Lowering the age at which a person can be charged with a crime would not help to combat delinquency among young people, expressed the Archbishop of Monterrey in Mexico.
 
“Parents and people who know where these young people congregate have told me that they are coerced, beaten, given orders and drugged in order to carry out a mission,” Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega said.
 
Cardinal Robles stated during Mass on June 19 that many young people get involved in crime because they “are truly forced to do so.”  The way to lead them away from this path, he said, is to give them opportunities to work and to study.
 
Reducing the age at which one can go to jail “is to penalize young people for being young people …  Our institutions need to support and facilitate the reincorporation of these people into a life of harmony and peace in society,” he added.
 
Cardinal Robles also took the occasion of Father’s Day to remind fathers to be reflection of the love of God.