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Bolivia’s People’s Ombudsman led march that attacked offices of bishops’ conference

October 29, 2021 Catholic News Agency 1
Acts of vandalism at the Bolivian bishops’ conference in La Paz, Oct. 27, 2021. / ACI Prensa.

La Paz, Bolivia, Oct 29, 2021 / 18:33 pm (CNA).

Bolivia’s People’s Ombudsman, Nadia Cruz, together with officials from her office, led a Wednesday march to the offices of the Bolivian bishops’ conference, which some participants vandalized with anti-Catholic slogans.

Under the Bolivian constitution, the People’s Ombudsman’s Office is charged with defending human rights, functioning independently of the government.

The Oct. 27 march took place after some governmental institutions and the Bolivian and international press charged that the Catholic Church in Bolivia had intervened or forced an 11-year-old girl, who was pregnant from rape, to refuse to have an abortion, continue with the pregnancy, and be transferred to a shelter.

Several organizations tried to get the minor to have an abortion; however, the girl and her mother objected.

The girl was discharged from the hospital Oct. 26 and in an Oct. 27 handwritten letter, formally desisted from going ahead with the abortion. The minor was later transferred to a shelter run by the Catholic Church in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a decision made by the Ombudsman’s Office for Children and Adolescents.

Since then, the charitable action of the Church in Bolivia has been met with attacks and accusations of alleged interference in the decisions of the minor’s family.

Images from Oct. 27 show graffiti and signs stuck to the walls of the bishops’ offices with various pro-abortion messages such as: “no child mothers,” “rapists,” “they’re not pro-life they’re pro-rape,” “get your rosaries off our ovaries,” “if there is rape there is (abortion),” “rapists and perverse priests.” Some signs appear to have been made by children.

In a video, dozens of people can be seen outside the bishops’ offices protesting.

In a statement given to the program “No Lies” which the PAT television network airs, Dr. Susana Inch, the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference’s legal advisor, said that “several of those who were in the attack wore the vests of the Ombudsman’s Office.” Inch said a complaint will be filed against the agency since as “there is property damage” and “the people have been identified.”

“It’s absurd, the way they did it,” she said, and that all legal issues “will be dealt with in the legal system.”

In the same interview, Cruz said she led the violent demonstration.

“If the Bishops’ Conference is concerned about the participation of the Ombudsman’s Office, because it has identified the Ombudsman’s vests, I say to them that I personally went and led the demonstration from the Ombudsman’s Office to the Bishops’ Conference in the exercise of our functions in order to denounce the human rights violations that the Church is committing at this time,” she said.

“If you’re so concerned about property, we wouldn’t be surprised if you are concerned about property and not about the cases of torture that you are carrying out,” she added.

In a statement to the BBC, Cruz accused the Catholic Church and pro-life groups of putting pressure on the girl and her mother “to change their minds and desist from going ahead to terminate the pregnancy.”

The minor became pregnant in the city of Yapacaní in the Santa Cruz administrative district after suffering repeated sexual abuse by her 61-year-old grandfather, who is now under arrest. The girl is 21 weeks pregnant.

Víctor Hugo Valda, the bishops’ Delegate for Health of the Archdiocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister news agency, that the Church didn’t interfere or intervene in any way and that as of this moment “no one has spoken not even with the girl nor with the mother.”

“What the Church did was appear in person on Monday at the hospital so that the voice of the girl and the mother who didn’t want to interrupt the pregnancy be respected, and because in addition, forcing her to have an abortion would be a crime. The Church was present for that and to ask about the girl’s condition,” he explained.

Valda also criticized that the Church is being “accused of abducting” the minor.

“To be clear, the institution that made the decision as to where the girl has to go, and that physically transferred the girl, from (the hospital) to the shelter, was the Ombudsman’s Office for Children and Adolescents,” he noted.

The bishops’ delegate for health also reiterated that the Church wasn’t “physically present during the transfer of the minor nor did it participate in the decisions about the girl.”

“They decided to take the girl to this home after the Church publicly offered it,” he stressed.

