Latin America

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.

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Feast of St. Hildegard of Bingen

In honor of the Sept. 17 feast day of St. Heldegard, Maryknoll Lay Missioner Kathy Bond reflects on her pilgrimage to the saint’s abbey in Germany

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Maryknoll OGC Joins Letter to Congress on Haitian Food Sovereignty

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns joined a group of twenty organizations in writing to Congress on the unprecedented levels of acute hunger in the island nation of Haiti due to increased costs of imports, drought, and government neglect of agriculture. U.S. assistance, from the Farm Bill and USAID, should go to existing local and small-scale farms and agricultural organizations to promote food sovereignty over food dependence.

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First Sunday of Advent 2023

Fr. Alejandro Marina, MM, invites us to be “awake” to the causes of mass migration and displacement in our world.

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Maryknoll Signs Letter to Biden Requesting Targeted Sanctions Against Corrupt Guatemalan Officials

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns was represented among the over 380 people who signed the letter to Biden requesting targeted financial statements against the specific corrupt Guatemalan government officials who are actively undermining the country’s democracy.