Man shot before mass in church in Colombia

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – An unidentified woman entered a church in Cali on July 15 as congregants prepared to pray the rosary before mass and shot a man.

Another churchgoer was also injured in the attack, a woman who had been near the fatal victim and was hit in the leg by a bullet.

About 200 parishioners gathered at St. John Paul II Church in southern Cali, Colombia, to pray the rosary on Monday afternoon. At least 1,500 people usually attend the prayer, which is regularly broadcast live on social media, according to Rev. Oscar de la Vega.

A video of the incident shows that a nun was standing at the altar giving an introductory speech as attendees began to pray when several gunshots were heard. The nun is lying on the floor and screams can be heard from the pews.

Police video footage shows the attacker sitting on a pew at the back of the church before she stood up and shot the victim. A man on a motorcycle was waiting for her outside the church and she left the church immediately after committing the crime.

The victim was 50-year-old Erasmo Trujillo, whom de la Vega described as an “active member of the community” who attended mass every week with his wife, children and grandchildren.

According to Colonel Carlos Oviedo, the police chief of Cali, Trujillo was arrested in 2016 for alleged involvement in drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit a crime. In an interview with the local Blu-RadioOviedo said Trujillo was allegedly a member of a gang called The Maleteroswhich operated at Cali airport. Police have not yet been able to determine whether he has been subjected to threats recently.

Trujillo died at the scene of the accident. The other victim was not seriously injured. She was taken to a nearby hospital and given medical treatment.

The church has been closed since the incident, which shocked the entire community. On July 19, de la Vega will celebrate a mass of reparation.

“This was not only an attack on the victims, but also on religious freedom and the sanctity of the Church. As members of civil society, we must protect public places, especially religious ones,” said de la Vega. core.

In his opinion, it is important that the attackers understand that they have committed a very serious crime by killing a person in a church.

“The idea of ​​a sanctuary, of a special protection from any power in society that is afforded to a person within a church, is a very old concept. It is remarkably serious to attack such a concept,” he added.

De la Vega said authorities had wrongly announced that Trujillo had been arrested in 2016, thereby “stigmatizing” him.

“Apparently this happened years ago, but he had never been convicted of a crime. They stigmatized him without giving him any further information on the subject, thereby diminishing the impact of the crime,” he said.

The priest said he accompanied Trujillo’s family and tried to give them strength to cope with this painful moment and the stigmatization of the victim.

Messages of solidarity have been sent to de la Vega on social media from various parts of Latin America. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been broadcasting daily celebrations and prayers, and Spanish-speaking Catholics from many countries have become frequent viewers.

The Church of St. John Paul II has been undergoing extensive renovations since last year to turn it into a cathedral for the southern zone of Cali.

“Community members are donating and actively participating in the process. Everyone feels like they belong. At a moment like this, the crime caused even more shock among people,” de la Vega said.

Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, has suffered for decades from the violence of drug cartels and left-wing guerrilla groups that have been active in the South American country since the 1960s.

Despite ongoing peace negotiations between the government and guerrilla organizations, insurgent groups have carried out terrorist acts in recent months in rural areas of the Valle del Cauca, where Cali is located.

The causes of violence in a huge city like Cali are diverse, said De la Vega, and the ongoing urban growth makes it impossible to prevent individual acts of violence.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time the priest had experienced something like this in a church. 22 years ago, after celebrating a collective wedding with more than 100 couples alongside then-Archbishop Isaías Duarte, he was present when two armed men approached Duarte and shot him.

John Paul II expressed his condolences for Duarte’s assassination and called on Colombians to seek a path of peace and reject violence. The now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were accused of involvement in his death, but the case was never fully resolved.

“A church is a place of reconciliation and reconstruction. Something like this can never happen inside a church,” said de la Vega.