The history of Maryknoll in Latin America is rich and deep. Our commitment to the promotion of social justice and peace in the region cost several of our missioners their lives during the years of oppression, including Fr. Bill Woods, MM in Guatemala (1976), and Sisters Ita Ford, MM, Maura Clarke, MM and Carla Piete, MM in El Salvador in 1980. Some, like Fr. Miguel D’Escoto in Nicaragua, have served in public roles in support of those who live in poverty. Countless others have accompanied the Central American people in their daily struggles for survival, for social justice, for an end to the violence that destroys their communities; for new life.
Among the particular concerns of Maryknoll in Latin America are poverty, its causes and consequences; migration and refugees; health care, especially holistic care that includes good nutrition and preventative care; access to essential medicines for treatable or curable illness; HIV and AIDS; the rights and dignity of women and children; the response of authorities to the growth in gang violence; mining concessions; just trade agreements; debt cancellation; small and subsistence farming and other work accessible to people who are poor; and environmental destruction.
David Kane, an MOGC staff member in Brazil and a returned Maryknoll Lay Missioner, explains how a new study highlights the impacts of President Bolsonaro’s actions on the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.
The political situation in Haiti has brought the country to the “verge of explosion.”
Two devastating hurricanes hit Central America in November, leaving widespread destruction for local communities already struggling from the fallout of the pandemic.
Maryknoll Sister Efu Nyaki reflects on her work on trauma healing in Brazil in light of this week’s scriptures.
Sr. Judith Noone, MM, reflects on this week’s scriptures in light of her mission work in Guatemala during the pandemic.
A new investment fund in Brazil aims to support small-scale, sustainable agriculture.
Peg Vámosy, a Maryknoll Lay Missioner in El Salvador, reflects on how this pandemic offers us the opportunity for a fresh start on healing our broken relationship with all God’s creation.
The Latin America Working Group offers a roundup of the actions by governments in Latin America that use the pandemic to expand corrupt or repressive rule or respond with police brutality. The following article was published in the July-August 2020 issue of NewsNotes. COVID-19 has begun to drastically affect life in Latin America. While government restrictions are essential…
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns joined other organizations in sending the following letter to House and Senate Leadership urging them to prioritize sending aid to Latin America and the Caribbean, which are new coronavirus epicenter regions.
The Brazilian government has been slow to respond to the coronavirus pandemic on the federal level, but local governments and community organizations are working hard to care for vulnerable people.
This is an abbreviated English translation of a statement on the effect of the pandemic on rural communities from the Civil Association of Human Rights and the Environment (DHUMA), in Puno, Peru. Sr. Patricia Ryan, MM, is president of DHUMA.
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns joins other organizations and communities in issuing a statement calling for the international community to take immediate measures to protect Amazonian communities from the risk of COVID-19 outbreak.
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns gratefully welcomes “Querida Amazonia,” Pope Francis’s Exhortation in response to the Synod on the Amazon.
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns remembers Jakelin and calls on the U.S. government to end the inhumane treatment of migrants.
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns released the following statement on the political crisis in Bolivia on November 27, 2019.
Dan Moriarty, an MOGC staff member and returned Maryknoll Lay Missioner who lived in Bolivia for 17 years, examines the political crisis and ways to restore democracy and protect indigenous rights in Bolivia.
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns stands in solidarity with Bolivians working nonviolently for dialogue, reconciliation, justice, and democracy in the face of escalating violence and divisions.
Sister Roselei Bertoldo, ICM, offered the following comments on the concerns of women and indigenous communities in the Amazon just days before traveling to Rome to participate in the Synod on the Amazon.
