Caracas, Venezuela, May 18, 2019 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The Venezuelan bishops’ conference has expressed opposition to a decision of the country’s Supreme Court, which has requested that legislative immunity be revoked for members of the National Assembly accused of treason, conspiracy, instigation of insurrection, civil rebellion and other charges. That would open the way for legislators to be tried for those alleged crimes.
“With this request, the will of the Venezuelan people, who freely elected the National Assembly is, in fact, abolished,” the bishops charged in a May 15 statement.
They also said that Supreme Court requests on the matter “constitute disrespect and a transgression of the commitments enacted with the different international bodies on human rights.”
“The denial of immunity without previously determining its merits and ignoring the rights of the National Assembly, contravening the express constitutional provisions, gravely harms the functioning of democracy,” the bishops added.
They also explained that these decisions in practice constitute “the hijacking of popular sovereignty,” which is represented by the legislators elected by the will of the citizens.
“That is the essence of a democracy: respect for the will of the people and the observance of the due legal and judicial processes.”
They also reminded that in the face of a political crisis a peaceful solution is required. “We reaffirm the will for an institutional and democratic solution to the political and social situation in Venezuela.”
The Venezuelan bishops' Justice and Peace Commission pointed out that more than 30 representatives of the National Assembly are not exercising their functions because of the violation of their parliamentary immunity, while others have been arrested, are in exile, or their election was invalidated as occurred with the representatives from Amazonas State.
“We categorically reject the persecution against the political and social leaders, especially against the Representatives of the National Assembly by means of criminalization and stigmatization, placing pamphlets on their residences or graffiti that put their lives at risk and that of their families,” the reaffirmed.
The bishops' conference has asked the authorities to respect the will of the people. They also demanded that “the security of persons that are the object of persecution and intimidation be guaranteed.”
“We ask God for the wisdom necessary for an institutional and peaceful solution to the grave political, social and economic crisis that has deepened in recent weeks, deteriorating democracy and the quality of life of the Venezuelan people, especially the poorest,” they concluded.
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Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.” / Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 5, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA).
Various pro-life, pro-family, and lay leaders of the Catholic Church in Mexico have reacted with concern to the election of Claudia Sheinbaum as president of the country.
Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.”
For the pro-family leader, Sheinbaum represents continuity with the same progressive agenda of the outgoing administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Citing the growing legalization of abortion and use of gender ideology throughout the country, Cortés explained that “the López Obrador regime culminated in a culture of death, of ideology, not only of gender confusion but also of socialist populist indoctrination.”
However, in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” EWTN’s Spanish-language news program, Cortés emphasized that just as people didn’t vote for López Obrador because of his position on abortion, gender ideology, or for freedoms to be canceled, people didn’t vote for Sheinbaum for those same reasons. What happens, he indicated, is that “when they come to power, they implement [that agenda].”
For Juan Dabdoub, president of the Mexican Family Council (ConFamilia), there are “two important factors” that would explain Sheinbaum’s victory in the presidential elections.
The first, he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, is that in Mexico there is “a poor political culture, which makes a large majority of the people manipulable.”
A second factor, Dabdoub noted, is that “Mexican Catholicism has failed in something extremely important that Pope St. John Paul II already pointed out: ‘A faith that does not create culture is a useless faith.’”
In a Jan. 16, 1982, speech, John Paul II said: “A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”
For the president of ConFamilia, “Mexico has stopped being a country of practicing Catholics and has become one of simply baptized people; and when a Catholic doesn’t live his faith in the outside world, that is, outside his home and his parish, those who dominate the world take control.”
Dabdoub considered Sheinbaum’s victory to be “a brutal threat” to the defense of life, family, and freedoms, since she has “a radical progressive agenda.”
‘Formation and serious work are needed’
For Father Hugo Valdemar, who for 15 years headed the communications office of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico when Cardinal Norberto Rivera led the archdiocese, “Catholics must learn that social media are not enough to really influence; serious formation and work are needed, otherwise everything remains up in the air.”
“The big problem is that we haven’t been seriously forming the laity, and nothing is being done to do so,” he told ACI Prensa. However, he noted that with a Sheinbaum administration, “the Church is not in danger. I don’t see an adverse climate, much less persecutory, and Christian values have been violated for a long time.”
What’s next in the battle for life and family?
