Catholic Church in Argentina requests presence of the State to combat drug trafficking

The President of the Argentine Episcopal Conference and Bishop of San Isidro, Mons. Oscar Ojea; and Cardinal Ángel Rossi, Archbishop of Córdoba, led this Wednesday a panel titled “State or drug trafficking: access to land and shelter in Córdoba”.

The panel, which took place at the Catholic University of Córdoba, was completed by representatives of state agencies, organizations and social movements, who debated the challenges of communities in popular neighborhoods, in a context of strong presence of drug trafficking and lack of access to housing and public services.

Today, in Argentina there are 6,467 popular neighborhoods, where more than 6 million people live, reported the Bishop of San Isidro in his speech. There, “the hard core of poverty in Argentina and the core of destitution are found.”

In 2018, two years after a dialogue table with the government began, Congress almost unanimously approved law 27,453 that governs the urban integration of popular neighborhoods, later ratified in 2022, the prelate recalled.

“This law, first of all, confers dignity to those who live there,” he stated, because it provides a domicile certificate, a family certificate, and recognizes the right to services: water, electricity, gas.

“What happened to us? What happened in such a short time?” said Bishop Ojea. “It would seem that the popular neighborhoods are not a priority and so this situation sometimes fills us with perplexity.”

“Behind this kind of lack of understanding of our neighborhoods lies an impressive danger for the country, which is handing over our neighborhoods to drug trafficking,” he warned.

Regarding the need for State intervention, he pointed out that the existence of improvement works in the neighborhoods helps the integration and spirit of the communities, because if not, “the drug trafficker is gaining more and more space, it is what provides”, and at the same time enslaves.

These situations, Bishop Ojea pointed out, are not combated only by addressing security, but “by working together with the neighbors, integrating their views, their way of thinking, their concerns.”

Offer your heart as a response to exclusion

After the participation of the representatives of movements and organizations present, who endorsed the demand for State intervention in the neighborhoods in a scenario of defunding of the work they do, Cardinal Rossi closed the panel quoting the Argentine singer-songwriter Fito Páez: “ Who said that all is lost? “I come to offer my heart.”

“The solution is not a statistic,” he considered, but rather the need to “offer my heart, so that those gestures or those ideas come down to the hands.”

“Pope Francis says let’s not wait for any savior, let’s not wait for any magical proposal to move forward: only through collective creative action can we change our history,” he said.

“The time has come to activate common strategies among us, among other volunteer organizations, political parties, between intellectuals and immigrants, between volunteers and social movements, the Church, unions, peasant organizations,” he urged.

“We are betting on proximity, which is a dam against the mechanisms of exclusion present in the field of drugs, the disabled, the elderly, minors at risk, and the sick,” he warned.

“Many times the gesture anticipates the laws and your gestures mobilize,” he said. “It is a lookout for vulnerability, it is a sharp dart that sticks into the sleeping flesh of an indifferent society and a self-referential and selfish political leadership; They are a continuous seeker of new frontiers, therefore this is the suggestion.”

“The dignity of our people cannot be tampered with,” said the cardinal.