Americas

Santiago, Chile, Aug 4, 2017 / 04:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Late Wednesday, Chilean lawmakers approved legislation that would allow for abortions under certain circumstances, ending the country’s longstanding wholesale ban on the practice.

The new law would permit abortion in the cases of rape, endangerment of a mother’s life, or in cases when the fetus has a life-threatening birth defect. It would allow for objecting doctors to refuse to perform abortions, except in cases when the mother’s life is in danger and there are no other available physicians.

The legislation has drawn harsh criticism after a year’s-long heated debate from many in the majority-Catholic country, including many of the country’s bishops who have expressed their dismay at the lifting of the ban.

Bishop Fernando Chomali of Concepción told CNA he “deeply regretted” that the law had thus far been approved, noting that it wouldn’t help women in need and that it goes against the country’s constitution.

“I deeply regret that the bill has been approved. It seems to me that it does not help women in difficult situations and opens the door to free abortion, as it has happened in many parts of the world,” he said.

The new law will go into effect if Chile’s Constitutional Tribunal approves it in the coming days, which would end a blanket ban on the procedure that has been in place in the country for nearly 30 years.

However, it also needs to survive an appeal to the Constitutional Court which seeks to declare the abortion bill unconstitutional. The appeal was filed by 11 senators from Chile Vamos, a coalition opposed to the government of President Michelle Bachelet.

While abortion was allowed for in some circumstances in Chile starting in 1931, it was strictly outlawed in all circumstances by dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime in 1989, and punishable by up to five years in prison.

Bachelet has made relaxing abortion restrictions a priority of her administration, and celebrated the approval of the legislation on Twitter.

Bishop Chomali called on the Constitutional Court “to act with knowledge and conscience in the light of the Constitution of the country that protects the life of the unborn. I have great hope that those who compose it will think about the common good and the weakest,” he told CNA.

Bishop Juan Ignacio González of San Bernardo said the law violates the truth of the human person, according to local newspaper El Mercurio.

“Democracy can not give up an essential core of ethical truth, which allows it to affirm the full validity of the rights of all members of the human race,” unless it embraces a “false pluralism or tolerance,” he said.

Giselle Vargas contributed to this report.

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Mexico City, Mexico, Aug 3, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father José Miguel Machorro, who was stabbed in the neck and torso mid-May at the conclusion of Mass at the cathedral of Mexico City, died while at hospital on Thursday.

“May t… […]

Ottawa, Canada, Aug 3, 2017 / 03:12 pm (CNA).- On July 27, an enormous spider was seen descending from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario.

But rather than the stuff of horror movies, the robotic spider was part of an event for the French street theater company La Machine, which was opening their Canadian show in celebration of the country’s 150th anniversary that night. The spider’s name is Kumo.

All necessary permissions were secured from Archbishop Terrence Prendergast for the show, who saw it as an opportunity to give back to the local Ottawa community.

“This once in a lifetime event celebrates the 150th Anniversary celebration of Canada’s Confederation,” the archbishop said in a statement.

“It offers an opportunity for the archdiocese, the Catholic community and Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica to cooperate with the city and the organizers to foster a positive relationship with the community at large.”

The statement from Archbishop Prendergast website calls the event “an opportunity for a positive civic relationship by joining in the Capital’s celebrations of our 150th, Ottawa 2017.” He also notes the chance “to foster a positive relationship with the community at large as well as with many tourists.”

Some, however, derided the event as sacrilegious and even blasphemous or demonic, complaining to the archdiocese. Archbishop Terrence dismissed such concerns, but did see some symbolic value in the event.

“To the extent that we did see symbolism, it was that, afterward, Our Lady would continue to reign, something I mentioned in a tweet right after the Thursday performance, as people I respect began to make their objections known.”

Planning for the event began last year. Organizers hoped to give the impression that Kumo was approaching another large spider sculpture, named “Mama,” in front of the National Art Gallery across from the cathedral. The performance began with Kumo “waking up” to organ music from within the church.

It is worth noting that in medieval times, performances in front of churches were common, often depicting biblical events.

Our Lady who in Revelation defeats Dragon (& fulfills Genesis promise of crushing serpent) reigns again undisturbed pic.twitter.com/7hXaJbEzQ5

— Terrence Prendergast (@archterentius) July 28, 2017

The giant robot spider garnered quite a lot of attention on Twitter, where it spawned a parody account at the suggestion of Catholic Twitter user Tommy Tighe.

