17,000 marched for peace in Cuernavaca, Mexico

Around 17,000 people participated this Saturday, May 24 in the 11th walk for La Paz in Cuernavaca, the capital of the Mexican State of Morelos.

Headed by the Bishop of Cuernavaca and president of the Mexican Episcopate Conference (CEM), Mons. Ramón Castro Castro, the participants left at approximately 9:00 am (local time) of the Sanctuary of Tlaltenango towards the Cuernavaca Cathedral.

During the tour, Mons. Castro Castro had an emotional encounter with a group of seeking mothers, as women who seek their missing children and relatives are known, often with little or no help from civil authorities.

At the same time that they gave them a bouquet of white flowers, the prelate expressed their desire that “our love and prayer strengthen and encourage them.” In addition, he announced the next installation of a “peace mailbox” in the Cuernavaca Cathedral, which will serve to deposit their messages “all those who have some information that could serve them to find their loved ones”.

It will also be, he said, “a mailbox also for financial aid” and for those who wish to leave the seeking mothers “a word of breath and encouragement.”

“Why don’t we react?”

Once outside the Cuernavaca Cathedral, at the end of the walk, Mons. Castro Castro recalled that “San Agustín defined peace saying (which) is a tranquility that gratifies when all things are in its appropriate place. Unfortunately, we cannot be calm because there are many things that are not in their appropriate place, which are not in their place and that is why we do not have peace.”

“And that is the reason we are here,” he said, later pointing out that “we need peace and we do not want destroying in this society that is decomposing. ”

“While it is true that there is a new strategy in the federal and state government to combat violence, however our authorities have not yet managed to create adequate and sufficient conditions to overcome this violence,” the prelate lamented.

“We deeply hurt all this blood that has spilled,” he said.

Mons. Castro Castro also expressed “the pain of knowing that the authorities themselves are put in those businesses. Contact with the heads of the narco becomes so everyday that some do not even see it bad, and it is normal and even accuse of those who are surprised at what happens at some levels of the government.”

“Why don’t we react and do something to reverse this diabolical scourge?” Asked the prelate, among several other questions released during his message to the participants of the walk. “Where did we lose the course?” He continued. “And the Church, where is it? And where is the private initiative? And where are the intellectuals and academics? And where is organized civil society? Why do it seem to come out with their bad if they are few? (…) There are so many questions and so few answers.”

Mons. Ramón Castro Castro to the authorities: Focus on results “or Mexico will be lost”

However, said Mons. Castro Castro, “today we are here to keep hope alive, the hope that never dies.”

“The authorities are wrong if they believe that this march is to manifest us against them,” he warned. “No, it is to tell you that we trust in spite of everything, but that they apply, to focus, that they strive in their abilities.”

“More than the thousands of peace and security speeches, more than the thousand and one countless analysis tables, more than the thousand and one elements patrolling aimlessly or strategy, more than the thousand and one million that are spent every year to seek a peace that never arrives, I ask them to be concrete, they are concrete,” he added.

“We ask you: Focus on medium and long term results or Mexico will be lost,” he warned.

The prelate also recalled that “Jesus has told us something so beautiful that he must motivate us. ‘Blessed are those who work for peace, because they will be considered children of God.”

“Let us ask the Queen of Peace, Santa María Madre de Dios y Mother of ours, today May 24, to celebrate the feast of Mary Help of Christians, who intercede for us to become that dream of peace,” he urged.