Del padre Robert Francis Prevost, OSA, había conocido que desempeñó el importante servicio de Superior General de la Orden de San Agustín, promoviendo el amor y la fidelidad a esta vocación de la vida consagrada en dialogo fraterno y respetuoso con la vocación sacerdotal diocesana y las autoridades de la diócesis. Terminado este servicio fue asignado a la provincia religiosa Agustina del Perú. Llevó a cabo varios servicios pastorales en la Diócesis de Chiclayo. El desempeño apostólico generoso, sacrificado y entusiasta lo pusieron en evidencia como buen pastor y así fue propuesto como obispo. El Santo Padre Benedicto XVI lo eligió obispo y de esa manera recibió la ordenación episcopal el 12 de diciembre de 2014. Tuve la fortuna de participar en su ordenación episcopal dejando en mí varias impresiones que ahora tratare de compartirles.

Monseñor Robert Francis eligió ser ordenado obispo en la fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Ya había escuchado su gran devoción por ella y el querer ser ordenado el 12 de diciembre me lo confirmó. Están todavía en mi mente las impresiones del arreglo de la iglesia, los cantos y la liturgia de la ordenación manifestaron el amor y la devoción del ordenando a la Santa Madre de Dios Reina de México y Emperatriz de América.

La fiesta litúrgica y la fiesta fuera de la iglesia fueron espléndidas, caracterizadas por la alegría de los fieles de tener un nuevo pastor y guía seguro en la presencia y varias actividades de la iglesia chiclayana que había vivido tiempos difíciles por fenómenos naturales como inundaciones, etc. A partir de su ordenación episcopal nos hemos encontrado en las reuniones de la Conferencia Episcopal Peruana y en los encuentros de las comisiones episcopales.

La impresión que tuve de él es altamente positiva, comenzando con su personalidad sencilla, humilde, respetuoso en el diálogo sincero y fraterno entre los miembros de la Conferencia Episcopal. Manifestaba un gran interés y dedicación a los varios asuntos que se trataban como la evangelización, las vocaciones sacerdotales, religiosas y de laicos comprometidos en el apostolado, la catequesis, las orientaciones de la Iglesia en los campos de la liturgia, del apostolado, de la ayuda y acompañamiento de los pobres, de las familias, el trabajo social y la atención a los jóvenes en su formación humana y cristiana, incluyendo entre sus actividades el deporte como distracción y educación de las nuevas generaciones.

Al escuchar su nombre de León XIV me hizo recordar el interés que tenía en que los miembros de la Iglesia conociesen las enseñanzas y líneas de acción sociales, recordando las enseñanzas de León XIII sobre este tema (Rerum Novarum).

La Iglesia es misionera por vocación, ya que Cristo dijo a los Apóstoles: Vayan y evangelicen. Cuando se dialogaba sobre el asunto de la evangelización y catequesis en las varias jurisdicciones eclesiásticas y en el mundo, Monseñor Prevost manifestaba un amplio conocimiento de las necesidades y urgencias de hacer conocer y amar a Jesucristo. Por eso en el mensaje que dirigió a los numerosísimos presentes en la plaza de San Pedro y a todos los cristianos del mundo cuando fue proclamado Papa, los motivó para que sean realmente misioneros.

Tomo la ocasión para decir a todos ustedes que leen la revista Esquila Misional y que apoyan la obra misionera de la Iglesia, están cumpliendo con lo que el Papa nos recuerda, ¡ay de nosotros sino evangelizamos!. En este sentido el Santo Padre Francisco, de feliz memoria, nos dice que debemos ser una Iglesia en salida siendo buenos discípulos y testigos de Jesucristo caminando en espíritu sinodal. Aunque este tema es reciente, ya en aquellos tiempos de la labor pastoral de la Conferencia Episcopal Peruana se vivía ese espíritu de vida cristiana y apostólica.

La pascua que continuamos celebrando nos recuerda que debemos ser personas de paz y promoverla en todos los ámbitos de la sociedad. Convertirnos en puentes de diálogo y convivencia fraterna. Estos sentimientos los escuché del que hoy siendo León XIV, era obispo de Chiclayo, ya que el Perú ha pasado por tiempos muy difíciles de carencia de una verdadera paz fraterna que ayudase un justo desarrollo y justicia social. Tendría otras varias impresiones que quisiera exponérselas, pero espero que estas pocas los ayuden a admirar, a orar, apoyar y colaborar con el nuevo Romano Pontífice.

