Four children missing in Ecuador: Bishops ask to offer masses on January 5 for them

The bishops of Ecuador have asked the country’s priests to offer masses on Sunday, January 5, for the four children who were found burned in Guayaquil, as well as for their family and friends, and to also pray to God for an end to the violence. .

The Archbishopric of Quito reported This January 3, a communication from the Presidency Council of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, in which this specific request is made “to all jurisdictions in the country.”

“As we expressed in our statement of December 23, the disappearance of Josué, Ismael, Saúl and Steven has moved us all. The announcement of the discovery of his charred remains fills with indignation the hearts of every man and woman of good will in Ecuador and outside of it. The cries and tears of their parents, family and friends are ours,” point out the bishops of Ecuador.

For this reason, they encourage that “in all the Eucharists this Sunday, January 5, in all our parishes, temples and chapels we can pray in a special way for them.”

The prelates also urge us to offer masses for the parents of the minors, “whom, from the Archdiocese of Guayaquil, has been accompanied from the first moment, and that we raise a prayer so that the commitment to ‘eradicate the violence that hurts and hurts our present and future’ is the concrete contribution that we can give as Catholics to this climate rarified by lies, impunity and oblivion”.

In that sense, the Archbishop of Quito, Mons. Alfredo Espinoza, asked all the priests of his archdiocese to accept “the request of the Episcopal Conference placing this particular intention in all the celebrations of Sunday, January 5.”

On December 31, the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office reported in its December 8.”

That day, men dressed in military uniforms kidnapped the brothers José and Ismael Arroyo, and Saúl Arboleda and Steven Medina, all minors between 11 and 15 years old, in the area known as Las Malvinas, a poor neighborhood in the south of Guayaquil.

The Prosecutor’s Office also reported that it has requested the arrest and preventive detention of 16 soldiers who are under investigation, for this case that has shocked all of Ecuador.

According CNN in Spanishon December 25, Judge Tanya Loor accepted a you have a body of the relatives of the four minors and declared their “forced disappearance.” According to the magistrate, the 16 soldiers involved did not comply with the established protocols nor did they request cooperation from the police.