Oh, thank God. https://t.co/Jq9A63uLo3

— Kumo the RoboSpider (@CathRoboSpider) August 2, 2017

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Caracas, Venezuela, Aug 2, 2017 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Jorge Urosa of Caracas has warned President Nicolás Maduro and the high command of the armed forces that they will be accountable to God for the deaths of Venezuelans killed by military personnel and Chavista groups during demonstrations against the country’s contentious Constituent Assembly.

“In the name of God, stop the repression!” exclaimed the cardinal, adding that “there are citizens who were murdered and wounded by Venezuelan military personnel and, presumably, by armed forces that act illegally and criminally. This is totally intolerable and cries out to heaven.”

In statements made to the local press, the cardinal referred to the violent repression of protests against the country’s July 30 election for a 545-member Constituent Assembly. The newly appointed assembly will be responsible for reforming the country’s 1999 constitution. Its first sitting is scheduled for Thursday.

According to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, more than 8 million voters – or 41 percent of the eligible population – participated in the election. However, the Democratic Election Bureau, which opposes the Maduro government, reported that only 2.4 million votes, or 12 percent of the voters, were cast in the ballot box, and a quarter of those votes were void.

The country’s opposition-controlled legislature, the National Assembly, has stated that it will oppose “all measures and actions to depose the Constituent Assembly,” and states that the country owes “no obedience” to any constitutional changes.

The governments of the United States, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Canada, Brazil, as well as the European Union, announced that they will not recognize the Constituent Assembly promoted by Maduro.

Following the election, at least 10 people have died in protests against the regime, though other sources report higher numbers of dead. Over 100 people have been confirmed to have been killed in protests against the Maduro government since April, according to Venezuela’s Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Díaz.

The Venezuelan bishops have repeatedly spoken out against the ballot measure, and called to a peaceful resolution to the country’s economic and political problems.

Cardinal Urosa spoke out against the killings, saying that those in charge of the Venezuelan government who are responsible for soldiers attacking Venezuelan citizens “must give an account before God, our Lord, and before the laws.”

He also criticized the electoral process promoted by the regime despite strong opposition from the population.

“With these results, the Constituent Assembly can not be erected with the superpower to repeal the State and the Constitution of 1999. It is an illegitimate process with a comically absurd foundation that detracts from the electoral power of citizens. You can not impose a fraudulent and illegitimate and totally invalid instrument when the people did not vote,” the cardinal said.

On Wednesday Smartmatic, the company in charge of the electronic voting system used in Venezuela’s Sunday elections, stated that “in the past elections of the National Constituent Assembly there was manipulation of participation data.”

“The difference between the number announced (by the Government) and the one that the system gives is at least one million voters,” the organization said.

At a press conference from London, Smartmatic Executive Director Antonio Mugica said that for the time being they could not specify the exact amount of the voter discrepancy, but that “an audit would allow them to know the exact amount of participation.”

Smartmatic is a multinational firm that has provided the technological platform of voting and services for the elections in the South American country since 2004.

Venezuela’s electoral commission has dismissed Smartmatic’s claim as “irresponsible” and “unfounded.”

The Venezuelan bishops’ conference has tweeted asking that the “Blessed Virgin, Mother of Coromoto, heavenly Patron of Venezuela, may liberate our country from the clutches of communism and socialism.”

Previously, the Venezuelan bishops have repeatedly spoken out against the ballot measure, and called to a peaceful resolution to the country’s economic and political problems.

Venezuela faces high inflation and shortages of necessities like food, housing, and medical supplies, following dropping oil prices in recent years.

The bishops have also asked the laity to “pray for Venezuela.” In another prayer posted to Twitter, the bishops ask that the people of Venezuela be “identified with the respect for the human person, liberty, justice and a commitment to the common good.”

They also restated the importance of love for all, solidarity of the poor, and the necessity of “working for reconciliation and peace.”

[…]

Lima, Peru, Jul 30, 2017 / 04:04 pm (CNA).- José Arturo Castellanos was a Catholic from El Salvador who during the Second World War was sent as a diplomat to the city of Geneva, Switzerland.  

But after his requests to his country to rescue Jews who began to face massive persecution at the hands of the Nazis were denied, he took matters in his own hands. Through courage and cunning, Castellanos helped save 40,000 Jewish people from the Holocaust.

