CNA Staff, Feb 5, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa said on Thursday that Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga has tested positive for COVID-19 and is “stable and recovering” at a local private clinic.
Fr. Rodolfo Varela, spokesman for the Honduran archdiocese, announced on Feb. 4 that Maradiaga, 78, felt “some flu-like symptoms on Tuesday and tested positive for COVID on Wednesday.”
“He is stable and recovering, but resting at the clinic upon the request of his doctor,” Fr. Varela added in a statement released by the Catholic television station TV Suyapa.
“The cardinal has asked Honduran Catholics to pray for him, but to turn their attention to all the people currently suffering from COVID in the country.”
Fr. Juan Ángel López, director of TV Suyapa, said: “The cardinal is diabetic and is 78 years old, so we have to take his condition seriously. He is now in the hands of Our Lady of Suyapa [Patroness of Honduras].”
The television station broadcast a Holy Rosary on Thursday night to pray for the cardinal’s swift recovery.
Cardinal Maradiaga is the coordinator of the Council of Cardinals, created in 2013 by Pope Francis to help him reform the Roman Curia and advise him in the government of the universal Church.
The council currently has seven members and has met 34 times since it was created. It is currently discussing the final draft of a new apostolic constitution on the Curia entitled “Praedicate evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”).
Honduras, with a population of 10 million, has registered more than 151,000 infected and almost 4,000 deaths from COVID-19.
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We pray for the full recovery of Honduran Cardinal Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the people of Honduras and Central America plagued with criminal invasion of murderous gangs forcing them to leave their country. San Pedro Sula, Honduras is a particular hotspot.
Honduras has been one of the three central American ravaged by gangs like MS13 so horrible that citizens fear for their safety and that of their children and their families are fleeing.
There is a poignant article in the February edition of National Geographic magazine that covers the plight of migrants and their children traveling, some by bloodied feet, 1,200 miles through Mexico to seek asylum in America. Focus is on the LGBTQ horror of citizen rejection. They are much more in danger since Catholic Honduras citizens abhor them, disparage, threaten and attack them. Is the Vatican out front and visible on the danger and displacement? If yes, what is being done?
To exacerbate their plight the Trump administration, using their “zero tolerance” order, incarcerated Hispanic children in cages separating them from their migrant parents attempting asylum. They were turned back. Trump said “they were not sending their good people. They are sending “criminals and rapists”. Trump issued “build the wall”. Since Trump was defeated he left an unfinished monolith after spending $billions of taxpayer’s money. Only 400 of 1200 miles was completed. Some observers of the wall said “the wall was not built to keep the migrants out, it was to keep Trump in.
Today, there are more than 600 children waiting for reunion with their loved ones.
The three Central American presidents are pleading for the US to help restore order. I believe that there should be a confluence of western nations appointed by the UN to help the local police quell the violence and allow the residents to return home.