Cucuta, Colombia, Feb 12, 2019 / 05:23 pm (ACI Prensa).- The bishop of a Colombian diocese bordering Venezuela has said that “we can’t be still” in face of the Venezuelan people’s suffering, and noted that the Church has responded to the humanitarian crisis from its beginning.
Under the administration of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval, with severe shortages and hyperinflation leading millions of Venezuelans to emigrate.
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president of Venezuela last month, has been recognized as Venezuelan president by the US, Canada, much of the European Union, and several Latin American nations.
In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, Bishop Victor Manuel Ochoa Cadavid of Cúcuta said that when Maduro’s government began deporting Colombians in August 2015, the Church in Cúcuta “began its services to the brothers experiencing hardship.”
Since then the Diocese of Cúcuta has been daily serving thousands of people crossing the border through several initiatives, such as the Divine Providence House of Transit.
Bishop Ochoa pointed out that Cúcuta has Colombia’s highest unemployment rate: “more than 21 percent unemployment, and almost 75 percent of those employed are poorly paid, under the table.” However, “the Church is intervening with humanitarian assistance.”
“We have been helping with this crisis for the last three years. We’re doing it, we’re helping many institutions in Venezuela. Also with the aid of the U.S. government. We have a medical clinic that serves almost 800 people a day. We’re distributing food, we’re helping people who are migrating,” he said.
“The emergency has been created, but we’ve already been helping as a Church,” he told ACI Prensa.
The bishop said that since mid 2015 they have distributed “a million good quality warm servings without counting emergency servings.”
“When the food allotted for the day runs out we distribute tuna and pasta, or tuna and rice and a loaf of bread so no pregnant woman goes without eating, no child goes without eating, no elderly person goes without eating,” he said.
The bishop said that the Divine Providence House of Transit distributes 5,000 servings a day. Another 5,000 meals are delivered to eight parishes.
“It’s the charity of the Church that we try to live out here with great fidelity to the Lord: ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,’” said Bishop Ochoa, expressing the desire of the faithful to be able to do more for the migrants.
The prelate highlighted the commitment of nearly 800 volunteers from parishes and ecclesial movements who are also joined by priests and nuns.
For several days aid shipments, arranged by Guaidó, have been sitting in Cúcuta, awaiting permission from Maduro to enter Venezuela.
A tanker truck and a cargo container, placed there by the Venezuelan military, are currently blocking the Tienditas bridge which connects Cúcuta to Urena, Venezuela.
Caritas Venezuela has been asking for three years that humanitarian aid be allowed into the country.
Maduro told the BBC Feb. 12 that the aid is being blocked because “it’s a show, that the United States government has set up with the compliance of the Colombian government to humiliate the Venezuelans. Venezuela is a country that has the capacity to satisfy all the necessities of our people.”
“Venezuela is a country that has dignity, and the United States has intended to create a humanitarian crisis in order to justify a military intervention – ‘humanitarian’. And this is part of that show,” Maduro said. “That’s the reason that we, with dignity, tell them that the miniscule crumbs that they intend to bring with toxic food, with leftovers that they have, we tell them no – Venezuela has dignity, Venezuela produces and works and our people do not to beg from anyone.”
It was reported Feb. 11 that Brazil has also agreed to set up a staging area for humanitian aid intended for Venezuela.
Bishop Ochoa expressed his desire that the aid enter Venezuela, saying, “Not to permit access is a political problem. We want the Venezuelan people to have all they need.”
Lester Toledo, Guaidó’s coordinator of humanitarian aid, said Feb. 11 that besides the United States “there are dozens of countries in the region, from the Lima Group and from Europe, that are willing to bring in the initial tons of aid, medical supplies, food.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Another political stunt.
SOL,
I expect some people got inspired to participate in this for political reasons but still, good for the KC helping these folks at Christmas time.
I don’t like immigration used as a tool to gain political power & a larger constituency for Democrats either, but you know without it we’re going to be in the same kind of demographic implosion as Europe & Japan face. Look at the current US birth rates. Pretty dismal.
The strategy should be to attract honest, hardworking Christian folk from South of the border & not alienate them so that they run straight into the arms of liberal politicians who want to use them to overturn conservative states like TX.
