Praying for Central America

 

How many continents are there?  How many learned there are seven?

Today we are going to pray for those countries in the Central American region.  When you count the seven continents, Central America isn’t one of them.  The area between North America and South America isn’t a continent.  This area is considered North America. There are seven countries that touch each other stretching down from US to South America.  There are islands in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, also.

Today, we are praying for all the countries in this area that are afflicted with violence, especially Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Belize.  We will include the islands in Caribbean, especially Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.  Also, we will add the South American country of Colombia because all these countries have similar problems of income inequality, unemployment, drug wars, political instability and murder.

None of these countries are places to bring up a family, which is why we have the immigration problem at our southern border. In Mexico, there is a city called the most violent in the world, Juarez.  Guatemala, El Salvador are overrun with gang warfare.  Haiti, besides never recovering from natural disasters, has no way to combat the numerous gangs that have taken over communities.  It is so bad that some police stations are abandoned because the police have run away. The United Nations has said that gangs have established a climate of terror, characterized by looting, assassinations, kidnappings, extortion, rape and murder.  One gang is accused of killing seven police officers in Haiti’s National Police Department in a single day in January 2023. Schools are closed.  There’s little public transportation. Father Antoine Macaire Christian Noah was kidnapped for ransom, a month ago, on February 7

Armed gangs are running the countries of Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The South American country of Columbia is included in this list of countries plagued by violence, lack of opportunities, economic despair, and drug warfare.  Columbia has the world’s largest area dedicated to the cultivation of cocaine.  Similar to farms in our area being bought by developers to build condos, in Colombia, people are pushed out for the cultivation of cocaine.  Approximately half of the world’s supply of cocaine is produced in Colombia. With all this drug trafficking, there is violence.  The Colombian government has agreements with the revolutionary group, known as FARC-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia.  But FARC is only one of the many armed guerilla groups in Colombia.

There is one more country and a situation that I want to specifically pray for, and that is the country of Nicaragua because the Catholic Church is being suppressed there.  The President, Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Morilla, have been repressing the Catholic Church because the church is criticizing the government, especially Ortega. This year alone, the Ortega-Morillo government has arrested several priests, expelled missionaries, shut down Catholic radio stations, closed down a Catholic university and banned religious processions like Stations of the Cross.  Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez has been put in prison and sentenced to 26 years.  Amnesty International says the attacks are a plan to silence all opposition that criticizes the government.

There is so much to pray for: an end to drug trafficking, violence, gang warfare, income inequality, unemployment, and even natural disasters.  Lord hear our prayers, we beg your mercy to grace these countries with peace, law, and order, justice, human rights, and freedom to express their love of God.

Holy Mother, we ask your intercession as we pray your Rosary.