By: Kiegan Irish
I was fortunate enough to be invited by my friends at Holy Rosary parish a few weeks ago to talk about Development and Peace and our current campaign, “Stand for the Land.” I have been the Animator for D&P in Eastern and Northern Ontario for two years now, and while I frequently do different events at parishes it is rarer to be invited to participate in a mass and get a chance to observe the whole life of a community, a welcome change. I was able to speak to a number of congregants and it seems to me Holy Rosary is a place full of kind and thoughtful people. I passed out some membership cards and I hope you will all feel that D&P aligns with your faith values and become members of our movement as well!
D&P’s firm commitment is to international solidarity. The power of nations and the violence of borders flies in the face of Christian commitments to love all people. All of us are wanderers and pilgrims bereft of our true and original home in God’s kingdom. The accident of birth that placed me in a mostly stable society like Canada gives me no greater claim over the wealth of the land than anyone else. Instead, the Church teaches the universal destination of all goods. If as Canadians you and I have access to more than our neighbours, it means only that we bear a greater responsibility to share what we have and ensure that no one goes without.
It is in this spirit that Development and Peace carries out our work from a global perspective. Every year we mobilize action campaigns in support of the work of our international partners. This fall, D&P has been advocating on behalf of our Honduran partner Fundación ERIC. ERIC is a Jesuit-sponsored organization who works with local agricultural communities to help them understand and access their fundamental human rights.
We asked our partners what we in Canada can do to best support their work. Fundación ERIC encouraged us to advocate for justice for the communities in Guapinol in Northern Honduras. An iron oxide mine opened at the headwaters of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers on land which was supposed to be protected by a national park. The results of this development constitute an environmental disaster. Runoff from the mine is impacting both rivers from which more than 200,000 people draw their drinking water.
Community members came together to protest the mine development. They set up peaceful camps to blockade access to the mine. The Honduran police and mine security responded by violently breaking up the protest camps and arresting land defenders. Some demonstrators were held in prison without trial for more than two years. Since their release at the beginning of 2023, three of these land defenders have been murdered.
These murders serve to terrorize the community and punish anyone standing up for their fundamental right to clean drinking water. But the community has shown incredible resilience and courage to speak out and call attention to the injustices they’re facing.
D&P is campaigning to gather signatures on a letter to the Honduran Ambassador to Canada to demand that the government make restitution for the murders and the environmental destruction caused by the mine. I invite readers to sign our letter and to share widely in support of this important cause.
Pope Francis has written that clean water is the foundation for holding rights and exercising human dignity. In Laudato Si he writes, “we know that water is a scarce and indispensable resource and a fundamental right which conditions the exercise of other human rights. This indisputable fact overrides any other assessment of environmental impact on a region.”
Any development that would compromise this fundamental right for thousands of people represents a grave injustice. As Christians we are called to stand with the forgotten and excluded. In compassion for all who brave the lonely pilgrimage of this existence, we recognize that every human life is sacred. And, in turn, they depend on essential and life-sustaining water.
Holy Rosary’s work with refugee families demonstrates a community committed to recognizing the call to serve those in need regardless of nationality. I hope you will resonate with the conviction I share with the members of Development and Peace that if we work together, across national boundaries, we can contribute to building a world where all can enjoy the dignity their maker intended.