A bit of background: I run the Honduras Report, one of the few (but not the only) newspapers in Honduras operating in English. As I’ve mentioned before I am a native Spanish speaker, and a Puerto Rican. My family is/are (my dad is, and my mom was) military. We lived in Honduras from late 2010-2012, so we got to see Honduras as it was beginning to go back to “life as usual” following the coup in the middle of 2009. Honduras had a remarkable effect on me, and how I viewed the world. And that’s part of why I started the Honduras Report. It’s my attempts to make sure English speaking people in Honduras, and interested in Honduras get access to more than the most viral articles in Spanish and in English. I want to report on all aspects of life. And sometimes that means reporting on religious news. Like that time I covered how the president of the Evangelical Fraternity was annoyed at how Honduras’s tax agency was getting basically replaced and how employees of that agency weren’t happy at losing their jobs. Or earlier today when I mentioned that according to a gynecologist during Jesus week (Holy Week) pregnancies go up by a solid 10% which means that there’s a lot of unhappy Honduran doctors and nurses during Christmas, which includes this great quote (which was translated and paraphrased into English from Spanish originally) “Gustavo Morales, the leader of that department has said that when Honduran society remembers the Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ many women will get pregnant, making labor units of the hospitals in December and January face a 10% increase in usage as compared to other months out of the year.” If you’re curious the original sentence was the following: “Gustavo Morales, jefe de dicha área, dijo que es frecuente que en marzo o abril, que se recuerda la crucifixión, muerte y resurrección del hijo de Dios,muchas mujeres quedan embarazadas incrementado las atenciones en la unidad de labor y parto en diciembre y enero hasta en un 10% en relación a otros meses del año.” But that’s not why we’re here. It’s because Honduran police sometimes give it to Jesus. And because I like translating semi-silly things from Spanish into English. Everything that follows this is a translation. Of this specifically.

In a mass officiated by the auxiliary bishop Romulo Emiliani, the different directives/agencies of the national and militarized police put their actions during Holy Week in the hands of God.

Emiliani blessed the actions of the police and he urged them to put forth their best selves every day.

The spokesman of the police, Jorge Montoya explained that the activity was done so that they could “Put in the hands of God, the police operations done during Holy Week” and “Underneath this blessing the population will have the security of knowing that we’ll do our best work.”

As part of the social protection, the police bought coffee and breakfast to the people within the central park and brought trifolds with information concerning security. (That’s it. End of translation.)

Honduras is not a secular society. It’s not SOLELY a Christian society, but it is overwhelmingly a Christian one. This sort of thing likely happens all of the time, but this is the first that I’ve seen of it being legitimatized and then reported on. Now don’t get me wrong, when this sort of thing appears on the news in Honduras it is quickly made fun of by Hondurans, including theists. Because it’s silly. But Honduras is just one society held back by religious dogmatism. An example of this include the relatively recent potential opportunity to undo the ban on adoption for homosexuals, which was blocked by the same Evangelical group mentioned above in a different, almost positive context. We all know this is a great opportunity to get orphans out of orphanages and into the homes of loving, caring parents. But it was blocked. Because of course it was, in Honduras.

What do you think of Honduran police placing the blames on their failures on God? Because that’s what this really is. It’s an attempt to make sure people know that God allows this. They went to church, and get their “blessings” so any and all mistakes belong to God. If the glory goes to him, shouldn’t the failures? I’d love to hear what you think of the Honduran police participating in this religious ritual! (It’s not unconstitutional by the way, unless you kind of stretch article 77. Read two different translations of the Constitution here, and here. And a Spanish version here.)