A year-long truce among El Salvador’s street gangs has resulted in a dramatic reduction in homicides, but it “has not produced the [other] benefits that the…population was expecting,” said Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez, auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, reading a statement on behalf of El Salvador’s bishops. “Robbery, extortion and other illegal activities carried out by gang members continue; for this reason, the population does not perceive the benefits of the truce,” said the bishops’ statement. At a press conference the next day, gang leaders countered that they were engaged in a process of peace, “not just a truce,” pointing out that the problem of social violence in El Salvador had deep structural roots after more than two decades of gang war. “We regret that the statement of the church does not speak of the positive results achieved so far, as well as more than 3,000 lives saved,” gang leaders added.
Despite Truce, Violence Plagues El Salvador
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Catholic bishops are calling for prayer after two Israeli Embassy staff members were slain late May 21 outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.
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.
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.”