How can you find God amid tragedy? Why does God allow so much suffering?
These are questions people might be asking themselves in Venezuela following the earthquakes of June 24.
Bishop Carlos Márquez, auxiliary bishop of Caracas, reflected on the mystery of suffering in an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. In the prelateʼs view, the Catholic Church plays a fundamental role in shedding light on these existential questions.
A Promise to Hold Onto
Bishop Márquez said it would be “an act of tremendous pridefulness” to attempt to provide answers that fully resolve this mystery. Ultimately, he noted, asking these questions is a way of “looking for someone to blame.” They are questions that “paralyze us and fill us with bitterness and pain.”
“We can’t escape biological law; we can’t escape the laws of nature. What we once thought was a curse or divine punishment, we now know to be natural processes, processes that are even necessary,” he explained regarding the devastating earthquakes.
To help make sense of the tragedy, Bishop Márquez pointed to two specific factors. The first is human freedom, which, when misused, “causes suffering and pain.” He referred to the collapsed buildings,
