AMERICA/MEXICO - Violence and anti-democracy are gaining ground, Jesuit Superior General tells Mexico

Guadalajara (Agenzia Fides) – Violence and anti-democracy are gaining ground worldwide, warned Jesuit Superior General, the Spaniard Father Adolfo Nicolás Pachón, in visiting Mexico.
"What is growing today is populism, not democracy. Information is manipulated and puts pressure on people so they cannot understand what is really happening with confusing information, including advertising campaigns. Public opinion is manipulated on the situations of a political choice or in order to sell a product or for some kind of promotional campaign."
He denounced the fact that the violence of drug trafficking or armed groups is increasing and said that according to surveys, in Central America alone there were 80,000 murders in six years, making this area the most dangerous in the world.
During the conference, which took place in the Auditorium Pedro Arrupe of the Institute of Technology and Higher Education West (ITES), Father Nicolás Pachón spoke of the challenges faced by the Jesuits, which "are exactly the same challenges you face, namely, the challenges of humanity."
The eradication of war, violence, social exclusion, injustice are among the tasks to be done. Education is "the great challenge of humanity," the priest said, and it must be "open" to an increasingly complex world that requires more and more.
He said that most of the 18,500 members of the religious order of the world live in countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, so "we should look towards the future of society along those lines."
(CE) (Agenzia Fides 22/04/2010)