Mons. Javier del Río Alba, Archbishop of Arequipa (Peru) proposes three challenges to be “architects of a new world” starting today, in line with the three requests that Pope Francis makes in his message for the World Day of Peace that It was celebrated on January 1.
In his weekly message sent to ACI Prensa this Saturday, the prelate explains that although the Holy Father’s requests are made “on a global scale, we can also fulfill them in some way in the small part of each day.”
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1. Forgive debts
Bishop Del Río highlights that “forgiving foreign debt is something that only rich nations can do, but we can exercise another type of forgiveness, as we ask God in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive others.’ who offend us’ or, as we said in the version used until a few years ago, ‘forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.'”
In that sense, the Peruvian prelate continued, “if someone has lent money to someone who has difficulty repaying it, they could, to the extent that their situation allows, forgive all or part of the debt.”
“Or if someone has been offended by another person, he could also, accepting the grace of God, forgive them the offense received and restore communion with them, as Jesus has done with us.”
2. Defend life and marriage against ideologies
The archbishop indicated that regarding the Pope’s “second request, we are also called to respect human dignity and, therefore, promote life, not only opposing abortion and euthanasia, but also preventing them from infiltrating our homes and communities. “Ideologies coined in rich countries that promote the extinction of marriage, having pets instead of children, and discarding the elderly and sick.”
3. Educate children in the faith
Likewise, Del Río continued, “we can accept Francis’ third request, all cooperating so that fathers and mothers assume more and better their mission of educating their children, dedicating more time to them at home, transmitting to them the faith and living it as a family, and accompanying them in their process of growth and integral maturity.”
In this way, the Peruvian archbishop concluded, “with these three small – big actions that the Pope asks of us, we will be able to be architects of that new world that we all long for. Shall we start today?”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.