By: Susana Vilas Boas
This story first appeared in Comboni Missions Magazine winter 2021.

One day, while I was walking around the city, I saw the following sentence on a painted wall: “Trees do not eat their own fruits. Rivers do not drink their own waters. The wealth of gifts is always for the benefit of others.”

I do not know the graffiti artist nor the original author of the sentence. However, it has been used many times by Pope Francis. This phrase—whether it was originally thought in a Christian sense or not—leads me to a deeper reflection on vocation, from the beginning of vocational discernment until its daily living.

We are often tempted to look at our life only from a personal perspective, almost independent of the world around us, in a tangle of phrases and questions where the I/me is always at the center: What do I want to do with my life? What future do I want for myself? I want to be happy!

I want to be fulfilled. There is nothing wrong with the personal desire for happiness and self-realization. The problem arises when, by repeating these phrases so centered on “me,” we start thinking of vocation and life from a selfish point of view, as if it were possible to live fully without personal effort and being a gift to others.

In wanting to be the first beneficiaries of the gifts of our vocation, we unconsciously set out with a self-centered perspective that makes us look at vocation as a lottery that we are going to win and not as a gift that we receive, a gift that places us at the service of humanity around us.

Being a Light
Pope Francis warns us of this problem, cautioning that the vocational experience cannot be understood as a banner that we raise for all to see and enjoy. It is like a gentle breeze that, in a discreet way, caresses, refreshes, and calms as it passes. Its action is neither exhibited nor self-centered; it is discreet, but ever-present.

For this very reason, the pope recalls the words of Saint Alberto Hurtado who stated that “being an apostle does not mean wearing a lapel pin; it is not about speaking about the truth but living it, embodying it, being transformed in Christ. Being an apostle does not mean carrying a torch in hand, possessing the light, but being that light. The gospel, more than a lesson, is an example. A message that becomes a life fully lived.”

As in the graffiti I found in which the gifts imply effort, generosity, and renunciation (the tree must be fruitful. It must bear fruit and it must renounce it so that others can benefit, be strengthened and, in turn, also bear fruit for others), the missionary dimension of vocation is always present.

When we think about it, what would a full life be like if we were completely isolated from the world around us? What would happiness be, if we lived only for ourselves? We all have good experiences—a good mark on an exam, an acceptance to college, a job offer, or some kind note of appreciation from someone we didn’t count on. And what do we actually do when this happens?

Do we simply take the time to enjoy the moment? No! We immediately call someone to tell them what happened. Often, we can’t even contain the joy we feel and immediately share the feeling with our family and friends. How sad it would be to have no one to share good news with! Our happiness is reduced when we realize we can’t share happy moments with others because of our loneliness.

It is the same with vocation. It is something bigger than us. It grows and expands as joy and a challenge beyond ourselves, as we become missionaries and a gift to others. It ceases to be a prize and instead transforms into a joyful service—a true gift—for all those we love, for those around us, and even for those we don’t even know personally. 

Fruitful Life
The ideal of an easy happiness that many times society, the media, and even our circle of friends seem to want to “sell” is far from possible. The virtualization of happiness leads to a funneling and drastic reduction of existence and the very meaning of life.

When we think about the great names in history, of those who are examples of life for us, we find that these are people who have given up a lot and lived in concert with their vocation, whose gifts have been fruitful in their lives. As such, they were able to transform the world in a way that their names are still remembered until today. Of course, we don’t have to “stick to history,” but can we refuse to be part of it?

Certainly, people like St. Daniel Comboni or Jesus Christ himself continue to mark us, but were their lives easy or lived in a self-centered way? How much self-resignation did they demonstrate, and how many sacrifices did they make?

However, when we think about meaningful and fulfilled lives, these names come to mind. Despite the many trials, difficulties, and obstacles they had to face, they were able to live happy lives, not because they lived in the midst of laughter and financial wealth, but because each tear, every pain, and each moment of suffering was experienced for a greater good—not for oneself, but for the benefit of others.

Because God never leaves those who love him, all those painful moments have turned into triumph, joy, and true life.

