Cardinal Fernando Chomali, Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, reflected as a result of the current scenario in the country, in the face of public situations of corruption and a few months of the presidential elections.
In recent weeks, two cases that demonstrate corruption in security forces and in the government spheres in Chile have shaken society, which in a few months will go to the polls to participate in the presidential elections.
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On the one hand, the concern goes through the infiltration of organized crime in the Chilean security forces, in particular its links with drug trafficking, when the drug finding is known in an air force plane and in an army vehicle. He President of the Nation, Gabriel Boriche called to combat organized crime that tries to “permeate our institutions.”
On the other hand, lIn the Comptroller of Chile, he exposed a massive fraud with state medical licenses. The investigation reflected that more than 25,000 state employees traveled to other countries in the last two years, having requested illness licenses.
He judgment It began last Tuesday and there are 18 doctors accused of having issued 71,000 false medical licenses.
Given this scenario, the archbishop of Santiago and Primado de Chile, Cardenal FernandoHe said that “facing corruption in Chile is one of the great priorities that our society must assume”, since it enters “transversely” in the institutions until it becomes part of the social fabric.
The cardinal warned about “the use and abuse of violence by those who seek to defend at all costs the autocracy they are building” and about the construction of “true parallel states within the State.”
He also warned about the “absolute” link between organized crime, drug trafficking and possession of weapons, and considered that “when it comes to getting rid of those who consider their enemies, they operate under the logic that human life has no value and that every method to ‘maintain the business’ is valid.”
Associated with these dramas in Chilean society, the purple mentioned school dropout and the high percentage of young people who do not study or work. Under these conditions, he evaluated, “many of them could see in drug trafficking an easy way to make money,” or could “become a prey to those who seek corrupts.”
Given this “very complex” social landscape, the archbishop believes a multidimensional analysis of short, medium and long term, where all institutions are involved and adopt rapid and efficient measures to dismantle it. ”
The drama of corruption, drug trafficking and organized crime, he said, is given in a context of denial or invisibility of human dignity for the sake of a materialistic conception of existence. “
In that sense, he recalled the teaching of the social doctrine of the Church: “The greatest risk to current democracies is the ethical relativism that induces to consider non -existent an objective and universal criterion to establish the foundation and correct hierarchy of values.”
“We are on time” to stop this scourge
In a hopeful look, the cardinal considered that “we are on time” to stop this scourge in Chile, where “a high capacity to face corruption effectively is glimpsed, thanks to the fact that it still has adequate laws, it enjoys a healthy democracy and robust public institutions, together with a civil society and media that are interested in the subject and care to inform when there is something that deals.”
“The panorama is getting more sordid, but what hurts most is that many of these practices are due to people in different public institutions that should be at the service of the country, not using it,” he lamented, considering “alarming” the amount of corruption cases that have come from the bosom of power.
“The more solid the democracy of a country is and is governed by the rule of law, minors are corruption rates,” he said, and “as the better education levels have a country, the lower corruption,” he said.
Do not normalize small corruption signs
The cardinal called not to normalize the “little” signs of corruption in the day to day, such as the use of influences to get work, the improper use of medical licenses, the evasion of taxes, among others; that remain in force under the logic that “everyone does.”
He also summoned to reflect on the values that are being instilled to future generations, and insisted that “corruption deteriorates confidence in institutions, weakens democracy and the State leaving it without conditions to respond to the needs in essential areas” as the help to the poorest.
The cardinal proposed an integral reflection regarding the power and value of a corruption -free society, and called to review the training plans of the armed and security forces, the Judiciary, the public service, the private world, with a more exhaustive control in the entry of the members.
“Time is now. The responsibility is ours. The Catholic Church in its pastoral, educational and social work hopes to be a contribution contributing to its work a theological look of the situation that the country lives and generating in all its spaces, together with technical training, a solid ethical training founded in the anthropology of fraternity and service to the community,” he proposed.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.