His actions resulted in his being posthumously granted in July 2010 the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” awarded to non-Jews by Yad Vashem, an institution of the Israeli government constituted to honor the memory of the martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust. This title has been conferred on priests, religious and other lay persons who saved Jews at that time.

In July 2016 Pope Francis had an encounter at the Auschwitz concentration camp located in Poland with the representatives of some “Righteous Among the Nations” who had already died.

José Arturo Castellanos was born in 1893 in El Salvador to a Catholic and military family. In his youth he decided to join the army like his father and began to develop a brilliant career. In 1930 he traveled to Europe to complete his education.

A biography of him published on the Yad Vashem website states that at the age of 44 Colonel Castellanos was sent as a diplomat to England and in 1938 assigned to Germany.

There he witnessed the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi regime. In face of this he asked his superiors if he could grant them visas so they could escape the country, but this request was denied.

However, Castellanos did not give up and in 1939 he sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador in which he described the situation of the Jews and asked for his help. This petition was also denied to him.

The website of the documentary “Castellanos Movie” set up by his grandsons Alvaro and Boris Castellanos says that the colonel disobeyed the orders received from his country’s government and began to extend visas and Salvadoran nationality to Jews to prevent them from being sent by the Nazis to the concentration camps, where they were made to do forced labor in inhumane conditions or were killed.

In 1942 Castellanos was appointed El Salvador’s consul in Geneva. There he named George Mandel-Mantello, a Jewish refugee from Romania who was a friend of his, as first secretary of the consulate to implement the “Salvadoran action.”

The colonel authorized Mandel-Mantello to secretly deliver passports and certificates of Salvadoran citizenship to the Jews. The Yad Veshem institution explained that those that obtained these benefits were saved because El Salvador was considered a neutral country for not supporting any one of the sides that fought during the Second World War.

Castellanos made the issuance of more than 13,000 Salvadoran documents to be done without any charge. These papers were sent through his contacts to Jews who resided in France, Hungary, Germany, Holland, Slovakia and Romania.

According to the Castellanos Movie website, the issuance of just one document was enough to save a whole family.

Through this work carried out between the years 1942 and 1945, Castellanos succeeded in saving about 40,000 Jews. The Yad Vashem institution noted that after the 1944 elections, the new president of el Salvador, Salvador Castaneda Castro, unlike his predecessor, had his country get involved in the protection of the Jews in places like Hungary and provided support for Castellanos in his rescue mission.

Currently thousands of these certificates which granted Salvadoran nationality to Jews in Europe are exhibited in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Castellanos married Maria Schürmann of Switzerland, and the couple had three children. When the Second World War was over in 1945 he was sent to London and retired in 1972 at the age of 79.

He returned to El Salvador where he led a quiet life until he died in 1977, without having been awarded any recognition for his work.

After his death, several institutions began to hold tributes in memory of Colonel Castellanos.

In 2010 when it was announced that he would be awarded the title of “Righteous Among the Nations,” the El Salvador Minister of Foreign Relations, Hugo Martinez, said that the Salvadoran diplomat “stood out for his humanism and for his work in aiding a people which in their time was persecuted and whose existence was threatened.”

The ambassador of Israel in the Central American country, Mattanya Cohen, said that Castellanos is the fourth Latin American to receive this tribute.

In late June 2017, the embassies of Israel and El Salvador to the Holy See held an event in Rome  to honor the memory and the work of  José Arturo Castellanos. A video was also shown there of the testimony of a Jewish man who obtained Salvadoran citizenship and was able to escape with his family.

In a press release announcing this event posted on the website of Diplomatic Missions of Israel in the World, noted that Catellanos “in a time when many remained indifferent to human suffering, he was one of the few heroes who opposed an absolute evil in order to save the lives of thousands of Jews.”

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Caracas, Venezuela, Jul 28, 2017 / 11:12 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Venezuela faces potentially radical changes to its constitution this weekend, after years of economic collapse and shortages.

In the midst of the political upheaval, the Venezuelan bishops are urging both the government and the people to seek a respectful, democratic solution.

“The country is in ruins, people are dying of hunger, there are a number of children dying every month in the hospitals. This demonstrates that the government has not been on top of the circumstances,” said Cardinal Jorge Urosa of Caracas in an interview with Venezuelan journalist Carlos Croes.

He stressed that the administration of President Nicolas Maduro must dialogue with the country’s legislature, the National Assembly, whose majority is in opposition to the regime.

The government’s misunderstanding and mishandling of the country’s problems, the cardinal continued, is “something that works against peace in the country.”

