Caracas, Venezuela, Apr 9, 2007 / 08:15 am
Bishop Emeritus Ramon Ovidio Perez Morales of Los Teques has called on Venezuelans to seek unity and fraternity, saying the country is “divided and broken,” and he said that the Christ himself made the same plea from the cross and not from the comfort of “a hammock.”
“The Lord did not issue his message about unity, peace, reconciliation and forgiveness from the comfort of a hammock, but rather from the cross, as a victim of an unjust sentence, an unjustified persecution, when everyone beneath the cross mocked him.
Nevertheless,” the bishop continued, “he forgave a sinner and called for reconciliation.”
The message of unity and fraternity is very timely, he said, because the country is “divided and broken.” He said Venezuela urgently needs the message of Christ and that all Venezuelans must strive to follow it.
Likewise, he called on the faithful to strengthen their faith in God and to defend religion in schools. “Religious values are important in religious instruction (…) . It is important that our children know what kind of country they are living in from the moral and religious point of view,” he said.