Isn’t that what we all want? Don’t we all yearn for a life that, despite the difficulties, is a fruitful sign of hope that generates a greater joy?

By: Rafael Güitrón Torres, mccj
This story first appeared in Comboni Missions Magazine winter 2021.

What is the root cause of this ecological crisis? Surely, we can affirm that it lies on the devaluation of life and its meaning. Confusion and disappointment are fluttering in the hearts of many people, even though for others, this situation may provoke, in turn, an awakening and openness to new horizons of humanity.

Some people, thirsty for meaning and roots, turn their gaze towards spirituality as one of the sources to quench their thirst. Spirituality refers to the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul, as opposed to material or physical things. It seeks the integration of the human being’s thirst for unity and harmony; a willingness to care for creation; an openness to transcendence; a tension between the earthly life and the craving for salvation.

Pope Francis, in his encyclical Laudato Si’ (LS), invites us to turn to our interior life if we want to heal the world. He repeatedly promotes a culture of life or a way of being in the planet that protects all forms of life and cares for spirituality (LS 63, 64), and states that this is medicine for the ecological crisis. This search for spirituality moves our hearts to look for God and His presence among us. God imprints the seal of His creation through two calligraphies: the canvas of nature from where we can extract His mark, and the Word of God, a Word incarnated in the history of salvation, as we find it in the Bible. Both are papyri engraved with environmental characters (those sprung from creation in its beauty, as well as elements of nature present in the sacred texts), in need of being examined to generate a creative action (LS, 85).

In the light of creation and in front of the text of the burning bush, we take off our shoes with a humble heart and open our intelligence to contemplate nature and, with it, the One who is Beauty and Life.

God invites the human being to a spirituality of a new genesis through his loving epiphany: Creation becomes an environmental covenant that, through its care, transforms humanity (LS, 240). Finally, the trace of God’s Spirit is found in the cosmos which is, at the same time, his gift and vestige; wisdom that emanates from nature, or ecosophy. However, it demands that its message be interpreted, in order to nourish and motivate the fluttering of the spirit of the peoples.

Ecosophy is the wisdom that comes from the relationship of interdependence between the elements of the cosmos, God, and the human being, forming a cosmotheanthropic bond. As Raimon Panikkar (1994) affirms, it is about the relationship of the One with the Whole.

Indeed ecosophy, as wisdomspirituality, defines a mode of an integral relationship between nature and society; it engenders a healthy communion that cares for the common home (LS 78). If the human being forgets the essential elements that generate life, its immediate consequence is similar to the contraction of Alzheimer’s disease, the annihilation of history and the destruction of nature—an ecocide. Therefore, it is fundamental to recognise the ecosophy transmitted to us by peoples scattered throughout the length and breadth of the planet, who represent traces of the Good and the Truth and knowledge of an integral ecology.

The Worldview of Ecosophy
The purpose of this reflection continues exposing some of the cultural knowledge present in the different peoples of the world, which should be the points of reference for the human search for sense and global solidarity (LS 201).

The ecosophies of the peoples of the American lands propose life, in harmony with nature, as their fundamental principle; a diversity of narratives within a religious and spiritual sense of existence; the importance of education in knowledge and skills for life; a sense of the meaning of life and death; a hierarchy of values; justice, presented always as the way to restore order; forms of self-government based on uses and customs; a cosmo-vision of good and evil that articulates morality; and finally, the principle of identity, meaning that one is a person because one belongs to the community. All these values of life are reasons for a radical demand to care for and nurture a good living in the territories between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Moving on, let’s briefly explore the sub-Saharan ecosophy of Africa, especially in the Bantu tradition which comprises more than 400 ethnic groups. The heart of their perspective is found in the Sotho proverb, Motho ke motho ka batho babang (a person becomes a person because of other people), referring to those who contribute in making one a human being. So, the identity and relational values of the Bantu spirit are defined in the light of the Ubuntu/botho (humanity) ecosophy.

Indeed, some central elements of this African cultural knowledge are: the interconnection and communion as founding the fundamental values of the tribe; the community as the origin and destiny of the individual and the inalienable duty to become fully its member; the value of the family, in a broad sense; fraternity as a principle of coexistence and a guarantee of survival; communion between generations: the past, the present and the future, and the ancestors; group solidarity in the daily struggles; ecological harmony as essential to life, i.e., the prayers and rites propitiatory for, for example, a good storm.