“The way forward is respect, tolerance, and the government seeking an understanding with the opposition leaders,” he said.

Time to come to this understanding, however, is running out. This weekend Maduro will take the first step toward rewriting the Venezuelan constitution and reorganizing the government: holding a vote for members of the constituent assembly which will be tasked with drafting a new constitution.

The boycott of the process by the opposition will likely result in the dissolution of the National Assembly and further restrictions on the opposition within Venezuela. This move by Maduro follows previous attempts to dissolve the National Assembly through the Supreme Court and the shutdown of an October 2016 recall referendum of Maduro’s government – a constitutional right instated by Maduro’s predecessor and mentor within the country’s socialist party, Hugo Chavez.

The constitution which Maduro seeks to re-rwite was adopted in 1999, shortly after Chávez came to power.

In recent years, the Venezuelan economy has collapsed, resulting in food and medical shortages, as well as struggles with housing, utilities, and other basic necessities. As a result, Maduro’s popularity has plummeted, leading to a rise of opposition to the government and public protests around the country.

Previously, the Church in Venezuela has tried to broker agreement between the government and the opposition, though those negotiations have fallen through. Since then, the Venezuelan bishops have argued for a democratic resolution to the crisis. Cardinal Urosa again argued for democratic negotiations to resolve the issue, and warned that the widespread opposition – as high as 80 percent – to the constituent assembly would only make things worse.

“That is a problem that the government has to face and try to resolve from the democratic point of view,” he stated.

“We’re with the people and most Venezuelans don’t want the Constitutional Assembly,” he said. The bishops of Venezuela, the cardinal continued, “are defending the rights of the people which are being abused by an inefficient government.” He said that the most concerning aspects of the suffering the Venezuelan people face are the shortages of food and medication.

The Venezuelan bishops’ conference later issued a statement reinforcing calls for democratic processes and warning against rewriting the constitution. “Everything suggests that what is sought is to establish a socialist, Marxist state and military, by dissolving the autonomy of powers, especially the legislative powers,” warned the conference. They also warned the populace against starting riots or other forms of violence, stating that it could further destabilize the country.

The government has banned protests that could “disturb or affect” Sunday’s election for the constituent assembly, with fines of between five and 10 years for protestors.

Around 100 people have been killed in anti-government protests since April.

The bishops’ stance against the constitutional rewrite has not been without opposition of its own. Earlier this week, the publisher San Pablo, who distributes the “Sunday Page” – a Sunday bulletin for Venezuelan parishes about the Gospel and meditations – warned the faithful there was a false edition of the bulletin which had been distributed to parishes around the country.

In the false edition of the bulletin, which promoted the constitutional assembly, faithful are advised that the process “is like the permanent Revolution, it is a revolution within the Revolution and we must always be revising the Constitution.”

“We are calling you to be attentive and not be fooled, ” the publisher warned. The warning was later distributed by the Venezuelan bishops.

According to the Caracas daily El Nacional, Holy Family parish in Carora was attacked by government supporters July 27.

Families in the area reported that its roof “was damaged by stones and Molotov cocktails thrown by groups symapethic to government and officials of the Venezuelan National Guard.”

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Mexico City, Mexico, Jul 27, 2017 / 01:02 pm (CNA).- An online statement purporting to be from a radical feminist group has claimed responsibility for the explosive set off at the Mexican Bishops’ Conference earlier this week.

On Tuesday, a small homemade explosive detonated at the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM) in Mexico City. No one was injured, and the building incurred little damage.

On Wednesday, a group calling itself the “Informal Feminist Command for Anti-Authoritarian Action” claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted on Contra Info, an international website that claims it is run by “anarchists, anti-authoritarians and libertarians.”

The statement says Feminist Command was responsible for the bomb, which was intended as retaliation “For every torture and murder in the name of your God! For every child defiled by pedophiles!”

While Contra Info has posted previous stories about Feminist Command’s actions in Mexico, the group’s existence is unconfirmed, according to the AP.  

Aramando Cavazos, the bishop conference’s press office director, explained in a statement Tuesday that “the pertinent investigations are taking place, as apparently this is not the first case occurring in that area of Mexico City,” he said.

Mexico has seen a slew of violence against priests in recent months, including numerous stabbings and murders. Earlier this month, Fr. Luis López Villa was found bound and stabbed to death in his room. He was the 18th priest to be murdered in Mexico in the last six years.

