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Church in Colombia aids 5,000 Venezuelan emigrants a day

October 6, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Cucuta, Colombia, Oct 6, 2018 / 06:01 am (ACI Prensa).- The Church in Colombia is assisting some 5,000 Venezuelan migrants a day, the president of the country’s bishops’ conference announced Tuesday.

Venezuela is suffering a years-long economic crisis which has caused 2.3 million people to emigrate since 2014.

“An average 5,000 people daily are being served with food and hydration, and in some cases with supplies of clothing, medicine, and personal hygiene items. The Church is doing this with the support of businesses and local, national, and international organizations,” Archbishop Oscar Urbina Ortega said Oct. 2.

Archbishop Urbina spoke during the 2018 Faith Cup in the course of a visit made by more than 600 priests participating in the soccer tournament to the Simon Bolivar International Bridge, an important border crossing between Colombia and Venezuela.

The priests also visited the Divine Providence Home, where meals are provided for Venezuelan migrants.

Archbishop Urbina reiterated that the Church in Colombia suffers “this time of so much pain” along with the migrants, and at the same time is “committed to providing them the aid that encourages them to carry on in the daily struggle to rebuild the social fabric of their country.”

He also recalled that the Colombian bishops’ conference has called for better aid and care from the international community regarding the migration problem.

“Given the exacerbation of the problem the Church will continue to raise its voice, making it known that much more is needed, much more aid and it is necessary to back away from saber rattling and armies marching along the border areas.”

Finally, Archbishop Urbina pointed out that the demand for public services, education, and health care has increased due to the lack of necessary resources.

Since Nicolas Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013, the country has been marred by violence and social upheaval.

Poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers and medicines.

Venezuela’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while they are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates.

Inflation in Venezuela may reach 1 million percent this year.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Archbishop criticizes pro-abortion presentation at Catholic university

October 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Guadalajara, Mexico, Oct 4, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- After an event featuring abortion rights activists was held at a Mexican Jesuit university, the president of the Mexican bishops’ conference reiterated that the Church opposes abortion, and said that he had no prior knowledge of the event and that this forum was not authorized by the Church.

Abortion is illegal in Mexico. However, in 2007 Mexico City, the country’s capital, decriminalized abortion for up to 12 weeks for any reason. By some estimates, there have been two million abortions there since that time.

In his communiqué entitled “No to Abortion,” Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega stated “Our position as believers is founded on both Sacred Scripture and the magisterium of the Church as well as natural law and what science has demonstrated regarding the beginning of the existence of the human being,”

“Serious scientific studies prove the existence of a life, of a different person, from the moment of conception. Respect for life must not be subject to a debate, nor some eagerness for ‘openness’ or to be ‘cutting edge,’  even less so for questions of taste or feelings, as if respect for life could depend on what some people feel or think,” the prelate pointed out.

Nor can respect for life, he added, “be subject to the arbitrariness of personal conscience alone, because the conscience must be objectively formed and because what it in question is the life of an innocent person.”

“When we talk about this issue—and we don’t accept abortion—it’s not a matter of intolerance or rejecting dialogue, but of coherence with the right of every person to live, especially if it’s an innocent person, the one yet to be born,”  Cardinal Ortega pointed out.

The controversial university program was held Sept. 26 at the ITESO (Institute of Technology and Higher Studies of the West), Jesuit University of Guadalajara. It was entitled “Dialogue concerning the Right to Decide,” and featured three presenters wearing the green kerchief of the pro-abortion movement in Latin America. The speakers were affiliated with organizations that promote the legalization of abortion in Mexico and other countries in the world: CLADEM, the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights; GIRE, the Informational Group on Chosen Reproduction, and Catholic Women for the Right to Decide.

CLADEM campaigns for legalized abortion throughout Latin America.  GIRE has reportedly received more than $100 million dollars from the International Planned Parenthood Federation over the last ten years. Catholic Women for the Right to Decide (Catholics for Choice in the U.S.) has been condemned by bishops in various parts of the world.

At the center of the controversy is the Jesuit priest and outgoing rector of the university, Fr. José Morales Orozco.

In defending the university’s decision to hold the event, Fr. Orozco stated that “ITESO is for life, is against abortion, but before that it is for freedom of conscience,” explaining that “people have every right and obligation to decide in conscience what they see and nobody can judge, only God.”

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, and ITESO spokesman said that “human life is sacred and always must be cared for and respected” and pointed out that Orozco “at the activity made it clear that the university is for life and against abortion, and for freedom of conscience.”

