Guadalajara, Mexico, Apr 28, 2010 / 19:58 pm
As the country celebrates its bicentennial, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez of Guadalajara, Mexico underscored the need for citizens to discover the truth of their country's independence in order to promote peace and reconciliation.
During a speech at a seminar on the Church and Mexico’s independence, Cardinal Iniguez said, “As we celebrate these memorable dates of our country’s history, we need to gratefully remember to rectify history with the facts and to reconcile - as a people - in the truth that sets us free.”
“The Mexican people know little about their own history, their true history, as many who have written it took it upon themselves to change or distort it according to the ideology and interests of political factions,” the cardinal said.
“And what has been the result?” he asked. “A manipulated and Manichean history in which the light is all on one side and the darkness all on the other, a categorical division between the good and the bad. The official ‘heroes’ are portrayed to the people as perfect, untainted and almost superhuman. On the other hand, the ‘villains,’ that is, the defeated, are incredibly vilified and stripped of any quality or merit,” the cardinal explained.