Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Guatemala City (Fides Service) - “Lent finds us in times when our people of Guatemala are overshadowed by unchecked violence and serious threats to life” said the Catholic archbishop of Guatemala City, Cardinal Rodolfo Quezada Toruño in a Pastoral Letter for Lent and Easter 2006 .
In this situation Lent “is a good opportunity to listen to the Lord’s call to rest awhile and reflect” the Cardinal writes and offers a series of suggestions for living Lent and East with new awareness and intensity considering the two aspects death and resurrection, humbling and exalting, the cross and hope.
“In Guatemala human life has lost all its value” the Cardinal affirms. There is a culture of death and abuse of the human person, indifference for the sufferings of others, violation of moral norms and human rights, many threats to human life from the moment of conception to natural end, are only some of the products of this culture. “Faced with the sad spectacle of permanent poverty affecting the majority of people in Guatemala and the rest of the world, how can we fail to see that the search for profit at any cost and the absence of active and responsible concern for the common good concentrates a great quantity of resources in the hands of a few while the majority of people suffer hardship, hunger, poor health, solitude and exclusion?”. The Cardinal stresses the need to restore awareness of the dignity of every human person and the “necessity to guarantee respect for the rights and better living conditions for all not only for a privileged circle of a few. Only on this foundation will it be possible to build the local, national and international order of justice and solidarity which all desire”.
At the end of the Letter Cardinal Toruño says Lent “is an opportune time to spread and witness to the Gospel of charity everywhere because the vocation of charity is the heart of all evangelisation”. (RZ) (Agenzia Fides 9/3/2006 - righe 26, parole 356)