 ITESO “dialogues with people of different religious and political beliefs, different ethnic and cultural origins. A respectful exchange of ideas is brought about with those who think differently because this is how the reflection of the university is developed and deepened and  knowledge is increased.”

The university added that “abortion is one of the five main causes of maternal death, and these cases occur especially with poor women. It’s an issue that must be reviewed and discussed from the ethical and moral point of view, as well as its implication in terms of social justice and public health policy.”

Nevertheless, there was no presenter at the forum to explain the Church’s teaching or its basis in the sciences.

In response to the event, the president for the National Front for the Family for the state of Jalisco, Jaime Cedillo, demanded that ITESO not be a “platform to promote” abortion advocates.

Speaking to ACI Prensa, Cedillo criticized that the event at the Jesuit university was used “as a promotion of an international movement sponsored by large organizations that promote abortion.”

“At an educational institution like the university, which has a Christian inspiration, it can’t lend itself as a platform for the culture of abortion,” he noted.

Cedillo expressed his dismay that the position against abortion was not presented in order to open the doors to “a healthy debate at the university.”

He added that if a university “defends a clear position, obviously it can’t led itself to a scenario that openly promotes something to the contrary.”

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Mexican state advances pro-life constitutional amendment

October 2, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Culiacan, Mexico, Oct 2, 2018 / 05:42 pm (ACI Prensa).- The congress of the Mexican state of Sinaloa on Friday passed a constitutional amendment protecting human life from the moment of conception.

The amendment, passed Sept. 28 by the unicameral state legislature, must be ratified by a majority of the state’s municipalities.

The vote was 32 in favor, one against, and one abstention.

Since the 2007 legalization of abortion in Mexico City under the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), 18 Mexican states have passed constitutional reforms protecting human life from conception.

The proposed Article 4 of the Sinaloa constitution reads: “Everyone has a right to have their life respected. The state protects the right to life from the moment an individual is conceived, enters under the protection of the law and is considered as born for all legal intents and purposes, until their natural death.”

Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, told ACI Prensa the amendment was introduced by Juan Pablo Yumani of the National Action Party (PAN).

The majority party in the Sinaloa congress is the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

For Cortés, this amendment to the Sinaloa constitution “is a ray of light in a very murky time” since several organizations recently celebrated the legalization of abortion in Mexico City and demanded that it be extended throughout the country.

Among these are the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who announced during a Sept. 27 press conference they will seek to legalize abortion throughout Mexico.

Cortés noted that MORENA is joined in their goal by PRD.

The state of Veracruz is also being pressured to legalized abortion.

Cortés said the National Front for the Family will hold pro-life marches throughout Mexico Oct. 20.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Pope Francis laicizes convicted Chilean abuser

September 28, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Sep 28, 2018 / 09:30 am (CNA).- The pope has ordered the laicization of Fernando Karadima, a Chilean priest convicted in 2011 of the sexual abuse of minors. He had previously been sentenced to a life of prayer and penance.

Pope Francis m… […]

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Santiago archdiocese creates lay-led commission to address abuse cases

September 27, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Santiago, Chile, Sep 27, 2018 / 03:10 pm (ACI Prensa).- Amid the crisis facing the Church in Chile regarding sexual and other forms of abuse, the Archdiocese of Santiago has created the Bishops’ Delegated Commission for Truth and Peace.

This body will integrate  the functions carried out by the Pastoral Office for Abuse Complaints and the Department for the Promotion of Safe Environments with the goal of addressing the harm done by members of the clerics of the archdiocese, responding to current needs and establishing ways to restore trust.

Their functions include coordinating the efforts of the archdiocesan entities aimed at promoting safe and secure environments, as well as receiving and accompanying those making accusations and the victims of abuse in ecclesial contexts.

They will also monitor canonical procedures in abuse cases, provide the necessary monitoring but also pastoral care of the clergy involved and the pastoral care for the communities and persons affected. They will inform the communities “in a duly and timely manner” and collaborate with civil institutions.

The Bishops’ Delegated Commission for Truth and Peace will be presided over by Andrea Idalsoaga Montoya, a lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and will be comprised of the vicar general, the judicial vicar, the vicar for the clergy, the chancellor, the diocesan delegate from the Pastoral Office for Abuse Complaints, and the director of the Department for the Promotion of Safe Environments.

The Diocesan Advisory Council for the prevention of abuse will continue to collaborate with the new commission.

Idalsoaga is the first woman and layperson to head up the tasks related to abuse complaints and abuse prevention training in the archdiocese. She will report directly to the Archbishop of Santiago.

