Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
by Laura Gomez Ruiz
Tocoa (Agenzia Fides) - On September 14, Juan Antonio López (46), married and father of two daughters, coordinator of social pastoral care in the diocese of Trujillo and founding member of the Pastoral Care for Integral Ecology in Honduras, was shot dead in his car after attending a Eucharistic celebration in the Fabio Ochoa colony in the municipality of Tocoa, a city where he was also a councilor, about 300 kilometers from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.
López was known for his commitment to social justice and drew strength and courage from the source of his Christian faith. As the person in charge of preaching the Word of God in his parish and a member of the Ecclesial Ecological Network of Mesoamerica (REMAM), his special vocation also led him to work to protect natural resources for the benefit of the most vulnerable in his country. A commitment that brought him into conflict with the interests of the mining companies operating in Honduras.
According to witnesses, armed men on motorcycles approached him as he was leaving the church where he had attended the Eucharist that evening and shot him. López died instantly. He had recently denounced the pollution of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers, which are threatened by illegal mining projects that endanger the water resources on which local communities depend. According to investigators, this may have been the motive for his murder.
Local media reported that the crime occurred just hours after a press conference in which López, along with other community leaders, denounced alleged links between members of the Tocoa municipal government and organized crime.
The National Police, meanwhile, arrested several suspects, and last Wednesday a court in San Pedro Sula issued an indictment and remanded three alleged perpetrators in custody. The evidence presented included images from security cameras in which the defendants were identified, as well as testimony from protected persons. In addition, the geolocation of the defendants' phones confirms the suspicion that they had been following the victim for days and planned the murder. The lawyer for Juan López's family asked prison authorities to guarantee the safety of the defendants in the hope that they would reveal the names of those behind the crime.
"Juan's commitment to ecology was not ideological, but the fruit of his faith," said the bishop of the diocese of Trujillo, Jenry Ruiz. In a message published after the murder, Ruiz wrote: "For him, social, environmental and political commitment was not a matter of ideology, but an expression of his Christianity. He was a true servant of God and a tireless defender of his people."
López lived with the conviction that faith must be translated into concrete actions in favor of the weakest. His devotion to Saint Oscar Romero and his work in grassroots ecclesial communities drove him to work for social justice and dedicate his life to protecting Honduras' rural communities and natural resources.
"He knew that his commitment to protecting water and rivers put him in danger," said a relative of the victim, recalling that he had previously received threats. Since 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had taken precautionary measures to protect him because he had received death threats for his work in defense of the environment.
López's murder is part of a growing repression against human rights activists in Honduras. "This crime is not an isolated case," said REMAM and the "Laudato Sì" movement in a joint statement: "He is not just another name in the statistics; he was a child of God, a close and kind brother. We honor his testimony of faith and his work for a better common home," added the Archbishop of Yucatán and President of REMAM, Gustavo Rodríguez Vega.
Already in January 2022, there was a similar murder in Honduras: the pastoralworker Pablo Isabel Hernández (see Fides, 12/1/2022), was killed in the parish of San Marcos de Caiquín, in the department of Lempira, on his way to a celebration of the Word of God. In the same year, on March 2, the Catholic priest Enrique Vásquez was also killed on his way to his parents. His body was found north of San Pedro Sula, in Santa Cruz de Yojoa, with multiple gunshot wounds (see Fides, 4/3/2022).
The Bishops' Conference of Honduras, meanwhile, called on the authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation. "We are deeply saddened," the statement said the Bishops' Conference, which asks the faithful to pray for López, "a true disciple and missionary". "Juan Antonio López was a man committed to the truth, honest and courageous, who demonstrated his faith through his concrete actions," say the bishops.
Pope Francis, after the Angelus prayer, on Sunday 22 September, recalled the importance of protecting those who work for the common good. "I join in the grief of this local Church and in the condemnation of all forms of violence," said the Pope, "I am close to all those who see their basic rights trampled on, as well as to those who work for the common good and in this way respond to the cry of the poor and the earth", referring to the sad fate of Juan Antonio López. (Agenzia Fides, 14/10/2024)
