Americas

Caracas, Venezuela, Apr 5, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Shortly after Venezuela’s supreme court revised its decision effectively stripping the legislature of its powers this weekend, one of the country’s cardinals responded by calling the reversal a mere “cosmetic retouching.”

Venezuela’s Supreme Court, packed with supporters of president Nicolas Maduro, announced March 29 that it would assume the functions of the National Assembly, where the opposition holds a majority.

The move was denounced domestically and internationally as a coup and a blow to democracy. In the face of this criticism Maduro asked the court to revise its rulings, which it did April 1.

“The corrections to the rulings are cosmetic retouchings that do not resolve the situation in the least, because the measures that shut down the National Assembly as an autonomous power continue, and confound the population,” Cardinal Baltazar Porras Cardozo of Merida responded April 2.

Cardinal Porras said that there remains the request “made last year that the legislature be restored to its full authority. This is a universal demand of many countries.”

The Archbishop of Merida said the lack of popular sovereignty and refusing participation to any group dissenting from the central government is reprehensible.

“If this continues, it can be an invitation to chaos and disorder and provoke an unnecessary bloodbath. If there are reasons to disown the legislature, it’s the people who have to decide that. At this time the real needs of the people are the lack of food and medicine,” he noted.

Similarly, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas pointed out that “the blockade of the National Assembly persists.”

“I’m still worried that the country has been in a state of emergency regarding economic matters for about a year. This is not normal,” he said April 2.

He likewise noted that the government’s controversial measures “such as the cancellation of the (presidential) recall referendum, that the problem of the representatives from Amazonas state has not been resolved, that the election of governors has been postponed. All this sets up a dictatorship.”

One of the most contentious issues the country faces is the economy, where the world’s highest inflation rates, price controls, and failed economic policies have resulted in severe shortages of basic necessities like medicines, milk, flour, toilet paper, and other essentials.
Venezuela’s socialist government, in power since 1999, is widely blamed for the crisis.
The shortages have their roots in policies enacted by Hugo Chavez in 2003 that control the price of nearly 160 products such as flour, milk, oil and soap. While these products are affordable at the government listed price, they are in short supply and fly off the shelves, ending up on the black market at much higher rates.

[…]

Mocoa, Colombia, Apr 4, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishop of the Colombian city scourged by landslides on Saturday has described a “complex and chaotic situation”, and appealed for humanitarian aid for the city’s inhabitants.

#NuestrosHéroes apoyando y liderando labores de rescate por Avalancha #Mocoa #EjercitoEnMocoa pic.twitter.com/Xo1iCImo3Q

— Ejército de Colombia (@COL_EJERCITO) April 1, 2017

Landslides swept over Mocoa in the early hours of April 1 when the three rivers that flow through the city overflowed after torrential rainfall. At least 254 people have died in the natural disaster, and hundreds were injured.

Bishop Luis Albeiro Maldonado Monsalve of Mocoa-Sibundoy has issued “a call for solidarity for everyone to join together in this difficult moment, to look toward this region in so great of need.”

In a statement posted on the website of the Colombian bishops’ conference, Bishop Maldonado appealed for aid, noting that water, food, blankets, and mattresses are urgently required.

Colombia’s bishops also called for prayers for those who died and those left homeless by the flooding. The Church has formed a committee to care for, listen to, and accompany the victims of the landslides.

Aid is being delivered by helicopter because roads to Mocoa have been battered or blocked by the disaster.

Before his Angelus address on Sunday, Pope Francis said he was deeply saddened by the tragedy.

“I pray for the victims and assure you of my closeness to those who mourn the death of their loved ones, and I thank all those who are working to bring succour.”

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Apr 3, 2017 / 02:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fighting the scourge of discrimination that often accompanies HIV, the Santa Clara Foundation in Santiago de Chile has worked since 1994 to ensure that children with the virus experience God’s love and have a better quality of life.

“When you see a child it’s very easy to see the face of Christ in him,” said Sister Nora Valencia of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Jesus, director of the home since 2008. “The child just by himself inspires a lot of tenderness, inspires you to protect him, to love him.”