She is also a member of the board of the Chilean Association of Canon Law. She was the judge of the National Ecclesiastical Appeals Tribunal for more than 14 years and worked as a professor of canon law at the Pontifical Catholic University’s School of Law between 2008 and 2012.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Nicaraguan bishop laments death of teen during anti-government protests

September 27, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Sep 27, 2018 / 02:13 pm (ACI Prensa).- Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos of Matagalpa has called for an end to the deaths in the country occurring during protests against the government of Daniel Ortega after the death of 16-year-old Matt Andrés Romero, who died Sept. 23 during an anti-government demonstration.

“We mourn the death. We mourn one more death. It grieves our soul, the death of the young man, of the boy, Matt Andrés Romero. Our prayers for his family. Our love and solidarity with them. We continue to insist: not one more death, please,” Bishop Álvarez wrote on Twitter Sept. 25.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”es” dir=”ltr”>&quot;Nos duele la muerte. Nos duele un muerto más. Nos duele hasta el alma, la muerte del jovencito, del niño, Matt Andrés Romero. Nuestras oraciones por su familia. Nuestro cariño y solidaridad con ellos. Seguimos insistiendo: ni un muerto más por favor&quot;. Mons. Rolando José.</p>&mdash; Monseñor Rolando José Alvarez L. (@DiocesisdeMat) <a href=”https://twitter.com/DiocesisdeMat/status/1044814230996873217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>September 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Romero died during the “We are all the voice of the political prisoners” march in Managua, where he was mortally wounded by a gunshot.

His family and friends affirm he was shot by paramilitaries supportive of Ortega. According to the authorities it occurred during a crossfire, which the organizers of the march refute.

With Romero’s decease, the number of deaths has risen to 323 since the protests began April 18 and include 23 children and adolescents, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

However, according to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights, there have been more than 510 deaths. In addition there may be another 1,300 disappeared persons.

Nicaragua’s crisis began after Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests only intensified after more than 40 protestors were killed by security forces initially.

The country’s bishops have mediated on-again, off-again peace talks between the government and opposition groups.

Bishops and priests across the country have worked to separate protesters and security forces, and have been threatened and shot.

Anti-government protestors have been attacked by “combined forces” made up of regular police, riot police, paramilitaries, and pro-government vigilantes.

The Nicaraguan government has suggested that protestors are killing their own supporters so as to destabilize Ortega’s administration.

The Church in Nicaragua was quick to acknowledge the protestors’ complaints.

The pension reforms which triggered the unrest were modest, but protests quickly turned to Ortega’s authoritarian bent.

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

The Church has suggested that elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, be held in 2019, but Ortega has ruled this out.

Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

 

This article was originally published CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Parish of priest who denounced drug traffickers attacked in Argentina

September 26, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Rosario, Argentina, Sep 26, 2018 / 07:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- Mary Our Queen Parish in the city of Rosario, Argentina was the target of a violent attack Sept. 23, which the church’s pastor said was a threat made in response to his recent denunciation of area gangs and drug traffickers.

Gunmen fired on the church and school, which face each other. Seven shots struck the church facade, one of which went through the front door. Another five bullets hit the door of the school. 

The Rosario Regional Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation to find those responsible. However, the church’s pastor, Fr. Juan Pablo Núñez, blamed the shooting on drug traffickers. A few weeks ago, he began to speak about the drugs problem, and he said he had already received threats.

“The neighborhood was a no man’s land, many incidents of robberies, shootings, the people came to talk to me because they didn’t know whom to talk to, so then I started airing their concerns about that situation,” Fr. Núñez told the news portal Todos Para Uno.

The priest explained that he has been working in the neighborhood for four and a half years. He had opened a center to help young people on drugs, but he had to close it soon afterwards because of threats from the parents themselves, some of whom were also involved in the drug trade.

Four weeks before the attack, Fr. Núñez  began to ask the local authorities to take the necessary steps “to put an end the drama of the lack of public safety.”

“When people ask me if I’m afraid, for myself no, but I do fear for the people because these gangs  don’t respect anyone,” the pastor of Mary Our Queen said.

The vicar general of the Archdiocese of Rosario, Msgr. Emilio Cardarelli, expressed his solidarity with Fr. Núñez and the parish and school community.

Msgr. Cardarelli asked prayers of all the faithful “so that the grace of letting themselves be encountered by Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, may come to those who were the authors of this deed.”

Finally, he asked the authorities “to not just work on the weakest link, the small time drug dealers on the streets, but also on the financial circuit that sustains drug trafficking and the massive distribution of arms, which cause so many deaths in our city.”

“With the start of the novena coming soon which prepares us for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, the patroness of our city and archdiocese, we commend to her heart this situation which is harming our young people and deteriorating the social fabric,” Msgr. Cardarelli concluded.

