The Voice of the suffering in Latin America

The Catholic bishops of Mexico have marked the centenary of the “Calles Law,” which imposed restrictions on the life of the Church and placed priestly ministry under state control in Mexico, with a message entitled “The church bells fell silent; their blood spoke” and subtitled “In memory of our martyrs, religious freedom and peace-building.” The law came into force on July 31, 1926, and, as the Mexican bishops recall, “faced with the impossibility of freely exercising their ministry,” their predecessors ...

ACN has committed to a second aid package, which, according to its executive president, will be “much higher than the initial grant. The Church has been present in the streets of La Guaira and Caracas, to care for and accompany the thousands of victims of the double earthquake that wrought great destruction in Venezuela on June 24. In a press conference organized by Aid to the Church in Need International (ACN), Archbishop Raul Biord Castillo, S.D.B., of Caracas said that ...

ACN’s aid is currently supporting the religious and laity who are helping the victims on the ground, but future projects are already being studied and could include rebuilding church structures and trauma healing. The situation in La Guaira, Venezuela, can only be described as “apocalyptic,” according to the executive president of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Regina Lynch. “I was not expecting this extent of destruction,” said Lynch. “When you arrive there and you see these mountains of ...

“Seeing people embrace us and seek comfort in us is a sign that the Church’s mission is to be with the people,” says a future priest. Germán Jiménez, a seminarian from the Diocese of Petare, Venezuela, is in the final stage of formation before his ordination to the priesthood. From the very first moment following the double earthquake on June 24, he mobilized to bring material and spiritual aid to thousands of victims in La Guaira, the worst-affected region. According ...

Venezuela is in mourning. Pain is everywhere, and the Church is often the only source of hope. At the entrance to the Church of Our Lady of Candelaria on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, people are greeted by a poster with three lists: the dead, the missing, and the rescued. The church, in the city of Caraballeda, is under construction and does not have walls or a ceiling yet. And yet, the church fills every day — with the living and the ...

“Beautiful to see solidarity and charity,” Archbishop Ortega tells ACN in LaGuaira. “But needs will persist.” Recovery from last month’s twin earthquakes in Venezuela will be a long-term project, said the Vatican’s ambassador to the country. “It’s terrible to see so many buildings” destroyed “and to know the number of victims, sick people,” Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martín, apostolic nuncio of the Holy See to Venezuela, told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). “But it’s beautiful to see the solidarity, ...