AMERICA/ECUADOR - "From pain we build unity": call of Bishops to civil society, parties, government, in the face of the pandemic

Friday, 3 April 2020 coronavirus episcopal conferences healthcare

ECUADOR

2024-01-25
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From "island of peace" to one of the most violent countries in the world

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Prosecutor investigating links between narcos and corrupt officials killed

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Security forces regain control of prisons and free hostages

2024-01-12
There are still 180 hostages in prisons; the bishops: "May Ecuador once again be a place of peace, work and fraternity"

2024-01-11
“Ecuador shows that illegal trade has a strong destabilizing force”

Quito (Agenzia Fides) - "The families of Ecuador are experiencing moments of distress, pain, uncertainty ... for the proliferation of the Covid 19 pandemic in our country, a situation that requires urgent and adequate attention from all and each of us", writes the Presidency of the Episcopal Conference of Ecuador, in the note entitled "From pain we build unity", sent to Agenzia Fides.
According to the news gathered by Fides, the situation is dramatic. In Ecuador, 2,758 infections were recorded with 98 deaths, out of a population of 16 million inhabitants. People die at home and nobody takes away the bodies for fear of contagion. Many bodies are abandoned on the street.
In the text, the Bishops ask civil society to "strengthen unity and solidarity, to respond, with concrete actions, to the needs of people, who love life and see their brothers and sisters in a situation of high risk". Therefore from parties, movements, social and economic organizations, the Bishops "demand, in the name of God and our people suffering for the effects of Covid 19, to leave aside special interests", and underline: "political truce is imperative and national unity is imperative". Finally, the national government must provide everything necessary, such as infrastructures, medicines, health teams, "to assist, promptly and efficiently, the needs of the people infected by Covid 19".
In the end they invite us to look to Christ Jesus, "who suffers his martyrdom and his cross in every person infected by Covid 19, and who opens the way to life and resurrection", urging us to "face this crisis together in such a way that the desire of Jesus, "that they be one" (Jn 17:21) is realized here and now". They conclude by invoking Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, to intercede with her beloved Son "for our dear Ecuadorian homeland and for all the countries in the whole world". (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 3/4/2020)