Denver Newsroom, Sep 20, 2022 / 12:15 pm
The proposal by Congressman Juan Carlos Losada to convert the Catholic chapel located in the capitol building where Colombia’s Congress meets into a “neutral place of worship” is “persecution of the Catholic Church,” said Father Raúl Ortiz, director of the Department of Doctrine, Promotion, and Unity of the Dialogue of the Colombian Bishops’ Conference.
On Sept. 14, Losada, a member of the Liberal Party, announced on Twitter that he had introduced a proposal in the House of Representatives to transform “the Mary Help of Christians chapel located in the National Capitol into a neutral place of worship.”
The document was introduced Sept. 13 and was signed by Congressmen Alirio Uribe of the Historical Pact (President Gustavo Petro’s leftist coalition) and Luis Alberto Albán of the Commons Party, the political expression of the now officially disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The attempt to close this Catholic chapel has been rejected by several members of Congress and Catholic leaders, who have expressed their opposition on social media with the hashtag #LaCapillaSeQueda (the chapel stays).