We were recently forwarded this email from an American Dominican priest working in Ecuador. What it reports bodes ill for the Church in Ecuador:
The government of Pres. Rafael Correa has been re-writing Ecuador’s Constitution for the past 10 months. The National Assembly has finished with its task of writing and now it will go to the people for a vote on September 28: “yes” or “no”? It is all or nothing.
The Catholic Church has been at odds with Correa. Here are some of the points in the constitution that the Church opposes:
- A woman would have the right to terminate a pregnancy at any month. The word “abortion” will be replaced by “supression” of life.
- Same sex marriages would be legal.
- All private and Catholic education would become “public” under the control of the state. Religion will not be taught! If a student graduates from a private or Catholic school, the student applying to university, his/her tuition will be doubled!
- When a child is born the birth certificate will not include the sex of the child. It will say “neutral” and the words ‘father’ and ‘mother’ will be stricken. Its substitutions: “co-creator 1 and co-creator 2”. A child would come into a sexual awareness at age 5.
- “Paccha Mama” is the Earth Mother. She is mentioned in the preamble of the constitution. It says that it is from Paccha Mama that we get our existence.
- God is named next but no other reference to him.
The language and ideology of the constitution is reminiscent of Nazi-ism, Marxist, Communist, Socialist, and Deconstructionist. It does not look good for Ecuador if this new constitution is approved. The Church has already been threatened. The Archbishop of Guayaquil (President of the Ecuadorian Bishop’s Conference) has been threatened. Some Catholic churches have vandalized and the Blessed Sacrament have been desecrated. Here in our church someone had taped a small poster of a skull with a bishop’s hat. We had an emergency meeting of the clergy and the bishop. He said that “we need to preach the Gospel and stand united. We need to ask our Protestant brothers and sisters to walk with us.”
As it stands now, 51%=NO and 47%=YES. The remaining 2% is neutral. We need to pray that this constitution is not approved. The future of Ecuador is at stake. Venezuela is keeping a close eye on Ecuador. Bolivia’s overnment is falling apart. Ecuador does not want to follow suit: Venezuela or Bolivia. Venezuala’s new constitution lost at the polls last year. We hope that Ecuador’s constitutionis defeated at the polls in September. Will keep you posted.
The sad thing about all this is that the people will not read the entire constitution.
