Bolivia’s State of Emergency: When Mammon Demands Its Sacrifice

VaticanNews portal reports that Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz has declared a National State of Emergency to dismantle road blockades that have paralyzed the country’s supply of food and fuel. The blockades, ongoing since late April, involve miners, farmers, truck drivers, indigenous groups, and unions demanding the reinstatement of fuel subsidies scrapped as part of austerity measures. The protests have turned violent, with seventeen deaths, scores injured, and hundreds arrested — riot police have had dynamite sticks hurled at them. Paz, elected last October and breaking nearly twenty years of Movement Towards Socialism rule, insists the measure aims to remove bottlenecks while preserving civil liberties, though Congress must approve it within three days or it lapses. He enjoys the vocal backing of the Trump Administration but faces the fury of powerful domestic protesters and former President Evo Morales, himself an indigenous coca cultivator and implacable foe of Washington. This report from the Vatican’s own news organ is notable not for what it says, but for the deafening silence about the only True Order that could prevent such recurring catastrophes — the Social Reign of Christ the King.