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Mexico City, Mexico, Jul 25, 2017 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- Unidentified persons set off an explosive today at the headquarters of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM) in Mexico City. No one was injured, according to a conference spokesman.

A security camera video shared by Bishop Ramon Castro of Cuernavaca shows footage from inside the building of the moment the explosive went off outside the facilities.

“The headquarters of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference has been attacked with a three cylinder explosive device,” Bishop Castro said.

“I believe this reflects the situation in Mexico,” he added.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”es” dir=”ltr”>La sede de la Conferencia Episcopal Mexicana ha sufrido un atentado con bomba molotv de 3 cilindros.Creo que eso refleja la situación de Mex <a href=”https://t.co/YTtPq3HoBJ”>pic.twitter.com/YTtPq3HoBJ</a></p>&mdash; Mons. Ramón Castro (@MonsRamonCastro) <a href=”https://twitter.com/MonsRamonCastro/status/889872150546366464″>July 25, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

The conference’s press office director, Aramando Cavazos, explained in a statement that “today in the early hours of the morning, around 1:50 a.m., an unknown type of explosive device was placed at the main door of the CEM building.”

He indicated the explosion only caused “material damage to that door” and said that “no one outside or inside” was injured.

“The pertinent investigations are taking place, as apparently this is not the first case occurring in that area of Mexico City,” he said.

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Santiago, Chile, Jul 25, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This Aug. 15 will mark 90 years since the Sacramentine Sisters of Don Orione were founded to offer something very particular for the salvation of the world: their blindness.

They are a community of blind nuns consecrated to perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and wear a distinctive white habit, a red scapular, and a white Host embroidered on the chest.

“I intend to offer with this new branch of the religious family, as a flower before the throne of the Blessed Virgin, so that she herself, with her blessed hands, offer it to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” Saint Luigi Orione told them when he founded the order in Italy Aug. 15, 1927.

This branch of the Little Missionary Sisters of Charity (LMSC) has as its mission, according to its constitutions, to offer to God “the privation of sight for those who do not know the truth yet so that they may come to God, the light of the world.”

In addition they seek to support with Eucharistic Adoration and sacrifice “the apostolic action of the LMSC and the Sons of Divine Providence,” the two congregations founded by Saint Luigi Orione.

The congregation is present in Italy, Spain, the Philippines, Kenya, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.

They have been in Chile since 1943 and currently there are three sisters there: Sr. María Luz Ojeda, Sr. Elizabeth Sepúlveda, and Sr. María Pía Urbina, who is on mission in the Philippines at the moment.

These sisters attend computer classes to be able to bring before the Blessed Sacrament the numerous petitions they receive from many faithful through their Facebook account, where they offer to pray for each intention they receive.

Sr. María Luz Ojeda had an accident when she was a child which left her with severe vision problems which gradually increased until at 30 years of age she completely lost her sight.

“Sometimes I personally thank God, since because of this I was able to enter the congregation. Before the Blessed Sacrament I often tell the Lord: ‘this is my means of helping you save souls,’ and I’m happy,” Sr. María Luz told CNA.

The religious sister explained that “every day in our prayer and Adoration we present to the Lord the poverty, sufferings, and sorrows of humanity.”

“Perhaps what I am going to say may seem like I’m claiming too much  but I am going to have this to present to the Lord on the day he calls me, that I helped him save souls,” Sr. María Luz said.

The sisters dedicate each day of the week for a special intention: Mondays for the sick, Tuesday for young people, Wednesdays for peace, Thursdays for vocations, Fridays for the elderly, Saturdays for children, and Sundays for families.

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Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Jul 24, 2017 / 05:11 pm (CNA).- When Matt Hohler was in college in 2010, he was a reluctant Catholic – and not a coffee drinker. 

That year, his mom gave him a trip to a college Catholic conference as a Christmas gift. It was a conference with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, which annually draws several thousands of college students seeking to know more about their faith. 

Hohler was not thrilled. 

“I remember being a bit sour about it,” he told CNA. “I remember thinking I don’t really wanna go, I thought it wasn’t cool.” 

But he went anyway, had a great time, and came back with a pull on his heart to go on a FOCUS mission trip to Honduras, “even though I remember not even knowing where Honduras was at the time,” he recalled. 

He signed up for the trip, and the week he spent with FOCUS teaching catechesis in Honduras “was mind-bending to say the least.” 

What struck him most was the Honduras people’s extreme generosity amidst the experience of extreme poverty. 

