HONDURAS BISHOPS CONFERENCE
MESSAGE
“Let love be sincere! Detest what is evil and hold on to
what is good!”
(Romans 12: 9)
We, the bishops who are members of the Honduras Bishops
Conference (CEH), in our Ordinary Plenary Assembly, from June 3 to 7 of this
year, have prayed, reflected, and discerned on the situation which our country
faces, intending to assume commitments which we wish to share with our brothers
and sisters in faith and with people of good will.
We consider that the principal problems which most
concern the citizenry are the high cost of living, crime and violence, unemployment,
grave deficiencies in the health and education systems, corruption. But there are
other problems that are equally likely to provoke conflicts, like the ones we
are now facing in terms of health and education or even more serious ones:
problems in the way that the Honduran National Congress legislates, problems in
the decisions of the Executive, in the crises of state businesses, in the
services of energy, water, transport, etc.
If every problem drifts into
conflicts like the one we are now living, about the health and education
systems, and if every conflict is handled with the same inefficiency, the consequences
can drown Honduras in a crisis very difficult to overcome.
Therefore, here is what becomes even more sorrowful and understandable: the indignation of the majority of the population, the suffering of the poorest, the disappointment of the youth, the fear of the migrants, the anxiety of the sick, the powerlessness in the face of corruption and impunity, the weariness of those who struggle for a better Honduras without seeing results.
We believe
that the seriousness which many conflicts acquire is due, first of all, to the
incorrect way that the powers of the State manage them; in some cases, by being
the causes of the problem and, in others, by not knowing how to resolve them
with the resources proper to a participative democracy, and letting the passage
of time allow them to resolve themselves alone, when really the conflict in the
conflictive situation [conflictividad] only gets worse [sharpens].
Another element which makes conflicts worse is the
polarization which makes them even more complicated, introducing double agendas
and blurring the clarity of the objectives that are being fought for.
We do not doubt that the protest demonstrations
intend to be peaceful, but to permit the infiltration of violent elements belittles
[discredits] the end which they seek and abridges other rights of the
population which also ought to be guaranteed.
The responsibility of the police is to guarantee
order and the security of all the population. Nevertheless, some actions of the
police can be characterized as actions of disproportionate force and with this
they add another element of seriousness to the conflicts.
We are
very seriously concerned about the future of our Honduras, thinking that if it isi
not known how to resolve the problems that have come together [problemas
coyunturales] adequately, how could we resolve those which, being structural,
demand a serious reordering of all the elements which constitute the Rule of
Law [Estado de Derecho]?
A
Constitution violated as many times as it suits, some powers which are not at all
independent, a Congress that has turned itself into a theater with the worst
actors, turning its back on the people. There is a need for an electoral power
which guarantees the transparency of voting and gets rid of, once and for all,
all the electoral crimes. Any number of State institutions broken by corruption,
an economy paralyzed - above all in agriculture, a shameless sale of the
natural goods of our earth. A false reform of the Penal Code, which simply
converts it into an instrument to protect the corrupt and the drug-traffickers,
with the appearance of being better by making harsher the penalties for those
supposedly more “dangerous,” who tend to be marginalized young people and the
poor who are desperate to eke out a living (survive - subsistir).
All
this, and much more, makes our hearts cry out – Enough already!
It is necessary
to put in order the direction (marcha) of Honduras, from the commitment
to rescue some ethical values which we have been losing or which have been
weakened to the extent in which the crises have not been adequately solved. The
moral decadence in which the country is falling worries us greatly. It is never
licit to do evil to obtain good.
RESPECT FOR LAW: The obligation of authority is to issue just laws, in
accord with the dignity of the human person and ordered to the common good.
When it doesn't act in this way, authority becomes illegitimate and loses its
right to be obeyed.
To
educate in knowing and respecting laws is an unresolved [pending – pendiente]
task which is urgent at all levels, including the legislators themselves so that
they stop approving what they have neither read or understood.
CONFIDENCE.
This is what we have been losing and what constitutes the firm hope in the good
which there is in people and institutions.
Deception
which can provoke many conflictive situations doesn’t have to lead us to believe
that we cannot trust anyone, to have no trust in anything. Psalm 37:3 invites
us: “Trust in the Lord and do good; settle in the land and hold yourself
faithful.”
POLITICAL
ETHICS. “A democracy without values easily becomes a totalitarianism, either
visible or hidden, as history shows us” (John Paul II, Centesimius Annus,
46).
The
reputation of an authority and its right to be respected by the people depend
on the moral rightness of the ends it pursues and the means it uses for them.
Frequently,
protest demonstrations in a society are not attacks on politicians but [ways] to
defend themselves from them [the politicians] and from their abuses.
THE
TRUTH. It is not a product decided on by the majority and conditioned by
political interests and agreements. Social coexistence [social living together]
is ordered and respectful of the human being when it is based on truth. Therefore,
seeking truth is the basis of true dialogue.
DIALOGUE.
Solidarity, as fruit of the concern for each other brings us closer to dialogue
as a way or instrument for the seeking of mutual understanding which
facilitates reducing tensions and finding, in the middle of conflicts, possibilities
of bringing positions closer together and of seeing with more clarity where the
common good is. To dialogue is not obtaining at all costs what I think; it is
seeking together what is better for the Common Good. Dialogue fails when
someone does not want to listen because he considers himself to possess the
truth.
We
wish to make a call to the State institutions that they fulfill their duties by
the same faculties that the Law and the republican system gives them.
We
wish to make a call to the society as a whole that, from the reality that every
person and group lives, [the society] consider the necessity to join in the
pursuit of ways of solution for Honduras. Whether it be by means of pacts,
agreements, reforms, platforms, a plebiscite or referendum, laws of citizen
initiatives, etc. Let us go forward becoming conscious [tomando conciencia]
that a change for the better is possible and taking up the commitment to
achieve it in solidarity.
We as
Christians wish to commit this process of the history of Honduas to the Mother
of our Lord, Our Lady of Suyapa, to whose love and intercession we have
recourse,
In the city of Tegucigalpa. 6 Junio,
2019.
CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL DE
HONDURAS
[Honduras Bishops Conference]
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The Spanish original can be found here.
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