Pilar Rebollo, director of the Steps for Life platform, pointed out that Sheinbaum’s election “means much more work” for pro-lifers: “It requires us to be united, it requires us to be coordinated,” anticipating possible “frontal attacks on what we know as our values that are foundational.”
Rebollo also emphasized the importance of serving underserved and vulnerable populations, which, she considered, were key to Sheinbaum’s victory. This, she said, must be done “not out of a desire for numbers but zeal for souls, a desire to [heal] wounds, zeal for humanity, to see Christ in others.”
It should be noted that all three candidates for president — Sheinbaum, Xóchitl Gálvez, and Jorge Álvarez Máynez — backed the legalization of abortion and the LGBTQ policy agenda, so Mexican voters had no real alternative to vote for a pro-life and pro-family candidate.
Sheinbaum is the first person of Jewish ancestry to be elected to Mexico’s presidency. In February of this year, she visited Pope Francis at the Vatican, where she asked him to bless a rose wrought in silver by a Mexican artisan. She later presented it to the rector of the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance anticipates that Claudia Sheinbaum will govern under the shadow of the current president and his leftist party. Credit: EWTN News Nightly/Screenshot
During her campaign, Sheinbaum was seen wearing a skirt bearing the image of the revered Virgin of Guadalupe. According to Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance, Sheinbaum also wore a rosary around her neck at a public event. He and others suggested that this was an act of demagoguery intended to appeal to Catholics, who comprise approximately 78% of the country’s population.
Sheinbaum, 61, holds a doctorate in physics specializing in energy and taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. Her political militancy began during her student years, joining a group that became the founding youth movement of the socialist Party of Democratic Revolution. She later joined the ruling Morena party. She has been described as a climate activist, having been part of a Nobel Prize-winning commission advising the United Nations on climate change.
Sheinbaum’s tenure as Mexico City mayor was marked by progressive initiatives. For example, the World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab, noted that as mayor she ended public school policy requiring gender-appropriate uniforms for children. Sheinbaum said: “The era when girls had to wear a skirt and boys had to wear trousers has been left behind; I think that’s passed into history,” and added: “Boys can wear skirts if they want and girls can wear pants if they want.”
While she did not raise the issue during her campaign, Sheinbaum’s Morena party is a firm supporter of abortion. The newly-elected congress will be seated in September, one month before Sheinbaum’s inauguration, thus allowing incumbent president López Obrador an opportunity to push through his legislative initiatives.
Poblete told “EWTN News Nightly” that the 2024 election may have led to a Morena majority in Mexico’s Congress, which has vowed to amend the constitution in order for Mexican Supreme Court justices to be elected by popular ballot, thereby confirming partisan control of the heretofore independent judiciary, which would rule on issues such as abortion and matters of gender ideology. He fears that Sheinbaum will govern under the shadow of the current president and his leftist party.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Managua, Nicaragua, Jun 20, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Peace talks mediated last week by the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, between the government of President Daniel Ortega and his opposition, proved to be short-lived as clashes have yet again d… […]
Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 11:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As Pope Francis began his visit to Chile, a Vatican spokesman has voiced “maximum respect” for the rights of protesters continuing their three-year opposition to a bishop’s appointment, but the Pope will not meet with them.
The subject of the protests, Bishop Juan Barros Madrid of Osorno, has repeated explanations that he did not know his longtime friend Father Fernando Karadima was a sexual abuser, despite the claims of protesters alleging that Barros helped cover up Karadima’s abuse.
“I never knew anything about, nor ever imagined the serious abuses which that priest committed against the victims,” Bishop Barros told the Associated Press. “I have never approved of nor participated in such serious dishonest acts and I have never been convicted by any tribunal of such things.”
In January 2015 the Pope named Bishop Barros to head the Diocese of Osorno in southern Chile. The appointment drew objections and a call for his resignation from several priests. Dozens of protesters, including non-Catholics, attempted to disrupt his March 21, 2015 installation Mass at the Osorno cathedral.
Days later, Archbishop Fernando Chomali Garib of Concepcion said that Pope Francis had told him that there was “no objective reason at all” that the bishop should not be installed. The pontiff had been kept up-to-date on the situation.
