This article comes from Spero News.
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Church/State rapprochement
By Martin Barillas
The Catholic Church in El Salvador has acknowledged that President Mauricio Funes has made "significant steps" in democracy during his first year in office. Without going into political details, Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas of San Salvador said "the changes we all want is the way to democracy" and acknowledged that Funes, "has taken important steps in this direction.”
"Beyond the partisan differences, progress has been made democratically," said the archbishop said, adding that "any government when presenting its report on the first year of government, will show signs of things left unfinished and failures."
In a June 6 press confered, Archbishop Escobar Alas asked the people to give a vote of confidence in government and asked the government to stop the violence and reactivate the economy.
President Funes, a journalist who came to power June 1, 2009 under the flag of the former guerrilla group of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) ended 20 years of right-wing governments, preceded by a half-century of military presidents.
Archbishop Escobar Alas noted that Funes "has repeatedly said that he governs in favor of the nation and highlighted the problems of the nation."
He told President Funes “to continue working in this democratic line, to ensure the good of all before the good of the parties." "A president, as he himself has said, is a president for all," concluded Archbishop Escobar Alas.
Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat, who also worked as a democracy advocate and election observer in Latin America.
