URUGUAY-
We share the declaration of the Latin American Alliance of Presbytherian and Reformed Churches-AIPRAL Executive Committee on the situation facing the Andean country, and invite the member churches and other organisms to accompany and pray for like and dignity of our Peruvian siblings.
We will share the declaration issued yesterday by our Executive Committee, through its Executive Secretary Rev. Darío Barolin.
Our sister nation of Peru is engulfed in a profound crisis and uncertainty of death and pain. Victims of a large index of contagion and deaths due to COVID-19 now joins the a deep political crisis that has worked to undermine even more the credibility of the government institutions and to deepen the weakness of the democratic system. We see a nation “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mk 6:34), while their leaders feast on power and confabulate against the life of their people (Mk 6:21-29). The impeachment of the President Martin Vizcarra and the resignation of the parliamentary designated Manuel Merino, are not the same. The first is destitute by a parliament that accuses him of corruption at the same time as many of its members were looking to bury cases of corruption against them. The second sees himself forced to resign due to popular manifestations against him and the violence with which he suppressed them.
The political system will not be able to find answers if it continues to privilege the corruption, its impunity, and the big businesses that extract the natural wealth from Peru and leave meager benefits for most of its population. Jesus compared the leadership of his time with those who disguise as shepherds, but come to steal, kill, and destroy (Jn 10:10) and the situation in Peru does not seem that different.
We pray for the Peruvian population so God raises from within it leaderships at the service of its people, with compassion for the vulnerable, with sensibility for God’s creation, and attachment to justice. We pray for their leaders to be able to trace, through all the injustice, new paths through which “justice rolls on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24). We pray for those who have lost their loved ones in manifestations and hope for a quick clarification of and justice for the actions that have caused wounds, deaths, and disappearances.
We invite our member churches, sister churches, and other communities of faith to accompany Peru in prayer and also to any person of good will to maintain themselves active and attentive on the situation on our beloved sibling Peru.