It is a face “with hope, because we’re…working so that the children live, and live well,” she told CNA.

The children at the home suffer from HIV – or human immunodeficiency virus. Despite common misconceptions, not all people with HIV will go on to develop AIDS – or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, Sister Nora stressed.

Therefore, she clarified, it is incorrect to say that the children at their home have AIDS. “We are always making every effort so they don’t develop AIDS” and if they ever do develop it, that it remains under control.

While there is no cure for HIV, there are treatments that can help “make the lives of these children normal” and slow the progression of the disease, greatly increasing life expectancies, she explained.

The Santa Clara Home is currently caring for 60 families and has three levels of care. The internal system offers care for up to 17 children living at the facility. The intermediate system offers follow up care, as well as psychological and sociological evaluations, for children living at home. The external system offers workshops and food baskets for families who need them.

Thanks to a system of sponsors and volunteers, five legal adoptions of children with HIV have taken place since 2008.

Sister Nora said that working with these children, “your maternal instinct develops 200 percent” and “if the Lord sent him here, it’s so we first instill love and then all the rest.”

She hopes that the children “will be happy” and “tomorrow when they reach adulthood they won’t have to lie about their illness.” She further has hope that society may “accept them the way they are and give them the opportunity that at times wasn’t given to their parents. That no one be discriminated against because of ignorance.”

The Santa Clara Home obtained their own plot of land in Santiago after submitting a project to the Regional Government. They now must raise funds for the construction of a house designed for the children, since the place they are in currently is a former Franciscan convent from 1870 which will likely not withstand another earthquake like the one that occurred in 2010.

[…]

Tampico, Mexico, Apr 1, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A priest in Mexico’s state of Tamaulipas who had been abducted earlier this week was freed on Thursday after media pressure on the case.

Fr. Oscar López Navarro, a member of the Missionaries of Christ the Mediator, was kidnapped March 28 as he was arriving at his parish of St. Joseph the Worker in Altamira, fewer than 20 miles north of Tampico.

Bishop José Luis Dibildox Martínez of Tampico told news outlets that Fr. López, 40, had been followed by the criminals, and when he arrived in his car at the church he was kidnapped as he soon as he opened the vehicle’s door.

The priest was released the morning of March 30.

Fr. Servando Nieto, a fellow member of the Missionaries of Christ the Mediator, indicated that media pressure in wake of the kidnapping contributed to his release.

“A great deal of solidarity was felt from the various dioceses in the country and from the media, which showed a lot of interest in the case,” he said, according to Archdiocese of Mexico.

Fr. Nieto also explained that those in charge of the negotiations were two religious from the Missionaries of Christ the Mediator.

“Fr. Oscar is well, we’re all well,” he said, adding that it is now important that Fr. López have a chance to settle down after his ordeal so he can continue to carry out his work, but especially “to give thanks to God because he has been freed and to thank all the people for their financial support and for their prayers.”

The Mexican bishops’ conference expressed their joy “for the safe liberation and the health of Fr.  Oscar López Navarro …. We lament that as a society we continue to be affected by violence. We thank everyone for their prayers, solidarity, and closeness.”

Bishop Dibildox told media that Fr. López’ kidnapping was “the first time this has happened in the Diocese of Tampico.”

Drug trafficking has led to increased murder and kidnapping in Mexico, with priests not unaffected. In recent years, 17 priests in the country have been murdered.

And Tamaulipas, a border state with the United States, is the base of operations for the Gulf Cartel, which organizes drug trafficking, protection rackets, murder, extortion, and kidnapping.

[…]

Chilpancingo, Mexico, Mar 31, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A bishop in Mexico’s Guerrero state, which suffers the most from drug- and gang-related violence, recently met with gang leaders in order to protect priests who were receiving death threats.

Bishop Salvador Rangel Mendoza of Chilpancingo-Chilapa told Radio Fórmula March 27 that since he came to the diocese in June 2015 his great concern has been to “promote peace, harmony, dialogue.”

