Decrying the violence that Mexicans are enduring, the Vatican has suggested excommunication as a possible punishment for drug traffickers whose war with the government has led to the deaths of thousands of people in the last year.
But the Roman Catholic Church’s severest form of rebuke would probably have little effect on traffickers and killers who lack a religious conscience, the Vatican’s No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, acknowledged.
Speaking to Latin American journalists at the Vatican before traveling to Mexico on Monday, Bertone said it was a “duty” to fight drug gangs because their actions represent “the most hypocritical and terrible way of murdering the dignity and personality of today’s youth.”
Are there a lot of active communicants who traffic in drugs?
I concur with this suggestion. It would do two things. First in a country that is culturally Roman Catholic it would put the nation’s most important non-governmental institution on record with respect to the drug dealers and make it clear that they are pariahs. And secondly, more important than denying hardened criminals the Holy Sacrament it would deny them the Roman Catholic funeral rites and Christian burial in consecrated ground. This would be a very very powerful stigma in Mexico.
“They are very generous with the societies of their towns,” Bishop Carlos Aguiar Retes, president of the Mexican Bishops Conference, said in April, according to the newspaper Reforma. In some remote towns, he said, “they put up lights, communications, roads, at their own expense. . . . Often they also build a church or a chapel.”
The remarks outraged many Mexicans, and church officials later said the bishop was taken out of context.
This doesn’t make much sense. Why the ‘outrage’ at the bishop? What’s the ‘context?’ It looks like he just stated the troublesome facts: that drug lords pass just enough of their loot around to maintain political support of their neighbors, and that includes making sure the local folk have a well-maintained church. This is how authoritarians maintain power.
Is there something I’m missing here? Do the locals get all in a huff at the notion that criminals can buy off most of their neighbors?
#1 — You’d be amazed.
I used to live on the Texas-Mexico border and I am a former RC. The area is overwhelmingly Catholic and the standing joke down there when you see a big, beautiful house is that it’s owned by either a doctor or a drug dealer. The joke hits quite close to the truth. The RC schools, parishes, and ministries receive a LOT of their most generous contributions from the traffickers.
I taught in one of the RC schools and my son attended the parish school. When there were shootouts involving the warring factions, there was a very noticeable dip in school attendance. It became very clear at those times which “prominent families” were involved. My son thought I was the meannest mum on the planet for not allowing him to attend the lavish parties put on by his classmates’ parents UNTIL one of these parties was stormed by armed gunmen and 16 people were shot. He never protested my ruling again.
I was good friends with our pastor and would frequently express my displeasure at how he courted the sketchy rich people when the parish or school needed money. It was drug money and everyone knew it but the clergy would studiously turn a blind eye until one of the donors was killed or convicted. Then, they’d pretend surprise and do damage control.
Now, will excommunicating the players make a difference? Of course not. Nice, noble gesture, but it certainly won’t be put into practice by the parishes who need the money. The priests on the Border harbor and aid illegal immigrants, too. Very different mentality on “law” and “justice” down there.
I understand Al Capone was a regular visitor to the confessional and attended Mass every week, as did many members of the mob at the time.
So why should it be a surprise that Mexican drug lords also make it a point to attend Mass?
It just goes to show that going to church does not make one a Christian any more than going into a garage makes one an automobile mechanic.
The priests on the Border harbor and aid illegal immigrants, too. Very different mentality on “law†and “justice†down there.
I wonder who’s “legality” you refer to? Remember the stranger that is in your midst. Love your neighbor. By doing so you encompass the whole law.
Immi-great!
Knowingly helping a criminal is criminal in and of itself. If there were no mechanisms for entering a country legally, then that would be different. But there are. So the priests and nuns who are helping illegal aliens in this country are NOT acting in the spirit of Christ, but rather, like the Episcopal club, putting social justice in place of true Christian charity.
If anything, they should counsel the illegals to go back and seek entry legally — give them the means to pass the tests, teach them English, working skills, GED prep, etc. But don’t encourage them to continue to break the perfectly reasonable laws of a country.
#6– You don’t get it. When the priests take the side of the illegal immigrants, they are planting themselves AGAINST the people who came here legally, are trying to support their families, and are finding themselves out of work because the illegal immigrants work for very low wages and aren’t provided with benefits. If the laws don’t concern these priests, then the injustice done to legal citizens should.
I won’t even get into the issue of the priests ignoring the problem of drug and human trafficking. The laws they scoff at try to prevent these horrendous crimes.
#4’s post needs to be read and re-read. The US nation is a land-based political model. Land-based nations are incompatible with people who carry their nation with them wherever they go. In other words, we are not importing Mexicans; we are importing Mexico.