The bishops’ General Secretariat urged the country’s authorities Oct. 26 to respect and protect the right to life and health of the 11-year-old girl and her unborn baby.

“Both lives deserve to be and must be protected. We affirm that both the rights of the girl, as well as those of the baby growing in her womb, must be protected, since both are innocent and victims of a criminal act” which the perpetrator must be held responsible for,”  the Bishops’ Conference said in an Oct. 26 statement.

The bishops stressed “that no one can be forced to perform abortions, not even given the seriousness of sexual violence, because abortion in Bolivia is a crime, even on grounds where it has been decriminalized (such as rape) and no one can be forced, not even the healthcare personnel, to commit this crime.”


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St José Sánchez del Río’s witness highlighted at Mexican Martyrs Shrine statue dedication

October 18, 2021 Catholic News Agency 0
St. Jose Sanchez del Rio banner in St. Peter’s Square, Oct. 16, 2016. / Martha Calderon / CNA.

Guadalajara, Mexico, Oct 18, 2021 / 17:01 pm (CNA).

At the dedication of the statue of Saint José Sánchez del Río at Guadalajara’s Martyrs Shrine, the city’s archbishop highlighted the saint’s witness and encouraged young people to be inspired by his life.

St. José Sánchez del Río was born in Sahuayo de Morelos, Mexico in 1913. He was a Cristero. At the age of 14 he was tortured and put to death by government officials when he refused to renounce the faith.

A 5.5 foot statue of the saint, made by Carlos Espino, was dedicated at the shrine in Guadalajara during an Oct. 12 Mass.

During the Mass, Jose Francisco Cardinal Robles Ortega, encouraged those who are younger to look to “the witness and example of Saint José Sánchez. Read his biography, meditate on it, share it, and see that despite his few years of experience, the full and total meaning of life can be found.”

The cardinal stressed that “life has a meaning,” while lamenting that “there are many young men and women who aren’t finding what to do with their lives, they don’t know what they are in this world for, they’re not discovering what they came into this world for and live an existential void.”

These young people, he continued, “seek many times to fill that existential void with things that apparently fill them, but the only thing they produce is a deeper void.”

“And so dear young people, it is worthwhile to look at the testimony of a young man, born into an ordinary Christian family, but who had the courage to discover Christ and to be faithful to him.”

Cardinal Robles encouraged Catholics to give “thanks to God for the witness of our Mexican martyrs to Christ the King.”

“They gave their lives bearing witness to the faith,” he said. Some of those who arrested them “told them what they had to shout in order to escape martyrdom (allegiance to the government) and instead of obeying that suggestion to escape martyrdom, they said with greater enthusiasm, ‘Long live Christ the King and Holy Mary of Guadalupe.’”

“And for that they merited their martyrdom, and for that they merited that Christ testify before the Father, and that Christ continue to bear witness to their martyrdom before the community of his faithful,” the cardinal said.

“Let’s try to get to know them more, let’s try to imitate them more, let’s try to  take their testimony more into our personal lives, but especially in family life,” he said.

The Archbishop of Guadalajara stressed that “the witness of the martyrs should not only amaze us, the testimony of the martyrs should move us, it should be an invitation to us.”

“Perhaps because of the circumstances we live in, we’re not going to reach that extreme of having to shed our blood or die for Christ,” he said, but “every day, in every circumstance, in every moment, in every relationship, in everything we do, in all the areas in which we operate, we have the opportunity to be witnesses for Christ.”

“Jesus will bear witness to us if we take up being his witnesses, the disciples who bear witness to him,” he assured.

The cardinal stressed that “the testimony of the martyrs endures,” while people do not necessarily remember “the names of the people who inflicted, who carried out the martyrdom.” 

The testimony of the martyrs, however,  “is not extinguished” and “is not forgotten.”

Saint José Sánchez del Río was born March 28, 1913 in Sahuayo, in Michoacán state.

In 1926 under the administration of Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles the “Calles Law” was enacted restricting Catholic worship, which began the religious persecution that triggered the Cristero War.