I don’t believe liberal Democrats have the immigrants’ best interest-witness their campaign to abort migrant girls’ infants. But liberals claim to & they don’t publicly show the hostility that many of our conservatives do. We might could learn something from that.
Why not try the novel idea of increasing the native American birthrate? There are many valid reasons to declare an immigration moratorium and no good ones for continuing mass Third World immigration.
Tony,
Amen to your comments. And if demographic trends continue, the majority population will eventually be traditional Catholics, Amish, orthodox Jews, and others who bother to reproduce themselves. But that may take some time.
Mrscracker, the groups you list will be swamped by the dispararte (they are hardly all Latin American or Christian) Third World mob that is being ushered into this country by a treasonous elite. They will be united, temporarily, anyway, by their resentment of the country that was foolish enough to let them in. When the remnant middle class backbone of Americais finally vanquished, the war of all against all that is barely being suppressed today, will begin in earnest. May I ask if you at least oppose Muslim immigration into Western countries?
Mrscracker,
In an age of the ongoing collapse of industrial systems predicated upon cheap energy and easy access to resources, the problem of population implosion will eventually take care of itself, as those who are willing to surmount the hardship and reproduce will replace those who cannot.
The case for increasing the population through the reception of immigrants is one predicated upon infinite growth, which is not sustainable, and as you noted, aids the leftist revolutionaries. Immigrants are already alienated in so far as they have and seek to maintain a different identity and wishful thinking will not cause integration or their voluntary abandonment of their identity. And hostility by those being overwhelmed by them is a natural and just response. Violence is more likely than not if their numbers continue to increase. At this point the consequences are probably already in motion and very little can probably be done to prevent them. What can be done though is for Roman Catholics to preserve the credibility of their church and religion, but their bishops are ignorant of the dangers of the current situation and they are content to think the status quo can eventually favor their institution.
In continuing their current course Latin bishops will discredit themselves and their religion if and when there is a reaction to the status quo and the elites behind it.
Well stated, SOL. Based on their extreme leftist position on immigration alone, it is very hard for this practicing Catholic to regard the great majority of the Church hierarchy as being anything other than an enemy of my family, country and civilization.
SOL,
Thank you for your comments too.
Our plummeting fertility rates don’t foretell anything like infinite growth. More likely shrinking and aging. Without immigration that’s going to happen a whole lot sooner.
A smaller population isn’t the problem as much as an age imbalanced population. If you take a look at the demographic data and projections you see increasing numbers of elderly and fewer and fewer young people entering the workforce.
Birth rates are falling globally in all but a couple regions. One day we may wish we had more Christian immigrants to fill the empty places in our nation.
I don’t believe mass immigration is a good idea nor do I believe in open borders but Americans seem to have so little appreciation of their own culture that they can’t be bothered to create another generation to pass it down to.
The economic system and the decisions of the elites are based on the fantasy of infinite growth.
“but Americans seem to have so little appreciation of their own culture that they can’t be bothered to create another generation to pass it down to.”
I suspect this may be more true of blue urban areas than red rural areas, which have other difficulties.
See this link for more on infinite growth: https://psmag.com/.amp/magazine/fallacy-of-endless-growth
Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem to comply with the census. How many people were in the same boat and were there because of the census? The story of Mary and Joseph not finding a room at an inn could be a story of a community overwhelmed by there being more people than the community could handle at one time.
*
The USA may be a rich powerful nation, but it does not have unlimited resources. There are only so many people that the USA can admit at one time while maintaining an orderly immigration process. A responsible host doesn’t invite more guests than the host can provide hospitality for. Illegal immigrants are gate-crashers. The mess at the Southern border is what happens when you have a large number of gate-crashers.
SOL,
Thank you very much for the link to that article.
I think that illustrates exactly what the misconceptions are about population. People are still basing their fears on theories from the 1970’s. It’s not 1972 anymore and things have changed dramatically.
Population implosion is what we need to be concerned about in the coming decades.
Though it’s certainly not a Catholic book and the author doesn’t hold our views on contraception, etc., I’d really recommend reading “Factfulness ” by Hans Rosling. Things really have changed globally and will continue to change. Not necessarily for the better, but not what was predicted in 1972 either.
God bless!