On March 31, 2015, the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops also released a statement, saying that the office had “carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”
The then-apostolic nuncio to Chile, Archbishop Ivo Scapolo, said that all information about Barros was passed on to Pope Francis. Most of the people in the church were not protesters, but “people who love their bishop,” the nuncio said.
Decades previously, Bishop Barros had been a close friend to Father Fernando Karadima, an influential Santiago-area priest who fostered the vocations of about 40 priests, including Barros.
When reports of sexual abuse and other scandal surrounding Karadima surfaced, Bishop Barros was among the prelates who did not believe the accusations. A civil lawsuit against the priest was dismissed on the grounds that his alleged behavior was beyond the statute of limitations.
In February 2011, however, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith finished its investigation with the conclusion that the priest was guilty. At the age of 84, Karadima was sent to a life of solitude and prayer.
Bishop Barros said he had already been distancing himself from the priest before allegations surfaced, because he had become “ill-tempered.”
“The pain of the victims hurts me enormously, I pray for those that carry this pain with them today,” he said in a 2015 letter to the faithful of the Diocese of Osorno ahead of his installation.
On May 6, 2015, five months after Barros was appointed to lead the Diocese of Osorno, Deacon Jaime Coiro, general secretary of the Chilean episcopal conference, told Pope Francis that the Church in Osorno “is praying and suffering for you.”
“Osorno suffers, yes,” Pope Francis said, “for silliness.”
“The only accusation against that bishop was discredited by the judicial court,” the Pope told Coiro, according to a video of the conversation released by Chile’s Ahora Noticias.
“Think with your head, and do not be carried away by the noses of the leftists, who are the ones who put this thing together,” the Pope added.
Three of Karadima’s victims have accused Barros of covering up for the priest, an allegation not supported by the Vatican investigation. The most well-known of these accusers, former seminarian Juan Carlos Cruz, lives in the U.S. and has served as a leading communications executive for the DuPont company.
Cruz charged that Karadima sexually abused him in the 1980s and claimed that Barros and other bishops trained by Karadima were aware of the abuse and even witnessed it, the Associated Press says.
On Jan. 11 the Associated Press said a confidential letter from the Pope to the Chilean bishops’ conference, dated Jan. 31, 2015, acknowledged some Chilean bishops’ concerns about the appointment. The Pope reportedly said that the apostolic nuncio in 2014 had asked Barros to resign as bishop to Chile’s armed forces and to take a sabbatical before assuming any other responsibility as a bishop.
The Pope’s letter said Barros was informed that similar approach was planned for two other bishops trained by Karadima, but the bishop was not to share this information. Barros allegedly created “a serious problem” when he named these two bishops in his letter stepping down as military bishop and “blocked any eventual path” to remove these bishops from controversy.
Burke, the Vatican spokesman, declined to comment to the AP regarding the Pope’s 2015 letter. For his part, Barros said he knew nothing of the letter.
Pope Francis is visiting Chile and Peru during a trip spanning Jan. 15-22. The papal visit to Chile has drawn some violent opposition.
At least six Catholic churches in the country were attacked in apparent protest of the visit.
Three Catholic churches in the capital of Santiago were attacked or vandalized by unknown assailants Jan. 12. A firebomb at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Santiago’s Estación Central district included a death threat against the Pope.
“Pope Francis, the next bombs will be in your cassock,” said a pamphlet left behind.
Two other chapels in the city also suffered damage, including broken windows and doors.
Other pamphlets left behind appeared to object to the Church, saying “We will never submit to the dominion they want to exercise over our bodies, our ideas and actions because we were born free to decide the path we want to take.” The messages appeared to support “autonomy and resistance” for the Mapuche, the largest indigenous group in the country. Many Mapuche live in the Aurancia region, where Pope Francis will visit.
Since Chile’s 19th-century military conquest that incorporated the region, many Mapuche communities have sought the return of ancestral lands, respect for their cultural identity, and sometimes autonomy.
A fourth church – Christ the Poor Man Shrine – was targeted by a bomb threat and was subsequently investigated by a bomb squad. Some evangelical Protestant churches were also targeted.
The morning after the attacks, a group of protesters stormed Chile’s apostolic nunciature before police arrived and evicted them.
Roxana Miranda, head of an activist group that protest high mortgage rates, claimed responsibility for the protest and said it was motivated by objections to the cost of the Pope’s visit to the country.
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