For the bishop of Vasai, suicide among farmers is a deep wound for the Church
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - "The suicide of farmers is a deep wound for the Church and families of India,” said Mgr Felix Anthony Machado, archbishop of Vasai (Maharashtra).
“The Church,” he went on to say, “proclaims life in all its fullness. The suffering of our farmers pain us; their death is a tragedy. Faced with lies, the Church sides with the truth. If people are in conflict, the Church brings reconciliation and peace. If things are destroyed, the Church builds bridges of dialogue and peace.”
Last Tuesday, the prelate led more than 600 farmers and their families in Bahare in a rally to underscore the importance of development for the diocese’s rural and tribal communities.
"A high number of believers in Vasai are farmers,” Mgr Machado said. “They need holistic development, which includes a balanced health and people who use God's gifts for each other and for the whole human family."
"The loss of a family is a loss for the community,” he noted. “For this reason, a tragedy that affects the families of farmers who committed suicides is a deep wound for the Church. If the family is intact, then we can be witness to progress in our communities, society and the nation.”
In India, the State of Maharashtra holds the country’s record for suicide among farmers, a problem whose causes are mainly economic.
For the archbishop of Vasai. "It is vital and urgent to be united in the crisis, because if farmers and their families are not united in suffering as in the joy, the enemy can plant seeds of division and pain."
"Remember that ‘The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts’” (Gaudium et Spes).” (NC)
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