It is the cosmo-vision of Ubuntu-humanity that creates the community of people and, therefore, forms the individual (Nontobeko 2006). Finally, Africa is the land where life dances to the rhythm of the drum.

In the same way, the European continent is home to movements that signify old/new values that prevent forces, in a particular way, against an environmental destruction. So, the fruit of this encounter/divergence, as far as ecosophy is concerned, interweaves the following paths: the search for a balance between matter and spirit; the education for the care of the biosphere; the common good as an ecological principle; the value of an eternal instant that combines yesterday’s and tomorrow’s time; the constant change of cultural paradigms; the promotion of solidarity-based economies; proximity as an integrating element; the demand to link truth and politics; and the relationship between the environment and religious belief (Maffesoli 2017).

The European paradigm incorporates action that tends to heal the relationship between society and nature, going beyond a simple respect for the ecological, toward an integral care for creation.

The Asian continent, sanctuary of important spiritual movements (Tianchen 2003), proposes the following founding elements: nature is endowed with a capacity to harmonize itself and its balance is the moral criterion for human relations; there are vital rhythms that need to be respected; a principle of benevolence that demands a healthy relationship between humanity, earth and heaven, for the flourishing of the Pure Earth; frugality, as a demand that limits human excess; the person is not the master of nature; the need of harmonious coexistence with other living beings and the fact that truth is reflected in human actions. In short, it promotes the safeguarding of the social and natural environments, thus guaranteeing the salvation of the spirit of humanity.

After reviewing the values of the main ecosophies throughout the planet, we may consider the need for integrating them towards an ecological spirituality.

Ecological Spirituality
Humanity is facing the problem of an environmental uprooting, i.e., the lack of ground, identity, history and spirituality. Uprooting is the process in which people lose contact with their own vital roots, those that define them in a socio-cultural and geographical environment. It produces evident effects such as political indifference; ethical relativism; objectivism; domination of the quantifiable; migrations caused by ecological reasons or habitat destruction; degradation of justice; adoration of power/money; lack of creativity; absence of religious inspiration and depersonalization.

The person loses one’s vital references and habitat, one’s place of cultural and historical coexistence, producing a suffocation of the fluttering of the Spirit. However, it is in the common home or territory where the human being takes root, grows, and dies as an incarnated spirit that loves life by rising to transcendence.

Spirituality becomes a well that contributes to satiate the human aspiration for a better environmental world, from the ontological demand of unity in diversity.

This implies some prerequisites: human greatness that creates communion; care for creation; seeking quality lifestyles; enjoying sobriety as an authentic mode of existence; incarnating a mystical prophecy; fighting for the common good; promoting peace and learning to rest (LS
222–227).

Spirituality is thus the oasis where the ecosophies brought by the pilgrims of life converge. It is the oasis as a propitious space-time that breaks down all barriers and creates the persona of the common home. Spirituality is the place where the traveler dwells and is nourished, where the person lives together with others and prepare themselves to resume again the adventure of life, in the communion of the One with the All.

By: Emeline Wuilbercq
This story first appeared in Comboni Missions Magazine winter 2021.

When migrant worker Lula flew home to Ethiopia after eight months in Saudi detention, she thought her ordeal was over.

But instead of returning to her family in Tigray, she found herself stranded in the capital, unable to contact her parents and daughter as fighting has cut off the northern region and raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.

Lula is one of dozens of migrants who returned from Saudi Arabia last week to find that internet and phone connections to Tigray have been suspended and roads and airports closed.

“I have tried to contact my family but the phone is not working,” 29-year-old Lula, who declined to publish her full name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Addis Ababa. “It is concerning not to hear from them at this point.”

Two weeks of escalating conflict between federal forces and rebellious local rulers has killed hundreds and pushed 30,000 refugees into Sudan, leading the UN to warn in November of a “fullscale humanitarian crisis.”

It has called into question whether Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Africa’s youngest leader and last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, can hold his fractured nation together ahead of national elections next year.

More than 14,000 Ethiopians have returned from Saudi Arabia since March, according to the UN migration agency, IOM, where many like Lula were detained in camps that the UN described as overcrowded and unsanitary.