 

This article was originally published CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Mexican cardinal calls for respect for bodies found stored in trailers

September 24, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Guadalajara, Mexico, Sep 25, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The president of the Mexican bishops’ conference has demanded that the dignity of human bodies be respected, after two trailers were found in Mexico’s Jalisco state, containing 157 corpses.

In a statement published Sept. 21, Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega responded to the discovery, which he said “has caused outrage in society.”

On Sept. 18, locals in the municipality of Tlajomulco alerted authorities to the presence of a trailer emitting foul odors. The trailer contained corpses reported to be murder victims connected to organized crime, which apparently could not be kept in a morgue due to lack of space.

The former director of the Jalisco Forensic Sciences Institute, Luis Octavio Cotero Bernal, is presumably responsible for the scandal. He was dismissed from his position shortly after the bodies were discovered. There has not yet been an official statement on the discovery of the bodies.

The bodies from the trailer and a second one are now in a warehouse belonging to the Jalisco state prosecutor’s office.

In his statement, Cardinall Robles said that believing in the “resurrection of the dead is to affirm something essential to the Christian faith.”

“Human existence does not come to an end  with the years lived in this world, since Jesus Christ by rising has made us sharers in eternity,” he added.

For this reason, the cardinal emphasized, “the dignity of every individual is not lost even after death, human remains require the respect due to those who in life were persons, made in the ‘image and likeness of God,’ who await, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to be redeemed and saved for eternal life.”

“Death is not the end, the annihilation,  the elimination, much less the extinction of a human person,” the archbishop said.

Burying the dead, he continued, “is a way of expressing faith in the Resurrection, since by so doing it is understood that the person reposes with the firm hope of one day being awakened by the eternal light of Heaven.”

“Besides belonging to a very ancient tradition of burying the dead, we know that it has been considered a corporal work of mercy. Societies of all times and cultures have set aside suitable places for the interment of their deceased, places that express compassion, respect and veneration toward those who shared our same pilgrim journey.”

Robles lamented undignified storage of human corpses, and explained that it “makes evident a process of the lamentable and gradual dehumanization of our society which has been permeating us and makes us deduce that government institutions have been overrun.”

“With the lack of care and attention to the bodies that have not been identified, the discouragement of people hoping to find their loved ones grows,” he wrote.

Robles, who is Archbishop of Guadalajara wrote that “for social, humanitarian, religious and public health reasons, it is urgent to follow the proper procedures to obtain and carefully archive genetic information which could lead in the future to the identification of the remains of those who now remain in anonymity.”

“We call then for the respect due honor due to human beings in whatever their circumstances, from the most vulnerable and defenseless to the most obscure and ignored. Any human breath is a sign of the goodness of the Creator,” he concluded.

Mexican officials are now seeking a long-term solution to the body storage problem presented by the victims of organized crime.

The BBC reported that in 2017 Mexico experienced its most violent year with more that 25,000 murders, according to official figures.

Since 1990 one cardinal, 47 priests, one deacon, four men religious, nine laypersons and one Catholic journalist have been killed in Mexico according to a report by the Catholic Multimedia Center of Mexico.

It is also estimated that since 2000, 105 journalists have been murdered in Mexico.

 

This article was originally published CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

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Mexican bishops call for solidarity with flood victims in Sinaloa

September 21, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Culiacan, Mexico, Sep 21, 2018 / 06:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Mexican bishops’ conference called for solidarity Friday with the thousands of people affected by heavy rains and flooding in Sinaloa state, which has been declared in a state of emergency by the authorities.

“In concern for the state of Sinaloa which is suffering from the damage left by the heavy rains over the last hours by the tropical depression19-E and its downpour September 19 and 20, we express our communion, joining in prayer,” states the Sept. 21 communiqué.

So far 11 out of Sinaloa’s municipios have been affected, as well as several municipalities in neighboring Sonora.

The rains from the tropical depression have caused damage to homes, cars, and farmland, and the evacuation of about 16,000 people.

The bishops’ statement indicated that over 32,000 acres of crops have also been seriously damaged in the Carrizo Valley and El Fuerte.

The bishops noted in their statement that “Sinaloa has always been in solidarity with our country in different contingencies and so we ask you to join, with a merciful gesture, a generous spirit and fraternal charity, the special collection in support of our brothers to aid and accompany them now and in the subsequent phases of rehabilitation and reconstruction.”

“We are entrusting to our Caritas Mexico the mission of receiving and transferring funds in order to respond to this emergency,” the statement says.

“We place our brothers in Sinaloa and Sonora under the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” the communiqué concludes.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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