Lima archbishop calls for peace at mass for Peruvians who died in protests

Lima, Jan 15 (EFE).- The Archbishop of Lima Carlos Castillo made a call for peace Sunday at a mass in memory of the 49 Peruvians “killed” in the anti-government protests and urged the people to “abandon the path of violence” and “detect those who give wrong orders, propagators of death”.

“To those brothers who have killed… we tell them and we call them with a trembling heart of pain that the spilled blood does not cry out for revenge, their blood cries out for mercy and peace, rectification of behaviors and conversion so that this dark and dark spiral of absurd violence ends,” Castillo said in his homily.

During the mass, celebrated in the Cathedral of Lima and included parts in Quechua, the archbishop said “there are peaceful ways to resolve the great demands of each poor region of Peru” and rejected the intentions of “liquidating the State by which petty and selfish interests have always and currently opposed”.

From the altar, surrounded by photographs of those who died in the protests, Castillo said “the human drama” the country is going through challenges Peruvians to “abandon the violent path.”

“Those who perpetrated these deaths perhaps hid, in some cases, the intention of gaining some power, some political position,” he said, before urging the country to overcome its “endemic evil” of “excessive ambition for power and money covered in ideologies.”.

The archbishop said the church “corresponds to a fundamental, spiritual reflection,” while “investigations, political, economic and social interpretations correspond to other areas.”

“We are not going to the right, or to the left, or to the center, we are going to the bottom…. and everything can be perfected if you go to the bottom of things,” he said.

The demonstrations demand the resignation of the president, Dina Boluarte, the closure of Congress, new elections for 2023 and the call for a constituent assembly, among others. EFE

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