It is a difficult line to draw the one that divides what corresponds to politics and what corresponds to religion. It is difficult because real life is not like in theory, where with abstractions they can create watertight compartments. 

In reality, everything is superimposed and mixed email list. Therefore, it is not surprising that Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani has received accusations of acting as a politician throughout his commission. And I will not be surprised that the new leaders of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Pedro Barreto and Archbishop Carlos Castillo, are the object of the same

accusations. Naturally, the signals will come from the opposite shores in political, not religious terms. It is easy to see who is on one side and who on the other, but it pains to suspect that none of these are concerned about the health of the church, even if they say that, For example, to denounce sexual abuse is to do good to the institution.

 The interest to worry about what these prelates say or do is that their views pay for or against the political positions, not religious, of its critics. These political positions, no doubt, can be legitimate, but they do not care if in that process they deteriorate the image of the church, which ends up being a tool of political struggle. And there we are already wrong. It is true that, to a large extent, this manipulation of the church responds to the use of the pulpit (or office) to meddle in issues of conjuncture, which gives license to its critics for questioning. The church now has enough problems in its reputation, which is an excess that prelates like Cipriani or Barreto, with what they represent, have to say something in favor or against, respectively, of Fujimori’s pardon, for example. In prisons there are thousands of elderly people in worse conditions than the former dictator for whom they never said anything. Your leaders should not lend themselves to this game where the church is used.