LIMA, Peru, JUNE 15, 2009 (Zenit.org).- As Eastern Peru continues to be pressured by an ongoing clash between the government and Amazon Indians, Lima’s archbishop has called for devotion to the Blessed Sacrament to build a “Eucharistic Peru.”
Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani called for devotion to Christ in the Eucharist when he celebrated Sunday’s feast of Corpus Christi.
Peru has seen nearly two months of conflict as thousands of Indians are blocking the roads of eastern Peru. They are trying to force a repeal of laws passed to facilitate foreign investment and oil exploration, farming and logging in the Amazon. Some 60 tribes of Indians live in Peru’s section of the jungle.
The cardinal urged devotion to the Blessed Sacrament to “shape the life of the country, so that each one of us will be sowers of peace, of joy, and thus we will make of our nation a ‘Eucharistic Peru.'” Following the Mass, he led the traditional Eucharistic procession through the chilly autumn morning, with thousands of adorers.
Cardinal Cipriani affirmed that “in the interior of each person there is this daily struggle between this good of the life of Christ and the evil of the life of sin. From this struggle comes joy, peace, justice, unity, affection, family and children; or it erupts into violence, lies, hate, abuse, and this first fracture goes against the Eucharist.”
He added: “When we think of our brothers in the heights of the Andean south or when we consider the infinite variety of Peruvians in the forest, in the mountains, or on the coast, what does the Eucharist mean for all of them? It means sacrament of union in Christ; and this Christ asks all of us to be sowers of peace, of truth and of reconciliation.”