“When I saw that some priests had been threatened by them, including one quite seriously, I took up the task of going to go see these people (the gang leaders) and talking with them,” he said.

Bishop Rangel related that he made the contact through third persons, and in his meetings he told the leaders of these gangs that “with the death (of a priest) we’re not going to be able to settle anything,” and that the situation in Guerrero will only deteriorate.

“As a bishop I must seek dialogue and peace,” he said.

He clarified that he has not met with all the violent groups present in the area and that there is a need “to engage in dialogue.” He recalled that “almost all of Guerrero is in the hands of drug traffickers” and that the solution also involves social development of the poorest population, with whom the authorities need to get involved.

Regarding the  local authorities’ request for him to provide them information on these groups, the bishop pointed out that “I’m doing my pastoral work. I’m the bishop, I’m not the prosecutor. I think it’s up to him to investigate.”

“I’m a simple instrument of dialogue, of reaching out, because it’s not my obligation to bring people in or report on people. If they have opened up with me, if they’ve been sincere with me, I have to be loyal to them,” he said.

Fr. Benito Cuenca Mayo, spokesman for the Chilpancingo-Chilapa diocese, told CNA that more than one priest “has been caught up in this situation of the lack of security” and therefore the bishop “had to reach out to some crime group to dialogue with them.”

“Thanks to those meetings for dialogue he’s had with them, it has been possible to not have these lamentable incidents of death threats against some of our brother priests,” Fr. Cuenca said.

The spokesman noted that since his arrival at Chilpancingo, one of Bishop Rangel’s main pastoral actions “was to get to know the actual situation in the diocese and slowly he became more and more advised that violence in fact was a very delicate issue to address.”

In this regard, he recalled that more that once the bishop has stated his willingness to be an intermediary between the authorities and the criminal groups to bring about peace in the area, provided that “the parties to the conflict agree”

“A lot of progress would be made in the process of pacification in this area of Guerrero, but it’s not easy, it is a very delicate issue,” Fr. Cuenca pointed out. “He is willing to be an intermediary, which he has stated more than once.”

Earlier this month, the attorney general of Guerrero, Xavier Olea, acknowledged that the crime rate has gone up in Guerrero due to organized crime.

According to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, in January there were 165 murders throughout Guerrero, while in February, the number was 175, making this state the most violent in the country.

[…]

Jesús María, Mexico, Mar 29, 2017 / 12:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Felipe Altamirano Carrillo, an indigenous priest who served in the Mexico’s western state of Nayarit, was murdered Sunday while returning from saying Mass in one of the towns in which he served.

Fr. Altamirano Carrillo was killed March 26, apparently the victim of assault during a theft.

“We are seized by the pain of his loss, so premature , and the way it happened,” read a statement of the Territorial Prelature of Jesús María del Nayar, which the priest served.

“Although so far we don’t have the details of this incident, we have been informed that he was returning from celebrating the Sunday Mass in the community of Cofradía, which is part of his parish, accompanied by some other people. He was driving his vehicle and at some point during the trip, they came upon some armed persons, presumably with the intention of assaulting them.”

The prelature said that “it is known that the only person who died was Fr. Felipe, and some of those accompanying him are injured.”

“Our prelature is mourning the loss of a very beloved brother, and we again express our most heartfelt condolences to Father Felipe’s family. May Our Lord Jesus Christ and Our Most Holy Mother console them in this time of sorrow, since we trust that our brother, who has shared the cross of Christ,  will now be able to enjoy his glorious resurrection,” it said.

Fr. Altamirano Carrillo, of the Cora people, was born July 23, 1963 in Jesús María. The oldest of eight children, he was ordained a priest in 1989. He was president of the Indigenous Pastoral Ministry of the prelature and at the time of his death he was serving as pastor in Mesa del Nayar, about 15 miles southwest of Jesús María.

Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara, president of the Mexican bishops conference, issued a statement March 27 asking God for the eternal rest of Fr. Altamirano Carrillo, and that “the Lord may grant his relatives and friends the strength, the hope, and the consolation of the faith.”

