Santo Domingo, RD
During the early hours of Good Friday afternoon, the reading of the sermon of the last seven words that Christ uttered on the cross at the time of his crucifixion dominated the country’s news content.
Between sermons and sermons, the different priests take the opportunity to touch on the main issues that are currently affecting the Dominican population. This Easter was no exception and during the sermons, the topics of abortion in the three causes and the fight against administrative corruption were the focus of attention.
Precisely the debate that society is experiencing about the approval of the termination of pregnancy in three causes was the main topic of the sermon of the first word, which was given by Father Pelagio Taveras.
“Father forgive them for not knowing what they are doing,” is how the first of the seven words reads, but Taveras replaced them with, “Father forgive them, but they do know what they are doing,” referring to the issue that has long been a debate between activist groups and the Catholic Church.
“Forgive them when the sacredness is taken away from the human body which is a temple of the Holy Spirit and becomes the tomb of abortion. Forgive them when the hope of an entire people who choose to have a life and on the contrary his rights to a dignified life are taken away from him “, exclaimed the father during the liturgy celebrated in the primate Cathedral of America.
Under the same tenor that “they do 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 lousy quality services in public offices hospitals schools and transport when they want to destroy our natural resources based on ambitious interests and taking the opportunity to remember Lloma Miranda is not negotiating,” the priest explained.
Similarly, he referred to civil servants and heads of state who after finishing their management of government are left with pensions “higher than the account”, while a normal employee with many years working are left “with a misery two on “.
Extending his narrative, he noted that a large number of students are currently graduates of universities but that for them there are no sources of employment and not valuing their talent, discouraging Dominican youth.
“Forgive them when thousands of students are graduating from universities but don’t cross sources of employment by discouraging the hopes of their Talent by forcing them to emigrate without being able to realize their vocation,” he said.
Corruption
Father Thomas García, who had his turn right after Taveras, said that corruption, social inequality and selfishness take the Dominican Republic away from being a paradise despite having all the resources to be one.
During the second word, “Today you will be with me in paradise”, taken from the book of Lucas, highlighted the qualities that the country has to be a paradise such as white sand beaches, its natural landscapes, its meringue, but above all their hospitable people of living faith and great heart, are a true paradise, which corruption, social inequality and the pandemic of the coronavirus take them away from the promised paradise.
He said human trafficking, masculinity, child abuse, drug trafficking, migrants, exploitation of natural resources makes us reflect on the way we relate.
The father sympathized with the families who have lost relatives due to the Covid-19 and those who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic or the change of government.
And he assured that there is no cross in our life, no matter how small or big, that “Jesus does not share with us”, he also explained that for Jesus having lived everyday realities of the simplest people, he is moved and cries before the suffering of human beings.
“The abandonment”
Father Joel Villafaña was appointed to recite the fourth word which says “My God. My God because you have forsaken me,” where the chaplain proposes that churches contribute to the creation of social structures closer to the people in addition to the gradual depoliticization of public institutions to “not experience drama of massive cancellations with change of government,
Villafaña states that his proposals are due to the abandonment that “growing in society, with notable consequences such as family abandonment, political and even religious.”
The same goes for parents who refuse to take on the good upbringing of their children, and these are raised by grandmothers, caring and rarely those who need them most to be their parents and here the religious expressed “Papi mami per what have you left me “
She also addressed couple abandonment, masculinity and feminism. Also the selfishness of the political class that does not fight for the good of the nation but for the particular benefits and complained about the abandonment of young people, firefighters, the mentally ill, workers and migrants.
A call to eradicate violence
A call for universal fraternity, social friendship and the eradication of violence were the “key” issues in the intervention of Father Apolinar Castell during his speech at the fifth word.
In his speech, Castle noted that “I am thirsty,” the Fifth Word taken from John 19: 28-29, refers to the “spiritual thirst of Christ to save and do the will of God.”
“Those of us who profess the faith today feel the feverish onslaught of unusual forms of aggression, insults, abuse, disqualifications and verbal whippings in order to manipulate our conscience to force us to think like them,” Castell said.
The priest criticized the media as “species of closed circuits that facilitate the dissemination of a lot of false information and news to encourage prejudice and hatred.”
Throughout the sermon, Castell lamented that “the person is no longer held as a primary value to be respected and protected, especially when they are poor or disabled, if they are not yet useful, such as the unborn, or if they no longer serve like the elderly. “
At the end of his speech, the chaplain called on the Christian community to “not lose the boundaries by resorting to defamation and slander,” and on the contrary, “to contribute to the fraternity that the common father proposes to us.”
“This must also 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 stay in words,” he concluded.
immoral journalists
Chaplain Arcenio Ferrerira, in charge of the last word, denounced that in the country for years there have been journalists who are doing an immoral, unethical and harmful exercise in society, with blackmail and media pressure in search of money .
This was expressed in reading 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 the practice of these communicators is to locate public officials, businessmen and people, investigate the businesses that may be developing the institutions they run and generate false, manipulated or distorted notes to get attention and then send them an emissary to ask for large sums of money to stop further attacking them.
Ferrerira argued that those who practice this practice, through social media, and whom he did not identify, destabilize families, damage names and reputations for money and even provoke situations of violence.
Speaking that next Monday, April 5 is National Journalist’s Day, he said that this type of blackmail is trying to cloud the spirit of this profession which is so important to communicate the truth of the information offered.