The church has faced repression—including attacks on clergy and places of worship and constant surveillance from police outside parishes—as it has tried to pay a mediating role, but has come to be seen by the regime as an opponent.
Latin America
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
The Catholic Church in Latin America is losing control of the pro-life movement. Can it win it back?
New social actors, especially evangelical Protestant groups and right-wing movements, have joined the debate on the liberalization of abortion law.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
After trying to protect water sources, these Hondurans have been held without bail for more than a year.
Over the past two years, 31 people from the municipality of Tocoa, on the lush north shore of Honduras, have faced criminal prosecution as a result of their opposition to an iron ore mining project in the Botaderos Mount “Carlos Escaleras” National Park.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo visits Catholic-run refugee center in Brazil
Pompeo visited sites aiding the Venezuelans in northern-most Roraima state, where many refugees have landed. Since 2015, more than 260,000 Venezuelans have crossed the border into Brazil.
Posted inFaith, Short Take
I knew the Jesuits killed in El Salvador. Today, we can begin to heal.
Spain’s sentencing of a former Salvadoran colonel for the murder of five Jesuit priests means the truth has surfaced, writes Father Manuel Acosta from San Salvador, but a rotten judicial system still causes pain.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Spain imprisons ex-colonel for Jesuit priests slain in El Salvador
A court in Spain on Friday sentenced a former Salvadoran colonel to 133 years in prison for the slaying of six Spanish priests in El Salvador more than three decades ago.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Despite pandemic, Brazilians mark annual Cry of the Excluded
The fight against poverty and social inequalities, as well as harsh criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic dictated this year’s Cry of the Excluded protests.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Mass at racetrack among offerings during Colombia’s monthslong lockdown
In Bogota, Columbia, a priest who was unable to celebrate Mass in his parish accepted a company’s invitation to conduct “a drive-in Mass” at an old racetrack.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
In Canada a religious community dedicated to social justice faces its last days
Scarboro missionaries in Canada are known for living the Gospel and contributing powerfully to social justice efforts in some of the most impoverished regions of the world.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Forty years after killings, Salvadoran city claims Maryknoll Sisters as its own
Almost four decades after their deaths, these women martyrs are remembered, not because of how they died, but as examples of Christian lives well-lived.