Pope mourns killing of Catholic environmental activist in Honduras
September 23, 2024
» Continue to this story on Vatican News
CWN Editor's Note: At the conclusion of his September 22 Angelus address, Pope Francis deplored the September 14 murder of Juan Antonio López, a Honduran Catholic environmental activist, who was gunned down as he was leaving Mass.
“Coordinator of social pastoral care in the Diocese of Trujillo, he was a founding member of the pastoral care of integral ecology in Honduras,” the Pope said to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. “I join in the grief of that Church and condemn every form of violence.”
“I am close to all those who see their elementary rights violated, and to those who work for the common good in response to the cry of the poor and the earth,” the Pope added.
López opposed mining that threatened the agriculture and drinking water of the indigenous Lenca people. “You told me that you were not an environmentalist because, for you, the social, ecological and political commitment was not an ideological question, but a question of your being of Christ and of the Church,” Bishop Jenry Ruiz of Trujillo said of López.
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