Card Turkson conveys Pope's
closeness to the Venezuelans
 |
| Venezuellans crossing over to Cucuta in Colombia, through illegal trails (AFP) |
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery
for Promoting Integral Human Development, sent a message to the participants in
the initiative, "Charity at the border", in the Colombian Diocese of
Cucuta, bordering Venezuela. It concluded with a renewed commitment by all to
assist both the migrants and the local communities spiritually and materially.
By Robin Gomes
Pope Francis "prays constantly" for all
Venezuelans, "closely follows the development of the situation" and
encourages the local Church that has put itself "on the side of the people
who are suffering". Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Prefect of the Vatican
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, wrote in a message to the
participants in a 2-day initiative called “Charity at the border”, which ended
on Friday in the Colombian Diocese of Cucuta, on the border with Venezuela.
The meeting was promoted by the local Church together with
the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Migrants
and Refugees Section. The event was attended by the undersecretaries of the
Dicastery and the Section, respectively Monsignor Segundo Tejado Muñoz and
Father Fabio Baggio, the apostolic nuncios, representatives of the Episcopal
Conferences of Colombia and Venezuela, the Latin American Episcopal Council
(CELAM), the bishops of the dioceses on the Venezuelan-Columbian border,
representatives of Caritas Colombia, Caritas Venezuela, Caritas Internationalis
and the International Catholic Migration Commission.
The promoters of the Cucuta initiative wanted to show the
concern of the Holy Father for the border situation and to bring together the
various charitable efforts in favour of the weakest people in a context of
humanitarian crisis like the one that Venezuela is going through.
In the message, read at the event in Cucuta by Msgr. Tejado,
Cardinal Turkson recalled the gravity of the Venezuelan crisis, which according
to United Nations estimates, has caused 5 million migrants and refugees in
Latin America and the Caribbean.
Venezuela’s economy has been caught in a downward spiral for
years with growing political discontent, exacerbated further by soaring
hyperinflation, power cuts and shortages of food and medicine. In recent
years, close to five million people have left the once-wealthy nation, which
has the world’s largest crude oil reserves.
The people are caught up in a bitter power struggle between
the government of President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition led by Jan Guaido
who declared himself president January 23 2019.
Cardinal Turkson wrote that the Cucuta meeting responds
"to the appeal of Pope Francis" to support efforts to alleviate the
suffering of the people of Venezuela. The Dicastery and the Migrants and
Refugees Section, he said, wish "to make a concrete contribution to deeply
analyze the needs and adequately coordinate the aid of the Church network in
favour of all those affected by the humanitarian crisis". The intention,
Cardinal Turkson said, is to create, as already done in the past for Syria and
Iraq, "a platform, a service to share information" that gives a clear
picture of the charity efforts of the Church in an emergency.
Persons such as migrants, the needy, the excluded and
victims of conflicts, Cardinal Turkson wrote, are the vulnerable people that
the Dicastery is called to serve. He commended the contribution of those
who are addressing the situations of pain and despair of the "multitude of
displaced persons and refugees, victims of this crisis".
Cardinal Turkson concluded his message with a prayer to the
Virgin Mary that an agreement be reached as soon as possible to put an end to
the suffering of people, for the good of Venezuela and the whole region.
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