Americas

No Picture
News Briefs

Violence and corruption won’t build up Chile, cardinal says at independence prayer service

September 19, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Cardinal Celestino Aós Braco of Santiago de Chile peaches at a Te Deum service marking Chile’s independence, Sept. 18, 2022 / Iglesia de Santiago

Santiago, Chile, Sep 19, 2022 / 13:06 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Celestino Aós Braco of Santiago de Chile said in a Te Deum prayer service marking the country’s independence that neither violence nor corruption will build Chile. 

The prelate encouraged living centered on Christ to bear good fruit and working together for the common good.

The cardinal gave a homily at the ecumenical Te Deum that was held Sept. 18 in the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral in the presence of the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and his ministers of state.

Chile’s Fiestas Patrias marks the anniversary of the first meeting of the country’s post-colonial government in 1810. 

“Violence does not build. The violent neither make a present nor a future for Chile, nor do the corrupt build it,” the prelate said.

“We cannot make the other person who doesn’t think like us into an enemy. The people voted in the plebiscite and it’s wrong to do violence with insults or threats to those who voted one way or the other,” he stressed.

In a Sept. 4 plebiscite, 62% of voters rejected a draft constitution that created a right to abortion and euthanasia and was supported by Boric. 

The cardinal also encouraged people to live the authentic freedom that comes from Christ, to face the current “cultural, ideological, economic, and social slaveries.”

The archbishop of Santiago stressed that the large voter turnout in the plebiscite is an impressive fact, “but political participation does not end or stop there.”

“Christians should get involved in politics because it is a lofty form of charity. Among us all we have to build Chile, a country of brothers, where no one is unnecessary and no one is marginalized,” he emphasized.

In his homily, Aós encouraged always seeking “prayer, Sunday Mass, and the sacraments, which are not a luxury, but a necessity for all” in order to bear good fruit, united with God.

“There is an unequivocal criterion, by their fruits you shall know them,” the cardinal said.

“The person who lives in violence, who slanders or insults his adversary, who violates marital fidelity, who kills life, who falsifies or lies, does he bear fruit from the good tree or from the bad tree, always peace and good, unity and harmony,” or does he produce “bitterness, disunity, hatred?” the cardinal asked.

The prelate encouraged getting involved in politics to defend the people’s essential rights, such as “dignity, the equality of citizens, seeking the common good, justice and peace, favoring democratic participation, acting with honesty and transparency in the administration of public goods, caring for and fostering life, family, marriage, the right of parents to educate their children, social justice and solidarity, and the defense of peace.”

The archbishop of Santiago noted that “religious freedom is a right of every human being.” Hostility or contempt for religion is not a healthy separation of church and state but virulent secularism, he said.

Aós said that “the big question is what kind of fruit have you borne this year, what are you going to change to bear good fruit. Faith and works are important, it’s not enough to have ideas and beliefs, you have to put them into practice.”

“Let’s not tire of doing good, because if we don’t give up we will reap the fruits at some point,” he remarked.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

UN human rights report on Nicaragua cites ‘attacks on Catholic Church’

September 15, 2022 Catholic News Agency 2
Bishop José Álvarez Lagos is surrounded by police officers on Aug. 4, 2022. The bishop’s detention was cited in a Sept. 13, 2022, U.N. human-rights report. / Diocese Media TV Merced / Diocese of Matagalpa

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 15, 2022 / 09:50 am (CNA).

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) released a report Sept. 13 that condemned the regime of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, citing a “deterioration of the human rights situation.”  

The report included a compilation of recent incidents in which the Nicaraguan government has attacked and repressed the Catholic Church. 

Ortega, who took office in 2007, has become increasingly authoritarian since his re-election in November 2021. A brutal crackdown on protesters in 2018, the arrest and imprisonment of political opponents before the presidential election, and the repression of the Church prompted a U.N. resolution to further monitor the country.

The report, introduced before the 51st session of the UNHRC in Geneva, documented known human rights violations since March when the report was commissioned.  

In summing up the report’s findings, U.N. official Christian Salazar Volkmann cited “serious violations of civil and political rights, the absence of a national dialogue, the deepening of the political crisis, and the isolation of Nicaragua from the international community.”

“I urge the international community to sustain its efforts and engagement, including, most urgently, to keep calling on the authorities for the release of the arbitrarily detained persons,” Volkmann said. 

Attacks on the Catholic Church

Included among the findings were attacks on the Catholic Church:

— In March, the report noted, Nicaragua expelled the apostolic nuncio, “who had supported dialogue at the beginning of the crisis.”

— On Aug. 1, Nicaraguan police broke into a Catholic radio station in Sébaca, Matagalpa, using violent force. A parish priest and six others were confined in his house for three days without food or electricity.

— The bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, along with two priests, was harassed beginning in May, the report noted. On Aug. 4, police surrounded the bishop’s home and prevented him from going to the cathedral to celebrate Mass. The bishop, five other priests, and six lay people were held by riot police and subject to a criminal investigation. According to human-rights observers, as of today, his location is not known.

— Between May and August, government authorities shut down 12 radio and television media outlets of the Catholic Church, “arguing that they did not have operating permits,” the report said.

— Twelve universities “had their legal personality canceled,” according to the U.N. report. Among them was the Jesuit-run Central American University.

Other human rights abuses

The Catholic Church was only one entity targeted by the Ortega regime. Other instances of human-rights violations found in the report include:

— As many as 1,178 human rights and development organizations were shut down or ordered to leave the country. Among these nongovernmental organizations were entities affiliated with the Catholic Church, including members of Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, who were expelled from the country in July.

— As of the writing of the report, 180 people who were arrested during the political crisis of 2021 remain in detention. The report found that their trials were held behind closed doors, and the attorneys of the accused were denied access to evidence and were not allowed to meet with their clients for more than a few minutes before their hearings.

— The U.N. body’s investigations found inhumane conditions at a detention center that resulted in the death of one individual in February. The report noted that the Nicaraguan government had not complied with the UNHRC’s recommendation that they “prevent acts of torture and ill-treatment in custody.”

— Freedom of the press also “deteriorated,” according to the report, which noted that the manager of La Prensa, who was arrested in the run-up to the 2021 elections, was sentenced to nine years in prison for money laundering. The newspaper’s staff has since fled the country, “joining the 120 other journalists who are in exile.” Three journalists were also sentenced to up to 13 years in prison for “spreading fake news and undermining national integrity.”

— The report found that the Nicaraguan government had failed to carry out the recommendations of the UNHRC that included electoral reform and the investigation of human rights violations committed by security forces. 

[…]