Mexican cardinal calls on Catholics to be aware of candidates’ positions

Mexico City, Mexico, Oct 24, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, said this week he was pleased that the media in the country is generating debate on euthanasia and its true significance and that people are being made aware of the political positions being taken on the issue.

Responding to questions from reporters, the cardinal said, “Thanks to you, this issue is being discussed, and I hope that people know that euthanasia is not about a happy death” nor is it “simply helping them to die,” but that “it has other, more serious consequences.”

Cardinal Rivera reminded Catholics that they have a right to know what positions the different political candidates have taken on matters such as abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality, and he called on politicians to “make their plans known” so that people don’t find out later that they “think one way and act another.”

The Archdiocese of Mexico’s newspaper, Desde la Fe, published other recent statements this week by Cardinal Rivera in which he called on Catholics to protest laws that attack life and the teachings of the Church.
 
The cardinal is not “calling for insurrection,” the article explained, “but rather a sensible and rational proposal that can be completely understood by civil authorities who are honest and democratic. The Church is not proposing political anarchy or social disorder, but rather marking a limit when “authorities, institutions or laws are unjust in themselves and act against the common good and destroy the dignity of the human person, thus perverting their reason for being.”