Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, urged in their New Year’s message to “build peace” in Nicaraguan society, a peace “that comes from the heart” and to “seek the truth and fight for justice” because, they warn, hearts full of hate cannot be cured “with a vaccine.”
Báez, who remains in exile since april 2019, offered the Eucharist for the bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, who is “unjustly detained by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.” He pointed out that despite injustice and repression it is possible to “build peace” once selfishness and indifference are overcome. He appreciated that “it is a long road, but it is possible to travel it.”
“Unfortunately, in many of our countries, injustice and repression continue to multiply pain, steal freedoms, crush hopes and sow terror. But today the Lord gives us certainty that peace will also come to our peoples. It will come as a gift from God and as the fruit of our patient work to seek the truth and fight for justice, honor the memory of the victims and walk step by step enlightened by a common hope that is stronger than revenge”, the bishop said. from the parish of Santa Agatha, in Miami, Florida.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Brenes called on the Catholic congregation to overcome violence, hatred and confrontation. “Against this we are not going to find a vaccine,” he said. “A conversion” is necessary because “all these feelings come from the depths of the heart,” he continued.
Brenes also emphasized that it is not only about “asking for peace” but that “peace must be built” and it must be “a peace that really comes from the heart.”
Honduran cardinal advocates for peace in Ukraine and Nicaragua
Honduran Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez also advocated this January 1 for peace in Ukraine and Nicaragua in 2023, and regretted that in the world “there is no peace.”
“May the Lord grant us peace in this new year 2023, may he grant peace to each one of us, to our families and to the whole world. Peace to Ukraine and peace to Nicaragua,” Rodríguez emphasized at a mass celebrated in the Tegucigalpa cathedral for the end of 2022 and the arrival of 2023.
He added that “we all aspire to live in peace”, but that “currently in our world there is no peace”, but rather “it continues to be threatened by violence and our society is fragile”.
The religious recalled that the year 2022 was marked by a great pandemic, mainly in impoverished countries, and that the violence of wars, such as that in Ukraine, is leaving a lot of death and destruction.
He also pointed out that we must apologize for so many wars, aggressiveness and violence that many peoples face.
Human beings must also eradicate the violence that they carry in their hearts and “we need to begin this year, once again, disarming our own hearts of all hostility and seeking paths of peace for our world,” he emphasized.
With information from Efe.