“The Mexican Bishops’ Conference expresses its condolences and joins in prayer with Bishop José de Jesús González Hernández, O.F.M., the clergy, those in consecrated life, and the lay faithful of the Nayar prelature, the parents and relatives of Fr. Felipe Altamirano Carillo.

Cardinal Robles stated that “in these times in which a Catholic priest is again struck by crime, we turn our gaze to the Risen Christ who confers on us the strength to fight to build a world that is reconciled, and at peace, is just and fraternal.”

“Death is not the end of the message of love brought to us by Our Savior, but life to the fullest. With his priesthood, Father Felipe embodied these certainties which faith give us,” the cardinal wrote.

Fr. Altamirano Carrillo is the second priest to have been murdered in Mexico in 2017.

Fr. Joaquín Hernández Sifuentes of the Diocese of Saltillo, in northern Mexico, was killed in January, also seemingly while being robbed.

Drug trafficking has led to increased murder and kidnapping in Mexico, with priests not unaffected. In recent years, 17 priests in the country have been murdered.

[…]

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 29, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Mexico said in a Sunday editorial that Mexican businessmen who would participate in the construction of a border wall with the United States are as traitors to their country.

In the March 26 editorial “Betrayal of the Homeland” in Desde la Fe, the archdiocese stated that “any business with intentions of investing in the wall of the fanatic Trump would be immoral, but above all, its shareholders and owners ought to be considered traitors to the homeland.”

United States president Donald Trump had Jan. 25 ordered a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border. An estimated 650 miles of the 1,900 mile-long U.S.-Mexico border have a wall constructed currently. The president has indicated his intention that Mexico will pay for the wall’s construction.

The Mexico City archdiocese wrote that “as the months go by, the immigration policies of Donald Trump are coming up against reality. Demagoguery during the campaign was easy, but actions in practice, turn out to be  difficult in face of notable opposition from civil society, churches, and activists, who are confronting an erratic government whose promises cannot be so easily implemented.”

“Trump set aside $2 billion for construction of the wall, which must join together solid construction and a soft aesthetic appearance in order to hide, beneath the paint and the lights, hatred, suppression, and division,” the editorial stated.

For the archdiocese, “what is deplorable is that on this side of the border there would be Mexicans ready to collaborate on a fanatical project which annihilates the good relationship and concord of two nations which share a common border.”

“It’s not just two or three but more than 500 companies that are looking for good profits. For them the end justifies the means,” they criticized, and deplored “the timidity of the Mexican government’s economic authorities, who have not stood up to these businessmen.”

For the Archdiocese of Mexico, those who claim that building the wall is “an inalienable right” of the United States “are those same myopic people who fail to see that the wall is an outright threat which violates relations and social peace.”

“Let us remember that in the name of ideology, nations and entire continents were divided, plunging millions into uncertainty. The only overriding voice was that of weapons, shooting, repression and the legal murder of anyone who dared to cross a border in search of freedom.”

The editorial said that the Mexican businesses which join Trump’s project will feed “all those forms of discrimination that throughout history have subjugated millions of human beings. In practice, joining a projecting which is a grave affront to dignity is to shoot yourself in the foot.”

“The wall represents the predominance of a country that considers itself good, with the manifest destiny to overwhelm a nationality which it has considered to be perverted and corrupt: Mexico.”

[…]

Lima, Peru, Mar 28, 2017 / 01:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The March for Life in Lima, Peru on Saturday was transformed into a Solidarity March, with volunteers gathering several tons of food and nearly 4,000 gallons of water for those who have lost their h… […]

Port au Prince, Haiti, Mar 28, 2017 / 05:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics are banding together to bring life-saving health care to rural areas in one of the poorest countries in the world.

“The key thing that I saw was partnership. Catholic Med… […]

Sucre, Bolivia, Mar 27, 2017 / 03:50 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bill in Bolivia that would allow abortions only for certain groups of women is uniting unlikely groups in opposition to the policy – namely, Bolivian bishops and pro-choice feminists.

Abortio… […]