Ecuadorian priest awarded for feeding hundreds daily
The Mayor’s Office of Guayaquil awarded Fr Wilson Malavé Parrales, director of the Lord of Good Hope Soup Kitchen for the Brother in Need, with the Urban Heroes Medal of Merit.
The July 25 award ceremony commemorated the 486th anniversary of the founding of the city.
The Archdiocese of Guayaquil said that the soup kitchen run by Fr Malavé started nine years ago by feeding 80 homeless people every day in the downtown area. It currently offers meals to about 550 people Monday through Friday.
“People receive Christ through a pot that’s full of love, it’s not food but the love of those who donate the little or lot they may have for their neighbour,” said Fr Malavé, who also serves as pastor of St Augustine church.
Japan’s bishops call for prohibition of nukes
Catholic bishops in Japan called for the prohibition of nuclear weapons as they announced a 10-day prayer programme marking the anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
“Protecting all life makes peace,” said the message from Archbishop Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan, announcing the prayer program that will run August 6-15.
Ucanews.com reported that each year from the date of the Hiroshima bombing, August 6, to August 15, when Japan surrendered in World War II, the church marks Ten Days of Prayer for Peace with special prayers, workshops and other activities directed toward peace.
“I want to share with you my conviction that protecting all life is the way to peace,” said Archbishop Takami’s message, published on the bishops’ conference website.
Nicaragua’s crisis ‘reaching flashpoint’, says witness
l The political, economic and social crisis in Nicaragua “is reaching a flashpoint” and “is more than likely to lead to more violence and destabilisation in the country”, Rafael Estrada said at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
The Central American country’s “constant persecution of political opponents and independent journalists is unprecedented”, said Estrada, who is president of the Nicaraguans for Security and Prosperity Foundation.
He was one of several witnesses at a July 21 hearing sponsored by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on President Daniel Ortega’s government and its political prisoners, which the committee described as “the human cost of repression in Nicaragua”.
Witness Victoria Cárdenas testified that because her husband dared to speak out against Ortega’s oppression, “the regime has also persecuted and harassed me”.
Nearly 3,700 women religious urge Senate to pass For the People Act
l Members of the Sisters of St Joseph of Brentwood, other women religious and laypeople attended a rally in support of the For the People Act July 26 at the Sisters of St Joseph motherhouse in Brentwood.
Following the event, a letter signed by 3,685 religious sisters from various congregations across the nation urging Congress to pass the measure was hand-delivered to the Long Island office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY.
“As Catholic women religious, we see and affirm the dignity of every person,” stated the letter, which also was addressed to President Joe Biden.
“Knowing that all people are made in the likeness of God, we cannot tolerate practices or policies that suppress voters’ ability to participate fully in our democracy,” especially people of colour in the US.