Every year, it is estimated that tens of thousands of Ethiopians travel irregularly to the gulf in search of better paid work. Many end up exploited as maids or on building sites.

More than 80 out of about 260 migrants who flew home to Ethiopia after the conflict broke out had to stay in a hotel in Addis Ababa because they came from Tigray and had no relatives in the capital. This included about 20 minors.

Shimeles Belaso, a director at Ethiopia’s ministry of peace said that the stranded returnees will be transported to their respective towns and villages when the situation calms. “There are now security issues … just letting them go there is troublesome and (they could) be troubled and endangered,” he said. “Therefore, the Ethiopian government is handling them, covering all the necessary costs for them.”

Lula was relieved that she had a friend in Addis Ababa who was willing to take her in, providing some home comforts and a familiar face to help brush away her painful memories of prison in Saudi Arabia.

Her dream of working abroad fell flat this year when rebels in Yemen—through which she and scores of other migrants were travelling to Saudi Arabia—rounded them up, while shooting and calling them “coronavirus carriers” and took them to the border.

Lula was one of thousands of migrants who were held in Saudi detention centers, described by Human Rights Watch as squalid and abusive, before being repatriated to Ethiopia. “There were illnesses, hunger, deaths,” Lula recalled.

“It is better to beg in your own country,” said Lula, who has twice made the dangerous journey to Saudi Arabia, adding that she would not return there illegally.

Kassahun Habtamu, assistant professor at the School of Psychology of Addis Ababa University, said that the conflict and ensuing communications blackout put returnees at risk of developing mental health problems.

“Their migration experience is a very big burden by itself,” said Kassahun, who has studied the mental health problems faced by Ethiopian returnees from the Middle East.

“And this conflict now … they don’t know what is happening to their family members, they can’t even tell them that they are back. So this is a double burden, and it is very, very stressful.”

For Lula, the only option now is to find work in Addis Ababa while waiting for the conflict to end.

“I’m worried not to find a job, to have no money,” she said, after days of fruitless searching in the capital. “If the roads were open and I could see my daughter, I would go today.”

By: Kathleen M. Carroll
This story first appeared in Comboni Missions Magazine winter 2021.

Sister Angelina Nyakuru grew up in Uganda. Her father died when she was just eight years old.

“Life was difficult, but my mother always encouraged us,” she says. “I prepared for my First Communion with the nuns and priests at the mission station of the Comboni Missionaries from Italy. There I met Sister Paola Cagliari, who was a nurse and she took care of people affected by leprosy.”

Leprosy carried a great stigma—as it still does in many parts of the world. Though not as contagious as its reputation would suggest, many sufferers face isolation and social shunning along with the disease.

Sister Angelina noticed that Sister Paola did not seem to have the fear that others had when it came to dealing with those who had leprosy.

“Every day,” she says, “she would pray with them and clean their wounds. I thought this was very strange, because in my culture leprosy was a curse. You are not supposed to go near people with it. Those affected are isolated and shunned. So, I remember wondering why Sister Paola was touching them. Deep down in my heart I desired to be like her, so that I could be close to these people who were suffering.”

This impulse to care for others had several hurdles to overcome, though. While Sister Angelina was inspired by the witness of the Comboni Sisters, she did not think that such a path was possible for her.

She says, “I told myself, ‘No. She’s white; I am black. She’s an Italian; I am an African. There is nothing that can make me do what she does.’” She says she immediately “rubbed the idea out of my mind.”

But, she remembers, “Many years later, when I was in high school, studying to become a medical doctor, I went to the school chapel to pray. I found a small pamphlet, and the first words my eyes landed on were, ‘If I had a hundred lives, I would give them for the Africans.’ I had discovered the words of St. Daniel Comboni. He was the first bishop of Central Africa, and founded the Comboni Missionaries. I thought, ‘This is very interesting, but I am going to be a doctor. This is not my business.’”

Sister Angelina continued on her path, studying for her college entrance exams. “But I kept thinking about the pamphlet. So I wrote to the Comboni Missionaries, telling them that something had touched me about this St. Daniel Comboni so much, that I wanted to become one of his followers. In 2000, after ten years of religious life, I became a permanent member of the Comboni Missionary Sisters.”