The laws banned religious orders, deprived the Church of property rights, and denied priests civil liberties, including the right to trial by jury and the right to vote. As the restrictions on religious liberty increased, Catholics could be fined or imprisoned for teaching Church doctrine, wearing clerical attire, meeting together after their convents were disbanded, promoting religious life, or holding religious services in non-church locations.

José Sánchez del Río asked his parents for permission to enlist with the Cristero troops, who were fighting for religious freedom in Mexico. When his mother tried to dissuade him because of the risk of being killed, he replied, “Mom, it has never been so easy to earn heaven as it is now, and I don’t want to miss the chance.”

After being captured by government troops, Sánchez was tortured Feb. 10, 1928, for refusing to renounce the faith.

The officers cut off the soles of his feet and made him walk towards what would become his grave. As he walked, Saint José Sánchez del Río prayed and shouted “Long live Christ the King and the Virgin of Guadalupe!” Once at the place of execution, the government troops hung him from a tree and stabbed him.

Shortly before he died, when one of his executioners took him down from the tree and asked him if he had a message for his parents, Saint Jose told him: “Long live Christ the King and that we will see each other in heaven.” He was then shot twice in the head, laid in a small grave, and covered with dirt.

He was beatified in 2005, and canonized Oct. 16, 2016.


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The miracle attributed to Carlo Acutis’ prayers

October 12, 2021 Catholic News Agency 0
Mattheus (left) holds a photo of Carlo Acutis (right), whose prayers are attributed with the boy’s healing. / Campo Grande News

CNA Staff, Oct 12, 2021 / 08:30 am (CNA).

The beatification of Carlo Acutis took place Oct. 10, 2020 after a miracle attributed to his prayers and the grace of God. In Brazil, a boy named Mattheus was healed from a serious birth defect called an annular pancreas after he and his mother asked Acutis to pray for his healing.

Mattheus was born in 2009 with a serious condition that caused him difficulty eating and serious abdominal pain. He was unable to keep any food in his stomach, and vomited constantly.

By the time Mattheus was nearly four years old, he weighed only 20 pounds, and lived on a vitamin and protein shake, one of the few things his body could tolerate. He was not expected to live long.

His mother, Luciana Vianna, had spent years praying for his healing.

At the same time, a priest friend of the family, Fr. Marcelo Tenorio, learned online about the life of Carlo Acutis, and began praying for his beatification. In 2013 he obtained a relic from Carlo’s mother, and he invited Catholics to a Mass and prayer service in his parish, encouraging them to ask Acutis’ intercession for whatever healing they might need.

Mattheus’ mother heard about the prayer service. She decided she would ask Acutis to intercede for her son. In fact, in the days before the prayer service, Vianna made a novena for Acutis’ intercession, and explained to her son that they could ask Acutis to pray for his healing.

On the day of the prayer service, she took Mattheus and other family members to the parish.

Fr. Nicola Gori, the priest responsible for promoting Acutis’ sainthood cause, told Italian media what happened next:

“On October 12, 2013, seven years after Carlo’s death, a child, affected by a congenital malformation (annular pancreas), when it was his turn to touch the picture of the future blessed, expressed a singular wish, like a prayer: ‘I wish I could stop vomiting so much.’ Healing began immediately, to the point that the physiology of the organ in question changed,” Fr. Gori said.

On the way home from the Mass, Mattheus told his mother that he was already cured. At home, he asked for French fries, rice, beans, and steak – the favorite foods of his brothers.

He ate everything on his plate. He didn’t vomit. He ate normally the next day, and the next. Vianna took Mattheus to physicians, who were mystified by Mattheus’ healing.

Mattheus’ mother told Brazilian media she sees in the miracle an opportunity to evangelize.

“Before, I didn’t even use my cell phone, I was averse to technology. Carlo changed my way of thinking, he was known for talking about Jesus on the Internet, and I realized that my testimony would be a way to evangelize and give hope to other families. Today I understand that everything new can be good, if we use it for good, ” she told reporters.

A version of this story was first reported by ACI Digital, CNA’s Portugese-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA. This story was originally published on Oct. 10, 2020.


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