Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
July 20, 2009

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya tried to return home on July 5, but was prevented from landing by soldiers who blocked the runway at Tegucigalpa’s airport. A day earlier, in a nationwide address Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa urged Zelaya not to return to Honduras. “We think that a return to the country at this time could unleash a bloodbath in the country,” Cardinal Rodríguez said. “To this day, no Honduran has died. Please think, because afterward it will be too late.” Honduras’s new government has charged Zelaya with 18 criminal acts, including treason and failing to implement more than 80 laws approved by Congress since he took office in 2006. Zelaya was ousted in the early hours of June 28 when Honduran soldiers—acting on orders of the National Congress—shot up his house and took the pajama-clad president to the airport, where he was flown on a military plane to Costa Rica.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

President Donald Trump meets South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Trump offered a vibrant demonstration of the kind of worst-case scenario Pope Leo may have had in mind about the collapse of critical thinking.
Kevin ClarkeMay 22, 2025
In his first appointment of a top-level official of the Roman Curia, Pope Leo XIV named Sister Tiziana Merletti, a canon lawyer, to be secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
“We were once leaders in petroleum and gas research; now we’re becoming leaders in green hydrogen and carbon capture. This isn’t just a technological shift; it’s a spiritual one.”
Gerard O’ConnellMay 22, 2025
A cardinal reflects on his experience of the conclave