Bomb set off at Mexican Bishops’ Conference headquarters

Nadia de Munari. Credit: Avvenire.

Chimbote, Peru, Apr 26, 2021 / 12:56 pm (CNA).
Nadia de Munari, a 50-year-old Italian lay missionary who was part of Operation Mato Grosso, which serves the poor in Peru, died April 24 after being attacked in h… […]

Vatican City, Feb 16, 2019 / 11:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis’ recent letter to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro confirmed the Holy See’s position on the Venezuelan crisis, while demonstrating that Maduro has become an increasingly isolated global figure.

While the Holy See has long maintained its diplomatic ties with Venezuela, and for this reason a papal representative to Caracas took part in Maduro’s swearing in for his second term Jan. 10, Pope Francis and the Holy See’s diplomacy has always been on the Venezuelan bishops side, and backed their efforts to restore social peace, relief the population and call for new and free elections.

The pope’s letter, however, showed that Maduro’s request for a mediation can take place only under some specific conditions.
 
This is the reason why the letter was not leaked by Maduro’s entourage, but from other sources that gave it to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. The Holy See Press Office limited itself to saying that it would not commentc on a private letter, indirectly confirming that the pope might have actually written the letter.
 
The letter, two pages and a half long, is dated Feb. 7, 2019, and it is addressed to “Excelentismo señor Nicolas Maduro Moros, Caracas” (To Most Excellent Mister Nicolas Maduro Moros).
 
The pope did not refer to Maduro as president, and in that way his letter backed the Venezuelan bishops. Gathered for their 111st plenary assembly on Jan. 9, the bishops said that “Maduro’s claim to start a new presidential mandate on Jan 10 is illegitimate at his roots, and paves the way for the unrecognition of the government, as democratic foundations on justice and right are lacking.
 
In the letter, Pope Francis reminded Maduro that the Holy See has been committed to mediation in the past, but in all of the attempts “what had been agreed in the meetings was not followed by concrete action to carry out the accords,” and that “words seemed to delegitimize
the good propositions put into a written form.”
 
Pope Francis also stressed that he did not back “any kind of dialogue,” but only “the dialogue that takes places when all conflicting parties put the common good above any other interest and work for unity and peace.”
 
Pope Francis also recalled a letter by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of State, that set the conditions for a dialogue: liberation of political prisoners, re-establishment of the constitutional assembly, open access for humanitarian aid, free political elections.
 
Those conditions are still in effect.

The letter is tailored in a perfect diplomatic style.

On one hand, Pope Francis takes the bishops’ position. On the other hand, he places the Holy See in the middle between two positions: that of the US and Europe, eager to recognize Juan Guaidò as interim president; and that of China, Russia, Turkey and Iran, who are on the opposite position.
 
As a diplomatic habit, the Holy See never breaks diplomatic ties. Papal ambassadors are called to stay on the ground as long as it is possible, to support the bishops and to carry on institutional dialogue that can resolve into an aid for population.
 
For example, the Holy See never broke diplomatic ties with Cuba, not even when Castro regime persecuted Christians. In fact, ties stayed because there was an ongoing persecution.

Read through this lens, the Secretariat of State’s decision not to meet at an institutional level the delegation Guaidò sent to Italy for talks with Italian government on Feb. 11 should be no surprise.
 
The Holy See makes no interference in domestic policies, and the meeting with Guaidò could have been instrumentalized. The delegation reportedly met with Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, deputy to the Secretariat of State, who is Venezuelan. The meeting was framed as a meeting of a Venezuelan that works in Secretariat of State and his concerned for his country and some representatives coming from his country.
 
Pope Francis’ statements on the matter have always been prudent. Coming back from Panama on Jan. 28, Pope Francis told journalists that it is not his role as a pastor to pick political sides, and said he is terrified of the possibility of a bloodshed there.
 
However, the narrative that presents the pope on a different side from that of Venezuelan bishops is not correct at all.
 
