The demonstrators inside and outside the airport chanted religious songs, recited the rosary, and peacefully and vehemently expressed their disagreement, and their desire to restore the chapel with all its functions.
Newsroom (07/09/2022 9:00 PM, Gaudium Press) Last Saturday, around noon, a large demonstration of Catholics protesting against the closing of the chapel took place at the Eldorado airport in Bogota.
In fact, in the last days the airport management company, OPAIN, communicated to the Diocese of Fontibon that it unilaterally terminated a loan contract that allowed the operation of a Catholic chapel until 2037. OPAIN reported that it was complying with instructions from the Bogotá Mayor’s Office.
Knowing this, there were many voices of protest, and several groups spontaneously called for a protest march at the airport, with the intention that the use of that chapel be returned to the Catholic Church, which, moreover, had to invest a large sum of money in its adaptation, since it had been handed over to them with nothing.
The demonstrators inside and outside the airport chanted religious songs, recited the rosary, and peacefully and vehemently expressed their disagreement, and their desire to restore the chapel with all its functions, including a chaplain appointed by the diocese exclusively to attend to the faithful in this small temple, through which all kinds of people pass.
I congratulate the community of Catholics who prayed the Rosary at the airport, and I thank the Christian brothers and sisters from other churches for their support so that the OPAÍN Board of Directors and Management will return the chapel to the Church and open another multicultural chapel.
In his twitter account, Father Ramón Zambrano, director of Cristovisión and belonging to the Diocese of Fontibón, congratulated the protesters “for their support so that the Manager and the Board of OPAIN return the chapel to the Church.”
In another post on his account, posted Sunday, the priest also said: “The fiction of a multicultural room of the Opaín manager and his pusillanimous board, disguises the meanness to give adequate spaces for the free expression, and at any time, of the religion that one professes.
So far, no reaction from OPAIN to these demonstrations is known.
Compiled by Angelica Vecchiato