Pope accepts resignation of two more Chilean bishops

Luis Manuel Díaz, father of soccer player Luis Díaz (center), along with Francisco Ceballos, bishop of Riohacha (right), and Monsignor Héctor Henao, delegate for Church-state relations, who formed the humanitarian commission in charge of facilitating Díaz’s release. / Credit: Episcopal Conference of Colombia

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 9, 2023 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

The Colombian Bishops’ Conference thanked God for the release of Luis Manuel Díaz, father of soccer player Luis Díaz, who was held captive for nearly two weeks by the rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN).

“We thank God for the release of Mr. Luis Díaz! Already with him are Francisco Ceballos, bishop of Riohacha, and Monsignor Héctor Henao, delegate for Church-state relations, who formed the humanitarian commission in charge of facilitating his release,” the conference said in a post on X on Nov. 9.

The father of the soccer star, who plays for the English Liverpool team, had been kidnapped along with his wife, Cilenis Marulanda, by the guerrillas in the town of Barrancas, in La Guajira Department. Cilenis Marulanda was released by the kidnappers during the search that the authorities launched upon learning of the abduction.

The Colombian bishops shared two photos showing Díaz’s father accompanied by Henao and Ceballos.

According to Semana magazine, investigations indicate that the kidnapping was planned for at least five months.

The kidnapping ignited controversy especially because it took place during the bilateral cease-fire agreed upon between the government and the guerrillas — which began on Aug. 3 — as part of the talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement.

On Nov. 3, the Colombian Bishops’ Conference issued a statement condemning any kind of kidnapping and called for the release of Luis Manuel Díaz. The bishops offered their willingness to “collaborate in whatever is necessary so that there is not a single human being experiencing the harsh conditions of kidnapping.”

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

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Acts of vandalism at the Bolivian bishops’ conference in La Paz, Oct. 27, 2021. / ACI Prensa.

La Paz, Bolivia, Oct 29, 2021 / 18:33 pm (CNA).

Bolivia’s People’s Ombudsman, Nadia Cruz, together with officials from her office, led a Wednesday march to the offices of the Bolivian bishops’ conference, which some participants vandalized with anti-Catholic slogans.

Under the Bolivian constitution, the People’s Ombudsman’s Office is charged with defending human rights, functioning independently of the government.

The Oct. 27 march took place after some governmental institutions and the Bolivian and international press charged that the Catholic Church in Bolivia had intervened or forced an 11-year-old girl, who was pregnant from rape, to refuse to have an abortion, continue with the pregnancy, and be transferred to a shelter.

Several organizations tried to get the minor to have an abortion; however, the girl and her mother objected.

The girl was discharged from the hospital Oct. 26 and in an Oct. 27 handwritten letter, formally desisted from going ahead with the abortion. The minor was later transferred to a shelter run by the Catholic Church in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a decision made by the Ombudsman’s Office for Children and Adolescents.

Since then, the charitable action of the Church in Bolivia has been met with attacks and accusations of alleged interference in the decisions of the minor’s family.

Images from Oct. 27 show graffiti and signs stuck to the walls of the bishops’ offices with various pro-abortion messages such as: “no child mothers,” “rapists,” “they’re not pro-life they’re pro-rape,” “get your rosaries off our ovaries,” “if there is rape there is (abortion),” “rapists and perverse priests.” Some signs appear to have been made by children.

In a video, dozens of people can be seen outside the bishops’ offices protesting.

In a statement given to the program “No Lies” which the PAT television network airs, Dr. Susana Inch, the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference’s legal advisor, said that “several of those who were in the attack wore the vests of the Ombudsman’s Office.” Inch said a complaint will be filed against the agency since as “there is property damage” and “the people have been identified.”

“It’s absurd, the way they did it,” she said, and that all legal issues “will be dealt with in the legal system.”

In the same interview, Cruz said she led the violent demonstration.

“If the Bishops’ Conference is concerned about the participation of the Ombudsman’s Office, because it has identified the Ombudsman’s vests, I say to them that I personally went and led the demonstration from the Ombudsman’s Office to the Bishops’ Conference in the exercise of our functions in order to denounce the human rights violations that the Church is committing at this time,” she said.

“If you’re so concerned about property, we wouldn’t be surprised if you are concerned about property and not about the cases of torture that you are carrying out,” she added.

In a statement to the BBC, Cruz accused the Catholic Church and pro-life groups of putting pressure on the girl and her mother “to change their minds and desist from going ahead to terminate the pregnancy.”

The minor became pregnant in the city of Yapacaní in the Santa Cruz administrative district after suffering repeated sexual abuse by her 61-year-old grandfather, who is now under arrest. The girl is 21 weeks pregnant.

Víctor Hugo Valda, the bishops’ Delegate for Health of the Archdiocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister news agency, that the Church didn’t interfere or intervene in any way and that as of this moment “no one has spoken not even with the girl nor with the mother.”

“What the Church did was appear in person on Monday at the hospital so that the voice of the girl and the mother who didn’t want to interrupt the pregnancy be respected, and because in addition, forcing her to have an abortion would be a crime. The Church was present for that and to ask about the girl’s condition,” he explained.

Valda also criticized that the Church is being “accused of abducting” the minor.

“To be clear, the institution that made the decision as to where the girl has to go, and that physically transferred the girl, from (the hospital) to the shelter, was the Ombudsman’s Office for Children and Adolescents,” he noted.

The bishops’ delegate for health also reiterated that the Church wasn’t “physically present during the transfer of the minor nor did it participate in the decisions about the girl.”

“They decided to take the girl to this home after the Church publicly offered it,” he stressed.

The bishops’ General Secretariat urged the country’s authorities Oct. 26 to respect and protect the right to life and health of the 11-year-old girl and her unborn baby.

“Both lives deserve to be and must be protected. We affirm that both the rights of the girl, as well as those of the baby growing in her womb, must be protected, since both are innocent and victims of a criminal act” which the perpetrator must be held responsible for,”  the Bishops’ Conference said in an Oct. 26 statement.

The bishops stressed “that no one can be forced to perform abortions, not even given the seriousness of sexual violence, because abortion in Bolivia is a crime, even on grounds where it has been decriminalized (such as rape) and no one can be forced, not even the healthcare personnel, to commit this crime.”

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Lima, Peru, May 23, 2018 / 11:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- The bishops of Peru have launched a campaign to collect funds to provide for the basic needs of Venezuelan refugees living in the country.

The Peruvian bishops’ conference announced the collection will take place June 3, during the day’s scheduled Masses.

According to Caritas International, about four million people have left Venezuela due to the grave economic crisis marked by a major shortage of food and medicine under the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro, the president of the country since 2013. Maduro was re-elected May 20 in questionable elections.

Maduro is the hand-picked successor of socialist president Hugo Chavez.

The main destination of the millions of refugees is Colombia, along with other countries such as Peru, Chile, and Argentina.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies stated that the average Venezuelan lost about 24 pounds in 2017, in a population where almost 90 percent live below the poverty line.

The lack of medicine has caused an resurgence of diphtheria and an increase in measles and malaria, diseases that had almost been eradicated in Venezuela.

Cases of Malaria have skyrocketed while measles has claimed the lives of 26 children just in the Orinoco Delta area.

Venezuela closed 2017 with an inflation rate of 2,616 percent and a drop in Gross National Product of 15 percent. The International Monetary Fund forecasts inflation at 14,000 percent for 2018 which would be the highest index of inflation among emerging markets for this year and the next.

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

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