It must not be forgotten that Pope Francis, after a visit from the presidency of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, said his voice “resounds in the voice of the Venezuelan bishops.”
 
Pope Francis’ followed each step of the Venezuelan crisis. On April 10, 2014 he addressed an appeal to political leaders of Venezuela and asked to respect truth and justice. On March 1, 2015, the Pope condemned the death of some students involved in pacific protests.
 
The Holy See accepted to conduct a facilitation of the dialogue in October 2016, and on Dec. 2, 2016 Cardinal Parolin stressed the four conditions. Coming back from Egypt on Apr. 29, 2017, Pope Francis denounced that the government did not accomplish these conditions.
 
On April 30, 2017 after the prayer of Regina Coeli, Pope Francis spoke of the “dramatic news” on Venezuela and “the worsening of clashes there, with many people reported dead, injured and detained”, and appealed “to the government and all the members of Venezuelan society to avoid any further forms of violence, to respect human rights and to negotiate solutions to the serious humanitarian, social, political and economic crisis that is exhausting the population”.
 
The action of bishops moved along with Pope Francis’ declaration. This combined action encouraged all the local and regional Catholic realities of Latin America to take a common stance: the Conference of Religious Brothers and Sisters in Venezuela, the Jesuits of Venezuela, but also the Colombian, Ecuadorian, Uruguayan, Chilean and Bolivian bishops conference took strong stances on the Venezuelan crisis, which weakened Maduro position.
 
Despite the will to keep a diplomatic neutrality, also the Holy See diplomacy was very active.

Cardinal Parolin, who was nuncio to Venezuela from 2009 to 2013, stressed on May 13, 2017 that “the only solution for Venezuela is elections.”

On Aug. 4, 2017, the Pope sent via the Secretariat of State a communiqué asking “all the political actors, and in particular the government, to ensure the full respect of the human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as of current Constitution; to suspend initiative like the new constitutional assembly that, instead of favoring reconciliation and paz, foster a climate of tensions and confrontations; to create conditions for a negotiated solution”.
 
It is also noteworthy that, in his urbi et orbi message of Christmas 2018, Pope Francis included Venezuela among the countries that are enduring serious humanitarian crisis, on a par with Yemen, Syria and Nicaragua: the decision turned out to be prescient.
 
The pope also spoke about Venezuela on his new year speech to the diplomatic corps, and said that he wishes “that peaceful institutional means can be found to provide solutions to the political, social and economic crisis, means that can make it possible to help all those suffering from the tensions of recent years, and to offer all the Venezuelan people a horizon of hope and peace.”
 
The pope’s letter to Maduro comes at the end of a path that the pope and the Venezuelan bishops have been following since the beginning. The Holy See will never break diplomatic ties, and will always seek dialogue and reconciliation. But, on the other hand, bishops on the ground are backed in supporting the population and to work for the common good.
 
This is, in the end, how the pontifical diplomacy works.

[…]

Bogotá, Colombia, Feb 23, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- A late term abortion case has made national headlines in Colombia after a father lost a court appeal to save the life of his unborn son.

Juan Pablo Medina became a national figure in Colombia in the first week of February, after he went public with his efforts to prevent his girlfriend from procuring the abortion of their eight-month-old unborn child.

The 25-year-old law student had dated his girlfriend, Angie Tatiana Palta, 22, for 14 months when they mutually agreed to have a baby together.

Medina says he supported Palta throughout the pregnancy, which was healthy. A Dec. 6 ultrasound with Medina present showed the baby, close to eight months old, doing fine and with no deformities.

But, he says, the situation changed when Palta’s mother and family found out about the pregnancy on Dec. 27. Medina claims the family pressured Palta to have an abortion. He was then told that Palta was in the hospital, supposedly in critical condition, in great mental distress, and that the baby had deformities – grounds for abortion in Colombia. 

