Santo Domingo, RD
In the early hours of Good Friday afternoon, preaching the reading of the last seven words that Christ spoke on the cross at the time of the crucifixion dominated the content of the news in the country.
Between sermons and sermons, the various priests take the opportunity to touch on the main issues that are currently affecting the Dominican population. This holy week was no exception and during the preaching, the topics of abortion in the three cases and the fight against administrative corruption were in the spotlight.
It is precisely the debate that society is experiencing regarding the approval of abortion in three cases that was the main theme of the sermon of the first word, which dealt with Father Pelagio Taveras.
“The father forgives them, I don’t know what they are doing”, reads the first of the seven words, but Taveras replaced them with: “Father forgive them, but they know what they are doing”, referring to the topic that will become a debate long-standing between activist groups and the Catholic Church.
“Forgive them when the sacredness of the human body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit, is taken and becomes a tomb of abortion. Forgive them when the hope of an entire people who choose to have a life is disappointed and, on the contrary, their rights to have a dignified life are taken away from them “, the father exclaimed during the liturgy held in the First Cathedral of America. .
In the same sense that “they know what they are doing”, Taveras also referred to the terrible services offered by the state in the various public entities.
“Forgive them when they offer their poor quality services in public offices, hospitals, schools and transportation when they want to destroy our natural resources based on ambitious interests and take the opportunity to remember Loma Miranda is not negotiated,” the priest explained.
Similarly, he referred to officials and heads of state who, after the end of their term, remain with pensions “higher than they should be”, while a normal employee with many years of work remains only “with a low salary”. .
Extending his narrative, he stressed that a large number of students are currently graduating from universities, but that for them there are no sources of employment and do not appreciate their talent, discouraging young Dominicans.
“Forgive them when thousands of students are graduates of universities, but job sources are not created, discouraging the hopes of their talent, forcing them to emigrate without being able to fulfill their vocation,” he said.
Corruption
Father Thomas García, whose line was immediately after Taveras, said that corruption, social inequality and selfishness prevent the Dominican Republic from being a paradise, despite the fact that it has all the resources to be one.
During the second word, “Today you will be with me in paradise”, taken from Lucas’ book, he highlighted the qualities that the country has to be a paradise such as white sand beaches, its natural landscapes, meringue , but above all hospitable people with a faith full of life and a big heart, they are a true paradise, that corruption, social inequalities and the coronavirus pandemic take them away from the promised paradise.
He said that human trafficking, machismo, child abuse, drug trafficking, migrants, exploitation of natural resources make us reflect on how we relate to each other.
The father expressed solidarity with the families who lost relatives due to Covid-19 and those who were unemployed due to the pandemic or the change of government.
And he assured that there is no cross in our lives, no matter how small or big, “that Jesus does not share with us”, he also explained that due to the fact that Jesus lived the daily realities of the simplest people, he he is moved and weeps over the suffering of human beings.
“Abandonment”
Father Joel Villafaña was appointed to recite the fourth word, “My God. God, because you abandoned me “, where the priest proposes that the churches contribute to the creation of social structures closer to the people in addition to the gradual depoliticization of public institutions in order not to experience the drama of mass cancellations with a change of government,
Villafaña states that his proposals are due to abandonment, which “is becoming more and more prevalent in society, with notable consequences such as family, political and even religious abandonment.”
He himself says that fathers and mothers who refuse to assume a good upbringing of their children, and they are raised by grandparents, take care and rarely of those who need their father the most and there the religious expressed “Fathers mothers of what I? You gave up “
He also addressed couple abandonment, machismo and feminism. Also, the selfishness of the political class that does not fight for the good of the nation, but for private benefits and complained about the abandonment of young people, firefighters, the mentally ill, workers and migrants.
A call to end the violence
A call for universal brotherhood, social friendship and the eradication of violence were the “key” themes in Father Apolinar Castillo’s speech during his fifth speech.
In his speech, Castillo emphasized that “I am thirsty,” the fifth word from John 19: 28-29, refers to “Christ’s spiritual thirst to save and do God’s will.”
“Those of us who profess faith today feel the feverish onslaught of unusual forms of aggression, insults, abuse, disqualification, and verbal beatings to manipulate our conscience to force us to think like them,” Castillo said.
The priest criticized the media, calling them “a kind of closed circuit that facilitates the dissemination of a lot of false information and news to encourage prejudice and hatred.”
Throughout the sermon, Castillo lamented that “the person is no longer considered a primary value to be respected and protected, especially when he is poor or disabled, if they are not yet useful, such as the unborn or if they are no longer they serve as elders ”.
At the end of his speech, the priest asked the Christian community “not to lose the limits by using slander and slander” and, on the contrary, “to contribute to the brotherhood that the common father proposes to us.”
“This must be our thirst for the current forms of aggression (…), it invites us to react with a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that does not stop at words,” he concluded.
Immoral journalists
The priest Arcenio Ferrerira, responsible for the last word, denounced that in the country for years there are journalists who carry out an immoral exercise, unethical and harmful to society, with blackmail and media pressure in search of money.
This was expressed in the reading of the seventh word of the Sermon of the 7 words spoken by Jesus on the cross: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.”
He said that in the practice that these communicators carry out, it consists in locating civil servants, businessmen and people, in investigating the businesses that the institutions they direct could develop and generate false, manipulated notes. or distorted to attract attention and then send them an emissary to ask for large sums of money to stop attacking them.
Ferrerira claimed that those who practice this practice, through social networks, and those he did not identify, destabilize families, damage their name and reputation for money and even cause situations of violence.
By the way, next Monday, April 5, is National Journalists’ Day, he said that this type of blackmail is trying to tarnish the spirit of this profession which is so important to communicate the truth of the information provided.