Three churches are attacked in Chile in advance of Pope Francis’ visit

Aleteia’s desk in Chile brings us this report as Pope Francis prepares to depart for a visit to Chile and Peru this weekend:

“We will never submit to the power they want to exercise over our bodies, our ideas and actions, because we were born free to decide the path we want to take. Against all religious and preachers. Free, impure and wild bodies. We attack with the fire of combat to explode its disgusting morality,” affirms one of the pamphlets found in one of the Chilean churches attacked dawn in Santiago, Chile.

“Pope Francisco, the next bombs will be in your cossack,” ended the text.

There were three arson attacks against the Temple of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary at Central Station; the Emmanuel Chapel in Recoleta and the Cristo Vendedor Chapel in Peñalolén. In the first two they found the same threatening pamphlet and in the third there was no propaganda of any kind.

@RoloHahn este panfleto en la iglesia emanuel en recoleta pic.twitter.com/zUsO5rMUGb

— Claudio Mancilla (@ClaudioManci10) January 12, 2018

In a fourth incident, at the the parish Sanctuary of Cristo Pobre, a canister was found. Members of the GOPE (Special Operations Group) are investigating the attacks to see the possible connection between them and to find the perpetrators.

The president of Chile Michelle Bachelet in an interview with Radio Oasis spoke about the attacks: “We know that it could always be one group or another, but as I say, this [attack] last night is very strange, because it is not something that one can identify as [coming from] a specific group, it’s called something like ‘by free bodies’ or something like that.”

She acknowledged that there may be people who are not happy about the upcoming visit of the Pontiff: “What I have been told is that, for example, in Colombia there were groups that were there with a little sign. In other words, in a democracy people can express themselves while doing so in a peaceful and appropriate manner. ”

The Chilean government will present an official complaint and its undersecretary of the Interior, Mahmud Aleuy, announced that they will investigate what happened.