Communiqué of the Religious of Yoro

Communiqué

Meeting as CONFEREH [the Conference of Men and Women Religious] of the diocese of Yoro [Honduras] in the month of April, we consider it opportune to issue the following communiqué. As persons living the religious life we feel the call to defend life from where we find ourselves, creating bonds of fraternity.

We make our own the Honduran bishops’ conference’s campaign: “A culture of peace and respect for life.” 

1. We call on the respective authorities to improve the conditions of imprisonment and the measures of security of persons in the prison facilities in our country, in order to promote the integral development of those who are deprived of liberty who deserve respect and to be treated with dignity.
   
2. We call on the competent authorities to make known the results of the investigations carried out from the fire on the Comayagua prison since many cases are still unpunished [in impunity] because of the lack of an effective investigation.
   
3. We ask that psychological and spiritual accompaniment be offered to the survivors of the tragedy which happened in the Comayagua prison on February 14, 2012 so that these persons can overcome the traumas they have received.
   
4. The religious of the diocese of Yoro is indignant in the face of the abduction and killing of Señor José Lemus Ortega (delegate of the Word)  on March 24th this year in El Negrito, Yoro.
   We call on the respective and competent authorities [to undertake] an immediate investigation of this fact. We don’t want this to be another case of a waiting list, remaining in impunity.
   
5. As religious we don’t want to accustom ourselves to this culture of violence manifested in different forms: killings, abductions, assaults, extortions, etc., All this entails a crisis of values which is translated into a dehumanization of society.

The document of Aparecida (DA) in section # 464 exhorts us not to trample on the dignity of the other but to respect and promote life which is a free gift of God.

The defense of life implies a commitment to personal and social transformation which integrates the complete existential reality of the human being: political, economic, cultural, spiritual, and religious.

Lord, you call us to be instruments of peace and justice in order to build a world that is more human and fraternal.

CONFEREH  DIOCESE OF YORO, May 1, 2012

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The Spanish original can be found at my Spanish language blog here.