Peru: Church Leaders Denounce Violence, Defend Human Rights

President Dina Boluarte, who had overseen one of the worst massacres in recent Peruvian history in 2023, was impeached and removed from office by Peru’s Congress on Oct. 10 for failing to curb a wave of violent crime in the country. Weeks earlier, the Congress had passed an amnesty law pardoning members of government security forces who committed grave human rights violations in counterterrorism operations between 1980 and 2000. On October 21, the new president, José Jerí, announced a 30 day “state of emergency,” ostensibly to fight crime, but also in the face of violent protests calling for him to resign.

A month before these dramatic changes, twelve of Peru’s bishops released a statement condemning the amnesty law. The bishops, including two cardinals, restated “the Church’s ongoing commitment to accompany the victims and their families, whoever they may be, as a result of the internal armed conflict that our country experienced.”

“We deeply regret,” the bishops said, “that, in this context of war, some of those who had the duty to care for their brothers and sisters abandoned their responsibility and responded to the barbarity of terrorism with equal barbarity. The assertion that war justifies any death, even the death of innocents, represents a grave wound in the fragile social fabric of our beloved country and weakens all efforts toward unity among Peruvians. No war ‘is worth the tears of a mother who has seen her child mutilated or murdered,’ or the loss of the life of a single human being, a sacred being created in the image and likeness of the Creator.”

On Oct 10, Peru’s Conference of Religious released the following statement regarding the ongoing violence in the country:

“The Conference of Religious Men and Women of Peru (CONFER), which unites all members of the Consecrated Life community in our country, wishes to express its profound concern regarding the institutional crisis in which we find ourselves. Faced with this crisis, the political authorities of both the Executive and Legislative branches, as well as other branches of government, appear to be prioritizing their own particular and group interests over those of the population, who suffer from rampant violence in our streets, as well as a lack of opportunities and services, especially for those living in the most vulnerable situations.”

“As members of the Religious Life community in Peru, we accompany and walk closely with the people who suffer the most. We strive to be where no one else wants to be, where the State doesn’t reach, where macroeconomic growth is not palpable. We have also walked closely with the families of victims of violence in all its forms. We are therefore witnesses that impunity in the face of injustice, the dynamics of abuse and violence, discrimination and rejection, are nothing more than fertile ground for more violence, more suffering, more poverty. We demand that political authorities put the interests of citizens first, and, in line with what Pope Leo XIV asks of us in his recent encyclical, give preferential consideration to the poorest.

“Our streets have run red with blood. And in the face of this, the government of Ms. Dina Boluarte, who has been impeached by the same Congress that shielded her seven times previously and sustained her in office since she assumed the presidency, has shown itself to be indifferent, without seeking the forgiveness or reconciliation necessary for social coexistence. Without clear policies to combat organized crime and without strategies to maintain security in the country, the population has been left at the mercy of violence and corruption.

In response, citizens have expressed their discontent in various ways and will surely continue to do so until those who govern us demonstrate that they are not pursuing their own ambitions, but rather genuinely want to engage in politics, seeking the common good.

“From CRP CONFER PERÚ, we are committed to contributing to the construction of a true culture of encounter in our country, and we are aware that to achieve this level of dialogue, we must also denounce the injustices that affect those who suffer most. We invite all the people of God, as well as the various institutions of civil society and the State, to join us in working to overcome the crisis in which we find ourselves.”

Photo of Peruvian man playing panpipe by Flickr/Discover Corps and available via CC BY 2.0.