Two weeks ago, the National Evangelical Association of Belize held a cross border prayer service at the Belize Guatemala adjacency zone in Benque. Over 60 pastors attended along with a reported 130 persons from both Belize and Peten. Now although, border tensions have somewhat subsided, the Belize Ramon Catholic church is trying its hand in this initiative and plans to visit the Benque border this weekend to do their own cross border prayer service with their Guatemalan counterparts. Today we spoke to Bishop Christopher Glancy, who represents the Catholic diocese on the board of the Belize Council of Churches. He told us that their main inspiration for organizing this event was Guatemala's Archbishop Julio Vian's words on the Belize Guatemala dispute. Here is how he explained it.
Bishop Christopher Glancy, Auxiliary Bishop of Belize
"We are planning to have a mass, a Eucharist at the adjacency zone in the Melchor, Benque border crossing there where the Organization of American States has an office between the two customs post. On Saturday the 18th of June at 10 in the morning, we're going to gather there. The arch bishop spoke of this issue in a homily and when I saw that I called him up, Oscar Julio Vian, arch bishop of Guatemala City. He's not going to be able to come to this event because he had a recent eye surgery but two other bishops are coming. We have relations with all of them and we decided it'd be a good thing for our communities to get together to pray for peace, better relations, building a strong friendship and ties as neighbors."
Emanuel Pech
"What is the significance of having this even now that the noise has somewhat died down?"
Bishop Christopher Glancy, Auxiliary Bishop of Belize
"Although the noise has died down the reality continues, it's still a difference that we have to come to an agreement upon. It's true there was a lot of noise and we did try earlier to have this but as I said we couldn't. So we thought it's still good for us to get together because the noise will come again I'm sure at one point or another. It's important for us to build these relationships overtime."
The Belize Roman Catholic church hopes to take at least three busloads of people from Belize. Now as we said before the Belize Evangelical Association has been there and done that. So are the Catholics now following suit? That's what we asked Bishop Glancy:
Bishop Christopher Glancy, Auxiliary Bishop of Belize
"The Evangelical churches from Belize and Guatemala got together there a couple weeks ago, as I said was already in the planning process before that. We had started from late in May around the 20th It think was the first time I contacted the arch bishop and Bishop Valensiya Later. When I saw they came I said 'oh they beat us to it' on the other hand, all prayers are good. I think that we're Christian mind and like minds inspired to do the same thing. It wasn't that we heard they were doing it and said 'oh we got to do it too' because ours was already in process really, but as I say great minds think alike or we were both seeing how we need to introduce the spiritual element of prayer into this whole process."
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