Santo Domingo.- Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez yesterday called on the judicial authorities to proceed with valor, capacity and responsibility against drug trafficking, to brake what he calls an evil which has penetrated diverse echelons of society.

In a mass officiated in the First of Cathedral America to mark the day of La Altagracia, the Santo Domingo archbishop said the complicity of some authorities with that perverse activity is inconceivable.

Lopez Rodriguez hailed the Drugs Control Agency and the National Police for the recent busts of the criminals of ¨the shameful commerce,¨ but warned that the responsibility is not only of the government, the military and police, but also of the judiciary, “because if there´s no sufficient valor, capacity and responsibility in the courts the entire process will be vitiated and in the end useless.”

The prelate said despite the work by law enforcement drug trafficking networks “clearly” expand to military, economic, financial and other sectors, whose families have had a very different profile from what they present before Dominican society today.

The Cardinal said drug trafficking also leads to violence, and to pronounced abuses against women, children and senior citizens.