(Brazil) In recent days, Dom Vicente de Paula Ferreira CSsR, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Belo Horizonte, was subjected to threats and risked an armed assault at the end of a Eucharistic celebration.
The climate that reigns in Brazil after the elections that saw the defeat of Bolsonaro and the election of Lula is still very tense and with incidents of violence by extreme groups who do not accept the result of the elections.
Dom Vicente, who was a member of the Synod for the Amazon, is the pastor of a community wounded by mining excavations and by a very serious accident, the breaking of the banks of a decantation basin, which overwhelmed a village, killing 190 people. A missionary and a bishop therefore passionately committed to defending the people and the forest.
Scala News has received the press releases from the Redemptorists of Minas, Rio, and Espirito Santo which we publish below:
“The Redemptorist Province of RJ-MG-ES supports the Redemptorist Missionary and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte, Dom Vicente de Paula Ferreira, a victim of hostility and intolerance, which we vehemently reject.
We live in a free and democratic society; therefore, disagreement of opinion should not incite violent and disrespectful actions. As Church, Religious Life, and missionary disciples of Jesus Christ, we urge the culture of dialogue, listening, and fraternity in order to be able to live with differences and respectfully in this plural world.
We are the Missionaries of Hope, in the footsteps of the Redeemer!
We are all brothers, committed to the values of the Gospel, for peace!
In the certainty that “in Him is abundant Redemption!,”
Redemptorist Province of RJ-MG-ES
