Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Caacupé (Agenzia Fides) – Diffused corruption and its connections with drug trafficking was denounced by the President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Paraguay, Bishop Catalino Claudio Giménez Medina, Bishop of Caacupé, in his homily during Mass celebrated yesterday on Paraguay’s most important feast day in honour of Our Lady of Caacupé, attended also by the county’s president Horacio Cartes and some members of the government.
A local source informed Fides that, as every year, thousands of Paraguayans made the pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Caacupé, some 55 kilometres from Asunción, to celebrate the country’s Patron saint and to participate in the closing Mass celebrated, as is the tradition, by the Bishop of Caacupé.
Bishop Giménez in his homily mentioned a recent report issued by Transparency International, which puts Paraguay in second place behind Venezuela on the list of Latin America’s most corrupt nations. “This is the reason why there are so many criminals and evildoers on our streets – the Bishop said- but there are also drug-politicians and so the tendency to corruption spreads to all levels becoming almost unstoppable. They are for us the cause of embarrassment before the world".
The Bishop of Caacupé urged men and women religious, lay faithful and especially young people to take up the challenge to evangelise, to evangelise everyone, from corrupt politicians to Masons, who claim they are Catholics only to attract more members. “We must live in justice and in the truth and you young people must follow Jesus and the ideals of his Gospel” concluded Bishop Giménez. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 09/12/2014)
