Friday, June 26, 2020

IN the NEWS - Catholic Church calls for "Unified Action"

....even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. Daniel 7:20

"At the Vila Formosa cemetery, relatives wearing face masks watch
as cemetery workers in protective suits manoeuvre a coffin during a funeral.

The coronavirus pandemic is huge and everywhere in Latin America” reports the head of Cafod’s Latin America Department, Clare Dixon. She told The Tablet this week that, amidst great inequality, “poor communities are suffering terribly from the virus, but also from a livelihoods crisis and hunger”.
Brazil, Peru, Chile, Mexico and Ecuador are among the Latin America countries that have seen widespread outbreaks.
 
According to one study carried out by a Cafod partner in favela Vila Prudente in May, one in three households had someone with chronic illness, one in three had someone who had lost their job due to the crisis, whilst one in four said they had had no income at all. As a result, people don’t have money to buy food, hygiene items and other basic necessities.
 
Catholic leaders issued a joint statement calling for “urgent and unified action to avoid a humanitarian and environmental tragedy” in the Amazon region. Brazilian Cardinal Claudo Hummes, Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno and Mauricio Lopez, executive secretary of the Pan-Amazonian Church Network wrote: “A tremendous force, on a scale never seen before, is devastating Amazonia in two dimensions that combine in a brutal manner: the Covid-19 pandemic, which engulfs the most vulnerable, and the uncontrolled increase in violence in the territories. The pain and the lament of peoples and the earth mold into a single cry.”
Tablet