On March 17 of this year, Monsignor Juan Carlos Bravo Gonzaga, domestic prelate of His Holiness, an adult over 85 years old, known for his pastoral work and promoter of rural development in a prosperous village in the provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, El Oro and Manabí, providing accompanying agricultural technicians to spread the seeds of change while he was proclaiming the Gospel, he was the victim of a strange abduction of a former parishioner from the IESS clinic in Milagro, hours before a member of the Oblate priest community had to remove him, already recovered, and return him to the missionary headquarters of the Canton of Simón Bolívar . (https://www.eluniverso.com/2002/09/01/0001/12/6BCD4031B91E42A78F7791C52FB11A82.html/).

Then the kidnappers go to the civil registry of La Libertada, get a new identity card from the prelate, force him in front of a notary public and with his only fingerprint, because his limited physical mobility and mental reaction prevented him from signing, give a power of attorney signed in the year invalid above, basis for the Oblate missionaries to take care of the bereaved monsignor, his food, supply of specialized medicines and complete attention. In return, they would continue with the educational, redemptive and Christian work that the metropolitan carried out with great sacrifice and excellent results for six decades.

He reported the kidnapping and extortion to the prosecutor’s office because the perpetrators of the crime demanded that 50 percent of the modest income of the educational unit he led be returned to them. The authority of Milagro takes up the investigation with astonishing slowness, reaching the peak of the offended looking in suspense, trying to obscure the criminal figure. This is a very serious violation of the rights of a citizen who deserves respect due to his advanced age, his impaired health, his spiritual hierarchy which he implements brilliantly and flawlessly, without respecting his record of community service that enabled the work of the educational institution. entity founded a few years ago. 55 years in which hundreds of young professionals, especially of peasant origin, were trained, whom he showered with kindness, knowledge and technical guidance.

It is unacceptable that the judicial authorities allow the long imprisonment of a human being whose mental faculties have weakened, which is a tangible demonstration of the unsafe environment that has infected agriculture. It is necessary to examine the causes of the public’s inaction, for the Judicial Council to analyze the behavior of the notary public and the prosecutor who intervened in this punishable event, restoring to some extent the lost credibility of the function in obvious decline, increased in rural areas, orphans of justice

Monsignor Bravo remained imprisoned in a slum in Chanduy, without medical help, completely neglected, in all the heat and cold, in an uncomfortable room, without indoor toilets, turned into a human mess, faced with the incomprehensible silence and passivity of the religious leaders. , civil and educational authorities, unable to intervene respecting the solidarity and humanitarian feeling they have always spread. If this happens to a Christian and social leader, what will happen to a humble peasant! (OR)