“They just gave everything they had, and they had nothing,” Hohler said.

That fascination with Honduras and desire to help those in need continued to grow, and eventually Hohler returned for a year to volunteer as an English teacher, a job he found through a connection from the trip. 

That year, he came home for Christmas break and was hanging out at grandma’s house before the rest of the family arrived.  

While they waited, Hohler’s grandmother pulled him into a hallway, where there had been a statue of the Virgin Mary for as long as Hohler could remember. 

“She said, ‘There have been times in our lives where I swear we didn’t have enough money, and we put money under the statue of Mary, and we’d come back and there would be more money than before,’” Hohler recalled. 

She told him to always remember to put God first, and handed her grandson $1,000 with simple instructions: “Go do something good with it.” 

When he returned to Honduras, the search for that “something good” led Hohler to Sr. Maria, a Catholic nun who has dedicated her life to serving her community near Lake Yojoa, Honduras. Her nutrition-focused organization, Casa de Angeles, provides 100+ children at risk of malnutrition with lunches every day throughout the school year. 

As Hohler spent time with Sr. Maria and the children, he realized that many of the kids’ impoverished families were coffee farmers, who were still making insufficient wages despite promises of markups after their coffee gained labels like “organic” and “fair-trade.” (He also started to drink, and love, coffee.)

Hohler, along with like-minded friend Robert Durrette, decided to do what they could to get a fairer wage for small-scale coffee farmers in Central and South America. And that’s how coffee start-up Levanta Coffee began. 

Taken from the Spanish reflexive verb “levantarse,” Levanta means to wake up, but it can also mean to rise up. 

“By waking up each morning with a cup of Levanta Coffee, you’re giving hard-working coffee farmers from Honduras and Peru the opportunity to lift themselves up economically,” the businesses’ Kickstarter page explains. 

The business model of Levanta cuts out nearly all of the middlemen involved in the process of most coffee sales – including fair trade coffee – that takes away from the profits that actually end up in farmers’ hands. 

“We too used to think that ‘Fair Trade’ was the best way to support small scale farmers. We sipped our coffee believing we were helping farmers like Daniel and Rosa earn a good living. Problem is, that just wasn’t true,” Hohler and Durette explain on their Kickstarter. 

“‘Fair trade’ offers 20 cents more per pound of coffee, but very little of that extra money actually makes it back to small-scale farmers. Although they had been promised higher prices and better returns on their hard work, many coffee farmers are still struggling to put food on the table. In the best-case scenario, farmers might get a few hundred extra dollars per year. This translates into an income of $2,000-$4,000 a year for the average farmer who is often providing for a family of 4-6 people,” they noted. 

The Levanta model will provide a 50 percent higher payment that will end up directly in the hands of the small-scale coffee farmers in both Honduras and Peru, where the pair has launched their startup. 

“Essentially what we’re doing is taking a page out of what a lot of humanitarian aid is doing now, in terms of direct transfers. Rather than investing in aid in terms of professionals or food, or whatever it be, a lot of studies have found that just by giving them more cash and allowing them to make their own decisions, it’s actually allowing for more and more development,” Hohler explained.

In exchange, Levanta Coffee asks their farmers to share their personal stories with coffee drinkers around the world. 

Co-founder Robert Durrette said he believes “the stories of the farmers we have partnered with is crucial to sparking change in the coffee industry. You will learn about their hardships and struggles, but also their successes – all while we deliver you better coffee.”

“It gives you the opportunity to look at the coffee you drink in a more personal way, and you’ll know exactly how this is being impactful,” Hohler said. “We’ll be following up year after year, making sure it’s the right model, being really transparent and really inviting people into this story so they can experience it.” 

The pair launched their Kickstarter on July 18th, and have already seen great results, with $32,348 of their $35,000 goal having been raised at the time this article was written. If they make their stretch goal of $50,000, they can partner with a third coffee producer. 

It hasn’t always been easy – Hohler said he was questioned by several well-meaning friends and family about when he would “get a real job.” But he’s stuck to his decision, saying that he feels it’s a call from God to put his faith into action. 

“The thing I wanted to do with my faith was to show it through action, and be an example of my faith in the way that I live, creating good in the way I live my life rather than telling someone what they should be doing,” he said. 

“Evangelization through action is what I wanted to do.” 

Learn more about Levanta Coffee, and the coffee farmers involved, on their Kickstarter page or by following them on Instagram or Facebook.

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