A fire destroyed the San Antonio de Padua church and a Franciscan convent this Friday in the city of Iquique in Chile. The prosecution does not rule out that the accident was intentional.
“We are here facing such a regrettable situation, a tragedy in heritage terms, in terms of the parish temple of San Antonio de Padua that burned, as well as the Franciscan convent,” says the Bishop of Iquique, Mons. Isauro Covili, in a video posted by the diocese on Facebook.
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“A building, as we all know, so historic and important for the city and the region. We are suffering from the fire and everything that it means,” added the prelate, alluding to the fact that in 1994 the place was declared a historical monument in the country.
“Everything has remained like this, nothing, but we also know that the Church, the body of Jesus Christ, the living body of Jesus, will continue in the midst of pain, tragedy and tears, will continue to celebrate faith and hope with joy and hope. announcement of Jesus Christ,” said the bishop.
Mons. Covili, also a Franciscan, especially thanked the firefighters “who have worked hard throughout the afternoon,” “all the civil institutions” and “so many people who have expressed their closeness, their concern and their pain.”
“I thank you all and I also thank God because this place and the presence of the Franciscans here is so loved and treasured by the entire city,” highlighted the bishop.
According to the Chilean media Cooperativethe fire also affected three adjacent houses and a workshop, leaving six people injured
A day earlier, the Diocese of Iquique had reported that a “fire threat” in the San Antonio de Padua church had been controlled, but it was stated that “all liturgical celebrations in the temple” were “suspended until further notice.”
Tax investigation into the fire
Cooperativa also indicated that prosecutor Gonzalo Valderrama has opened an investigation to determine if the fire was intentional.
NOW🔴 Regional prosecutor(s) of Tarapacá, Gonzalo Valenzuela, directs PDI proceedings in the fire that destroyed the San Francisco church in Iquique: “The priority is to establish whether this was intentional, or the product of an accident” @Cooperative #Tarapacá pic.twitter.com/yMlnpbfCb2
— Hans Gotterbarm (@hansgotterbarm) October 11, 2024
“An ex officio investigation was opened, according to the information that circulated on social networks. Therefore, the PDI Criminalistics Laboratory was instructed to carry out the expert reports,” said Valderrama.
“At the moment, we have no evidence of the intention of the incident, but it is a hypothesis that cannot be ruled out,” he said.
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.