Fire devastates historic church and Franciscan convent in Chile; arson not ruled out

President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala speaks during on online event organized by The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 6, 2021. / Courtesy of Secretaría de Comunicación Social de la Presidencia de Guatemala

Washington D.C., … […]

Chihuahua, Mexico, May 8, 2018 / 01:55 pm (ACI Prensa).- Bishop José Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua state, Mexico, conferred the Sacrament of Confirmation on 15 inmates at the prison that Pope Francis visited in 2016.

The May 4 ceremony at the Social Readaptation Center No. 3. was organized by the prison ministry of Ciudad Juarez with the support of the prosecutor’s office.

The prison ministry helps prepare inmates who want to receive the sacraments of Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation.

Relatives were permitted to attend the ceremony. The Attorney General’s Office of the State of Chihuahua assured that the ceremony was conducted “under all necessary security measures and with complete respect for freedom of worship.”

The Attorney General’s Office also stated that “this type of activity” is carried out in accordance with the Law on Prison Sentences, “which provides that every inmate must be treated with dignity by the prison staff.”

During his trip to Mexico in 2016, Pope Francis visited the prison on Feb. 17. The pope said that the inmates “have known the power of suffering and sin,” and urged them to “not forget that you have available to you the power of the resurrection, the power of divine mercy which makes all things new.”

“Now you have to face the toughest, the hardest part, but which possibly may bear the most fruit, fight from within here to work to change the situations the create more exclusion,” he said.

“Work so that this society with uses people and throws them away will not go on claiming victims,” he asked them.
 

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

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Mexico City, Mexico, Jul 30, 2020 / 11:52 am (CNA).- The Mexican Bishops’ Conference hailed the Supreme Court’s 4-1 decision striking down a lower court ruling that had ordered the state of Veracruz to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

“Today in Mexico the culture of life is triumphing,” the conference tweeted after the Supreme Court announced its ruling Wednesday.

The conference thanked “each and every one who joined together to pray and to raise their voices.”

Veracruz state’s constitution protects life from conception to natural death, and state law provides few exceptions.

However, a legal challenge alleged that the ban on abortion constituted discrimination against women. A lower court had instructed state lawmakers to enact legislation allowing for abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The state appealed, and the case was sent to the first bench of the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court had upheld the lower court ruling, it would have opened the door to the legalization of abortion throughout the country. Currently, only Mexico City and Oaxaca state have legalized abortion on demand up to 12 weeks’ gestation.

Supreme Court Justice Juan Luis González Alcántara Carrancá, nominated to the bench in 2018 by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, presented arguments backing the lower court’s ruling and was the only judge to vote in favor of it.

Voting against were justices Norma Lucía Piña Hernández, Margarita Ríos Farjat, Jorge Mario Pardo Rebolledo and Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena.

Auxiliary bishop Alfonso Miranda of Monterrey, Guardiola, secretary general of the Mexican bishops’ conference, posted on Twitter after the ruling, “Thank you. Blessed be God. #Yes to life.”

The Archdiocese of Mexico City tweeted that “today life won in Veracruz–and in the country itself–thanks to the Supreme Court’s rejection of the effort to decriminalize abortion in the state, recognizing that this procedure is not a right in any law, whether national or international.”

In the run up to the vote, the Mexican bishops’ conference and other pro-life organizations had spoken out strongly against the expansion of legal abortion.

More than 200 local and federal legislators, joined by more than 200 jurists, had presented an open letter to the Supreme Court on July 28, asking them to overturn the lower court’s decision.

In addition, more than 200,000 people signed a CitizenGO petition asking the Supreme Court to reject the appeal and defend the right to life.

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.

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