Letter CATHOLIC PRIEST TO NEW YORK TIMES
Dear brother and sister journalists:
I'm just a Catholic priest. I am happy and proud of my vocation. Twenty years ago I live in Angola as a missionary.
gives me great pain by the profound evil that people should be signs of God's love, to be a dagger in the lives of innocents. No word as to justify such acts. There is no doubt that the Church can not but side with the weak, the defenseless. Therefore all measures are taken for the protection, prevention of the dignity of children is always a top priority.
I see in many media, especially in your paper the extension of a morbid topic, investigating in detail the life of a pedophile priest. Thus it appears one of a U.S. city in the 70's, one in Australia for 80 years and so from the front, other recent cases ... Certainly all doomed! Some presentations are weighted and balanced journalism, other amplified, full of prejudice and even hatred.
is curious how little notice and lack thousands and thousands of priests who are consumed by millions of children, adolescents and disadvantaged in the four corners of the world! I think that your source of information does not care that I had to carry, and mined roads in 2002, many children malnourished from Cangumbe to Lwena (Angola), since neither the government was available and NGOs were not allowed; you had to bury dozens of small deaths among displaced by war and those who have returned, that you have saved the lives of thousands of people in Mexico by the only medical station at 90,000 km2, as well as distributing food and seeds , that we have given educational opportunity in 10 years and over 110,000 school children ...
interest is not with other priests have had to relieve the humanitarian crisis of nearly 15,000 people in the barracks of the guerrilla, after his surrender, because the food came from the Government and the UN. It is not news that a priest 75 years, Fr Roberto, the evening stroll the city of Luanda healing the street children, taking them to a shelter, in order to detoxify the gasoline that hundreds of prisoners are literate, that other priests, and P. Stefano, having houses of passage for kids who are beaten, abused and even violent and seek shelter. Nor
Fray Maiato its 80 years, go from house to house comforting the sick and desperate. It is not news that more than 60,000 of the 400,000 priests and religious have left their land and their families to serve their brothers in a leper colony, hospitals, refugee camps, orphanages for children accused of witch or orphans of parents who died with AIDS in the poorest schools, training centers, care centers ... or mostly positive zero, parishes and missions giving people reasons to live and love.
's not news that my friend, Fr Marcos Aurelio, to save some young people during the war in Angola, has shipped Kalule to Dondo and returning to his mission has been gunned down in the road that Brother Francis, with five women catechists, and go to help the most remote rural areas have died in an accident in the street, dozens of missionaries in Angola have died from lack of health relief, by a simple malaria, others have blown up due to a mine, visiting his people. In the cemetery are the graves Kalule of the first priests who came to the region ... None passes 40.
not accompany the life story of a priest "normal" in their day to day, their difficulties joys and quietly consuming his life for the community it serves.
not accompany the life story of a priest "normal" in their day to day, their difficulties joys and quietly consuming his life for the community it serves.
The truth is that we do not seek headlines, but simply to bring good news, the news that started quietly in the night of Passover. More noise a falling tree that grows a forest.
not intend to make an apology for the Church and priests. The priest is neither a hero nor a neurotic. It is a simple man, whose humanity is seeking to follow Jesus and serve his brothers. There is misery, poverty and weaknesses as every human being, as well as beauty and goodness in every creature ...
as obsessively insist and persecutory losing a topic overview truly believe cartoons insulting the Catholic priesthood in which I am offended.
only ask a journalist friend, locate the Truth, Goodness and Beauty. That will make
noble profession.
noble profession.
In Christ,
P. Martin Lasarte sdb