In a Jan. 31 interview with Semana.com, Medina said “that seemed strange to me because the last ultrasound on Dec. 6 showed the baby was in optimal condition, which makes you wonder.” 

When he visited Palta in the hospital, he was told that the baby was fine and that Palta was requesting an abortion on the legal grounds of danger to her mental health. But, he said, the hospital’s psychological evaluation indicated she was not suffering psychological trauma but was confused.  

After Palta was discharged from the hospital, Medina lost all contact with her for eight days, prompting him to take legal action to protect his unborn child. Medina filed a criminal complaint alleging attempted homicide, and made an emergency appeal for guardianship of the child. He bought a crib and other necessities, anticipating the need to care for the baby as a single father.

On Jan. 31, Medina posted on Twitter that he was trying to save his son, whom he had named Juan Sebastián, or JuanSe for short. The hashtag #SalvemosaJuanSe (Let’s save JuanSe) was soon trending among Colombians on Twitter. 

Medina was interviewed by Semana.com. on the same day, and the story became headline national news.

In the interview, Medina said Palta was unwilling to talk and that he had lost all contact with her. Through contact with relatives, Medina said he learned that Palta intended to abort because she was “not ready to welcome the child, wants to finish her career and doesn’t have the financial means.”

Meanwhile, Palta went to a ProFamilia abortion clinic, which claimed that she was “in psychological distress and was having suicidal thoughts and so on,” Medina said.

He told Blu Radio Feb. 11 that he only found out she had procured the abortion on Feb. 7, when he reviewed the case file for the criminal complaint he had filed. 

As a law student who suspended his studies to deal with the situation, Medina had lost his emergency appeal for guardianship. The judge in the case requested the psychological examination from Palta’s healthcare provider which had earlier determined she was not experiencing psychological trauma but was confused. Instead, ProFamila sent the judge a psychological evaluation conducted by a gynecologist, not by a psychologist or a psychiatrist, who verified that an abortion could be done on the grounds of the mental health of the mother. 

The judge ruled that that evaluation was insufficient and ordered a new one. However, ProFamilia, an affiliate of International Federation of Planned Parenthood, ignored the order and went ahead with the abortion, claiming it was a “fundamental right” and that, according to National Health Services guidelines, it should normally be done within five days.

In a Feb. 11 statement, the Colombian bishops’ conference said that “in addition to the pain of knowing that Juan Sebastián was already past seven months gestation and that he was in perfect health, we have been perplexed by how the institutions of this country did not guarantee the rights of the father who persistently and tenaciously fought for the life of his son through the applicable channels.”

“We join the suffering of Juan Sebastián’s family, especially that of his parents, and the pain that so many brothers feel for this tragic event.”

The bishops also called abortion “an injustice that cries out to heaven.”

Prayer vigils and rallies were held outside ProFamilia clinics Feb. 11 in Bogotá, Cartagena, Medellín, and other cities.

Jesús Magaña, president of the United for Life platform, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, that “we’re in a very serious situation promoted and supported by seven judges on the Constitutional Court.” 

Magaña said that “it’s impossible for this to continue happening.” 

“We call on the Congress of the Republic of Colombia to take action on the matter and we call on the Constitutional Court to stop its judicial activism and once again respect the Constitution.”

Medina want to know what happened to his son’s body and wants to recover it for a Christian burial.

Columbia’s Constitutional Court legalized abortion in 2006 in cases of rape, fetal deformities and when a doctor determines there is a risk to the life or health of the mother. In a 2018 ruling, the court affirmed its 2006 decision, and declared abortion to be a “human right,” and asked the government to issue further regulations defining the legal circumstances for abortions to be performed. The Ministry of Health is currently working on developing those regulations.

Natalia Bernal Cano, a doctor of constitutional law, filed two lawsuits last year seeking to recognize the unborn as having human rights and to completely ban abortion on the grounds that it “does serious harm to the babies and the pregnant mothers” involved.

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

[…]