Following the assassination of a leading environmentalist in Honduras earlier this month, Bishop Emiliani has issued an appeal condemning violence.
Monsignor Romulo Emiliani, the Auxiliary Bishop of San Pedro Sula, recently recalled that Lent is the liturgical time of conversion: “Honduras is experiencing difficult days during this Lent season, due to the events that have affected families”.
He added, “Although the statistics carried out by the institutions agree on the fact that killings have decreased, what affects all is the impact of the crimes committed, especially the massacre in Comayagüela and of the indigenous leader Berta Caceres”.
Leading environmentalist Berta Caceres, well-known in Honduras, was murdered at dawn on Thursday 3 March in La Esperanza, about 125 miles from Tegucigalpa, in the west of the country. Ms Caceres was the leader of the indigenous Lenca community and a very prominent human rights activist.
The Bishop continued: “We need to reflect and think about our collective sins, for example the lack of sensitivity to the pain of hunger and extreme poverty. We are used to seeing poverty, but God does not want poverty. We all have something to blame for what is happening in Honduras”.
Monsignor Emiliani also appealed to those responsible for the killings: “Every time you kill, there are orphans, widows, mothers who mourn, families in grief and mourning. For the killers and masterminds of these deaths, I say – stop killing! If here on earth there is impunity, there will be the final judgment. There is a hell prepared for those who continue to kill”.
