A government-convened meeting between Peru's Ministry of Justice and representatives of the country's religious confessions produced no concrete agreements, the president of the National Evangelical Council of Peru (CONEP) said, with a new government set to take office later this month.
The meeting, organized by the Ministry's Directorate of Interconfessional Affairs, brought together representatives from various religious confessions, including CONEP president Pastor Enrique Alva Callupe and CONEP Board of Directors secretary Pastor Tomás Gutiérrez. The session addressed religious freedom, the actions of the Ministry and the Registry of Religious Entities, the progress of the Interreligious Council of Peru, and a proposal for crime prevention among at-risk adolescents.
In statements to Diario Cristiano Internacional, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition, Alva Callupe said the meeting was primarily a response to an institutional convocation and that the Ministry again presented its project aimed at at-risk adolescents — an initiative it had already presented previously.
"Frankly, it was a second protocol meeting, more than anything to fulfill some program or activity of theirs," he said.
He attributed the lack of commitments to the current administration's imminent departure.
"There were no agreements, partly because those in charge of the ministry are on their way out. On July 28th the new government takes office and they have already begun working on the transition," he said.
Alva said the future of the relationship between the State and religious confessions will depend on the policies adopted by the new Ministry of Justice leadership, and in particular by the incoming Directorate of Interconfessional Affairs.
"We will have to see what policies the new minister, the new ministry, and the new Directorate of Interconfessional Affairs will work on with respect to non-Catholic confessions," he said.
The Directorate of Interconfessional Affairs is the Ministry of Justice body responsible for promoting dialogue between the State and the various religious confessions, administering the Registry of Religious Entities, and overseeing application of the Religious Freedom Law.
Although CONEP shared news of the meeting on its social media channels as an official convocation, Alva said the gathering was primarily informational and did not result in any commitments between the parties.
"It was more of a meeting to chat and have a glass of water than to reach concrete agreements or commitments between religious confessions and the Ministry of Justice," he said.
Originally published by Diario Cristiano, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition.