Sister Angelina was head of nursing at Mother of Mercy Hospital in Sudan, in the Nuba Mountains. The mountains lie along what is now the border of Sudan and South Sudan. But South Sudan had not yet acquired independence and the region was a perpetual battleground. Comboni Missionary Bishop Macram Gassis resolved to build a desperately needed hospital in the area.

He recruited several Comboni Missionary Sisters along with Dr. Tom Catena, an American working for the Catholic Medical Mission Board. Sister Angelina arrived in Gidel along with Dr. Catena in the spring of 2008 to open the 430-bed hospital.

Mother of Mercy is the only referral hospital for the more than one million residents of the area. Its location has made it a godsend to the people, but also a target for the military. The now-deposed regime of Omar al-Bashir accused the residents of supporting rebels, and launched a relentless bombing campaign that forced many to flee. Those that remained behind could not grow crops or raise animals because of the constant bombardment.

Sister Angelina says, “In 2015 there were rumors that northern soldiers were just 30 kilometers (19 miles) away and moving toward us. You could hear the big artillery. It was frightening. Everyone on the staff decided to leave, but Dr. Tom put up his hands and said he wouldn’t go.”

“So I told the Sisters I wouldn’t leave either,” Sister Angelina says. “All the Sisters stayed, and one priest. Everyone else relocated across the border for two weeks until things calmed down.”

“My calling began as a little girl when I saw Sister Paola serving lepers. And I was I so happy when I was sent to South Sudan, where my deep desire to help people suffering from leprosy was finally fulfilled. I was able to clean people’s wounds, to be close to them, and I was able to serve them. Sister Paola is still alive. She is very old, but she is the one who inspired me to follow this path to serve God and the poor.”

By: Kathleen M. Carroll
This story first appeared in Comboni Missions Magazine winter 2021.

Fr. José Arieira de Carvalho, a Portuguese Comboni Missionary who has been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for more than a decade, describes conditions there as a “disastrous sociopolitical situation.”

In the northeast, where the DRC borders South Sudan and Uganda, he reports, “rebel groups roam across the region, looting and murdering…  and driving people from their villages, and making the main roads impassable.”

On October 30 an attack by a group called the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed at least 21 people, including Catholic catechist Richard Kisusi. A Catholic church was desecrated, a clinic was looted, several houses were burned down, and an undetermined number of people were kidnapped. A joint project of Human Rights Watch and the Congo Study Group called Kivu Security reports that nearly 700 civilians have been killed by the group this year.

Msgr. Sikuli Paluku, Bishop of Butembo-Beni, requested assistance from UN forces in the region to protect the civilians.

Business Insider ranks the DRC as the poorest country in the world, with an average per-capita income of less than $400 per year. Roughly the size of all of western Europe, the DRC has had its development curtailed by a series of factors, including several recent Ebola outbreaks and political conflict that lasted through most of the 1990s.

Perversely, the DRC is also estimated to be the richest country in the world in terms of natural resources, with mineral deposits worth more than $24 trillion. It has vast supplies of diamonds, gold, copper, Wolframite, cobalt, and coltan—the last two of which power nearly every electric vehicle and mobile phone on the planet.

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) reports that last year, the bishops of the province of Bukavu, which comprises six dioceses in the region, expressed their concern over the situation, but also warned against drawing simple interpretations. “We [are] of the opinion that the fighting within the communities on a national level is possibly being used as a pretext to hide a conspiracy between internal and external players to obscure the ruthless exploitation of natural resources.”

Fr. Gaspare di Vincenzo told Agencia Fides, “While the whole world, including Congo, was struggling with the coronavirus, here the war continued undisturbed, and is worsening. We Comboni Missionaries try to provide basic necessities. Obviously, as UNICEF has said, children pay the highest price. In addition to having lost family members and witnessing violence, they suffer from severe malnutrition. We have fifty orphans and street children here, but the situation of the children in our country is dramatic.

The archbishop of Kinshasa, Msgr. Fridolin Ambongo, recently appointed to the college of cardinals, spoke at a 2019 ACN event in Paris about the daily violence and the unjust distribution of wealth in the DRC, lamenting that though the DRC is an “immensely rich country” it “is at the mercy of the evil heart of humanity. Large corporations are acting like predators.”

“The Church, however, has decided to support those who are suffering. And the Lord hears the cries of those who are suffering better than the most beautiful music of the powerful.”