, in addition to this very beautiful language we speak, Castilian Spanish, the suppression of the diabolical barbarism of human sacrifices and the darkness of idolatry, access to a superior culture, the occidental, of which we form a part today, and on the other hand we retain many of the values of the indigenous world, hospitality, a strong social sense and a sense of belonging, and the legacy of the monuments they left which today we show with pride to the millions of tourists who visit us.”

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Mexico City, Mexico, Jun 1, 2019 / 03:03 am (CNA).- Three bishops expressed their opposition to a bill that would expand the legalization of abortion in Hidalgo state in Mexico.

In a joint video message, the bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Hidalgo called on lawmakers to scrap the bill and encouraged citizens to put pressure on the legislators to vote “in favor of life.”

The bill which seeks to reform the Penal Code of Hidalgo, was introduced March 21 by representatives Areli Miranda of the Democratic Revolution Party, and Viridiana Aceves of the Social Encounter Party, along with more than a dozen representatives of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the party of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In the legislative proposal, the representatives state that “the embryo cannot be considered a person or human being before the first trimester of pregnancy is [concluded].”

Currently, abortion is decriminalized in Hidalgo in cases of rape up to 90 days from conception, and in cases of grave danger to the health of the mother or “serious genetic or congenital deformities” in the baby.

The bill seeks to decriminalize abortion on demand through the first trimester of pregnancy. In addition, the bill would allow abortion up to 6 months of pregnancy for minors, handicapped persons and in cases of rape.

Bishop Juan Pedro Juárez Meléndez of Tula stressed that “life is a fundamental and inalienable right and is the basis for all human rights.”

“As the day to pass or not pass the bill, to legalize or not legalize abortion, draws near, with respect and hope, we ask the citizen members of the (legislature) to cast their vote in favor of life,” he said.

“Abortion has no justification,” Juárez said. He lamented that “for more than 40 years, ideologies and big corporations have besieged life and have besieged the family.”

The bishop encouraged the priests in Hidalgo to “intensify evangelization and catechesis in favor of life and in favor of the family. In what we do or don’t do, we are playing with the future of our Hidalgo and the future of our Mexico.”

Archbishop Domingo Díaz Martínez of Tulancingo told the governor of Hidalgo, Omar Fayad Meneses, that expanding abortion will not serve the common good.

“Abortion is a problem, not a solution,” he said. “Defending life is the foundation for promoting the common good.”

Bishop José Hiraís Acosta Beltrán of Huejutla argued that “the people of Hidalgo aren’t asking for this law, don’t need this law and don’t deserve this law.”

He asked the faithful to contact their elected representatives and ask them to support life.

He also asked them to pray that the legislators would vote “in favor of life; the right of the will of the mother cannot be used against the right of the child to life.”

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