Monday, December 04, 2017

Can this be happening?

Swords into plowshares

Can this really be happening?

The special police forces, the COBRAS, and several other groups of the National Police are refusing to take part in any repressive measures against their fellow Hondurans. Some of them are calling it a strike of ‘brazos cruzados” – arms crossed. (Correction: brazos caidos - arms down. Basically a stand down.)

Significantly the first reading in the Catholic lectionary today is Isaiah 2: 1-5, which includes this promise:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.

This morning I posted, in Spanish, part of Blessed Monseñor Oscar Romero’s last Sunday homily, on 23 March 1980, the day before he was assassinated:

I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order.

I had no idea that Honduran police would take this message so seriously.

I hope and pray that this is true, that this peace revolution grows, and that those opposing the charges of fraud continue seeing the police as their brothers and sisters.

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Here is a report from The Guardian on the police action.

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