Courage apostolate participates in Mexican bishops’ meeting

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.

Sheinbaum has said that despite her heritage she is “not Catholic, not religious.” According to Jewish News Syndicate, Sheinbaum is not a product of the Jewish community in Mexico and has not had any adult involvement or affiliation.

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.

[…]

Gabriel Boric, who won the 2021 Chilean presidential election, speaks after a candidates’ debate, Oct. 10, 2021. / Mediabanco Agencia via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Concepción, Chile, Dec 21, 2021 / 14:22 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib of Concepción has expressed his hope that Gabriel Boric Font, Chile’s president elect, “will recognize and value the religious soul of the Chilean people.”

Boric, of the Apruebo Dignidad alliance, won the Dec. 19 runoff presidential election.

Out of almost 15 million registered voters in the country and abroad, about 8.3 million people voted. Of these, Boric won 55.87% or about 4.6 million votes; while his opponent José Antonio Kast of the Christian Social Front coalition won 44.13% or about 3.6 million votes.

The 35-year-old president-elect will succeed Sebastián Piñera in March 2022 and will serve a four year term. In his campaign platform Boric proposed the incorporation of a feminist perspective, the implementation of policies such as “legal, free and safe abortion on demand”, and changes to the gender identity law.

To carry out his political agenda, Boric will have to negotiate with the Senate, whose political affiliations lean slightly to the right.

In the Chamber of Deputies, 44% of the 155 representatives are on the right of the political spectrum and the rest consists of the left and other parties.

Archbishop Chomali, who is vice president of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference’s Standing Committee, told the El Mercurio newspaper Dec. 20 that he hopes Boric “will recognize the immense work that the Church and so many other institutions do” and that the new president will value “the family as the place where people learn to grow”  and as such is an “irreplaceable source of happiness.”

The prelate said he hopes Boric will act decisively on behalf of the vulnerable such as the unborn child in the womb, the patient in a hospital bed, the immigrant on the border without documents, the homeless, or the disabled.

Archbishop Chomali also encouraged Boric to promote employment, “because it is a privileged path to overcome the poverty that afflicts so many Chileans.”

“I hope he sets an example of probity and works on everything necessary to end corruption, cronyism and quotas of all kinds as they are a significant source of injustice,” he added.

The Archbishop of Concepción said he hopes Boric “will never under any circumstances endorse violence in any form, wherever it comes from.”

“Lastly, I hope it goes well for him in his presidential term,” Archbishop Chomali concluded.

The Chilean Bishops’ Conference  reminded the president-elect that the “country has expressed a vote of confidence and entrusts you with a great mission, destined to direct the destiny of our country as its first authority and first servant.”

“We pray that God will give you his wisdom and his strength, which you will undoubtedly need,” the conference said.

“The mission is always greater than our possibilities and capabilities, but we trust that—with the collaboration of citizens, the work of various social and political actors, and the spiritual strength that comes from faith and from the deepest human convictions—you can face your task with generosity, commitment and prudence,”

The bishops also said that the Catholic Church in Chile “wants to continue contributing, from its particular mission, to building a more just and fraternal humanity, where especially the poor and those who suffer are respected in their dignity.”

“Count on our support and prayer, and on the contribution of our pastoral action, which we will always develop with due respect for the democratic order of our country and its legitimately elected authorities,” the message concluded.

[…]

Vancouver, Canada, Jul 28, 2019 / 05:00 am (CNA).- St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American to be canonized a saint, was celebrated by First Nations people throughout Canada on her July feast day as an important cultural bridge between Catholic… […]