Social commitment and political and cultural contribution of Miguel Concha stand out

Carolina Gomez Mena

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday January 28, 2023, p. 4

The Dominican friar Miguel Concha was one of the great defenders of human rights in the country and practiced one of the most important dimensions of the Christian faith, the social aspect, because Christians cannot give up fighting for justice in the midst of the reality in which they livehighlighted members of the order of preachers.

The friars Luis Javier Rubio, member of the council of specialists in ethics of said institute; Gonzalo Ituarte Verduzco, president of the Fray Francisco de Vitoria Center for Human Rights, and Manuel Ángel Martínez Juan, doctor of theology from the University of Freiburg and prior of the San Esteban convent in Salamanca, agreed that social commitment is inherent in the Gospel message.

In the forum Human Rights Today, Validity of the Legacy of Francisco de Vitoria, Tribute to Fray Miguel Concha, organized by the Mexican Institute of Christian Social Doctrine (Imdosoc), Rubio expressed his satisfaction for participating in the meeting to to make happy the memory of Fray Miguel Concha, who was a model of a Christian, of a priest, of a friar committed to this social dimension of the Gospel.

Presence in the world

He stressed that His fight for human rights reached many spaces within civil society, the Church and in the international arena as well..

Concha passed away on January 9 at the age of 77. He was founder and president of the Fray Francisco de Vitoria Human Rights Center, a theologian and former academic at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Ituarte Verduzco highlighted the social, cultural and political contribution of Concha, who he was not passive, but dynamically present in the circumstances that made him what he was and is. It is a grace and an honor to have a brother like that..

The prior of the San Alberto Magno convent and the parish of the Cultural University Center also gave a brief account of some aspects of the life of the Dominican priest and how he gave priority to his work in defense of human rights over academics, and the support and closeness that he always had from his family. In addition, he talked about his gift for building relationships with people and his sense of humor.

Miguel Concha was my prior and my provincial. He had a knack for relating and for joking. My memory of Miguel is as an aspirant to enter the order (of preachers) in July 1970. He began as a teacher in the convent of Santo Tomás de Aquino. I was his student there. He was great, the capacity of him was enormous.

He highlighted the influence that liberation theology and the effervescence that in the 70s existed in the region. A Latin American circumstance that touched him and led him to approach a popular area in the vicinity of the Azteca stadium. There he lives with poverty, he becomes more inclined to the practice of commitment and moves away from the academic part.