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Mexico has become as dangerous as Colombia for priests serving their people, says a university professor in a part of Mexico that is plagued by drug cartels. Catholic clergymen are picking up the slack left by government authorities – and often paying for it with their lives.
“When an emergency arises, state mechanisms don’t react quickly enough,” said Salvador Maldonado Aranda, an anthropology professor specializing in violence at Michoacan University. “Priests, however, are already there. They do the groundwork. They help the locals daily, listening and gathering testimonies. This is why vulnerable populations now turn first to their parish priests.”
Aranda spoke with the French Catholic periodical La Croix in the wake of the October 20 killing of a priest, Fr. Marcelo Pérez, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Pope Francis called Fr. Pérez “a zealous servant of the Gospel and God’s faithful people” and assured the local Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, of his prayers in the face of their pastor's violent death.
“May his sacrifice, like that of other priests killed for fidelity to the ministry, be a seed of peace and Christian life,” Francis said during his Angelus address at the Vatican in late October.
Pérez, who was gunned down after celebrating a Mass, was an activist for indigenous peoples and farm laborers. The Chiapas public prosecutor's office said it had arrested the suspected killer, AFP reported. [Photo above shows people from the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas protesting the priest's violent death.]
Opening churches
According to La Croix, many priests have opened their churches to populations forcibly displaced by the cartels.
“The work of priests in these areas goes beyond their religious mission,” explained Maldonado Aranda, the anthropology professor at Michoacan University. “Often, they end up becoming activists. They feel the frustration of people who feel abandoned, so they mobilize and openly challenge institutions to respond more quickly. They become points of reference, and this doesn’t sit well with armed groups because it brings attention to what shouldn’t be seen. They disrupt the status quo.”
The Catholic Multimedia Center, which monitors violence against clerics, has documented nearly 80 murders of priests in Mexico since 1990, La Croix noted.
Some priests have gotten bodyguards for themselves. Such is the case with Fr. José Filiberto Velazquez, from Chilpancingo, capital of the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico, who barely escaped an assassination in October 2023, according to La Croix.
Fr. Velazquez six years ago founded Minerva Bello, an organization that provides support to families of persons who have disappeared, been displaced, or killed.
“My religious work and my involvement with Minerva Bello led me to serve as a mediator between organized crime groups and the state,” he told La Croix.
The French Catholic website notes that since an assassination of two elderly priests in 2022, Frs. Javier Campos and Joaquín Mora, a “national dialogue for peace” was launched to try to curb the violence against clergy.
“But locally, solutions are still lacking, and the lives of priests hang by a thread,” La Croix states.
Said Fr. Velazquez, “Several times, I’ve been advised to leave Chilpancingo, to flee Guerrero. But I’m still here. As long as there’s work to be done, I’ll keep fighting.”
The institutional Church is not remaining silent. The Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, to which Fr. Pérez belonged, said in a statement: “We demand that all three levels of government put an end to the violence ravaging our state, which is the result of impunity, complicity, and corruption.”
