MEXICAN SITUATION ANLYSYS VOLUME II Number 369 | Abril 2012 Mexico Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to violence-torn Mexico Pope Benedict XVI visited Mexico for three days. It was a trip full of silences and contradictions in a country that has been lacerated by violence caused by the war against drug trafficking. Jorge Alonso Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Mexico at the end of March can be divided into three phases: the preparatory stage, the visit itself and the post-visit evaluation. In the first stage, the case of Mexicos’s deceased pedophile priest, Marcial Maciel, was very topical. A logical expectation It was logically assumed that the pope would meet with victims of sexual abuse by the clergy, given that he had done so on his previous visits to the United States, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Malta. The exclusion of a meeting with Maciel’s victims from the papal agenda may have been due to the Legionaries’ influence on Mexico’s most powerful politicians as well as the Catholic hierarchy, given that Maciel was the founder of their organization, the Legion of Christ. Whatever the reason, silencing the subject was further proof of the network of complicity and cover-ups that protected him when he was alive and still protects him even today. Reparation for the damage to Maciel’s victims implies not only fair compensation, but also rehabilitation and guarantees that what he did will not reoccur in any ecclesiastic setting. To date, we’ve seen nothing like that in Mexico. In an attempt to justify the lack of a meeting with Maciel’s victims on the papal agenda, Christophe Pierre, the papal puncio in Mexico, claimed that the pope would give a talk to a group of children. The Catholic episcopate then alleged that no such meeting had been requested, a fact refuted by Maciel’s accusers. José Barba’s testimony El Universal, one of the most influential and widely read newspapers in Mexico, published an extensive article on the eve of the papal visit based on the testimony of an eminent and respected professor, José Barba, who had been abused by Maciel in his youth. Barba recalled that in January 2005, Maciel had been enthusiastically praised by the then-president of the Mexican episcopate, Guadalupe Martín Rábago—Benedict XVI’s host during this visit—and Bishop Onésimo Cepeda. Barba also recalled that two years ago, incontrovertible testimonies from former Legionaries who had reported Maciel on different occasions forced the Vatican to concede that Maciel’s behavior was grievous and immoral. Those same ex-Legionaires then wrote to Bishop Ricardo Watty, who was rin hcarge of investigating the Legion’s crimes in Mexico, to present several demands. Given that Watty had accused them of being slanderers and conspirators, they insisted that he recognize their innocence in writing and that the Legion put aside its fictitious petitions for pardon and apologize to the former Legionaries abused by Maciel, giving their full names. Neither the Legion nor the Vatican ever responded to these demands. El Universal’s story also reported that, despite Benedict XVI’s 2006 order that Maciel retire to a life of prayer and penance, he continued going to Europe’s most exclusive spas accompanied by his putative wife, daughter and members of the Legion’s leadership, facts corroborated by images from a Millennium TV program aired in September 2011. Yet another front in addition to that of Maciel’s victims opened prior to the papal visit: the victims of the drug war. “Love of the Father and not of Caesar’s power” After Benedict XVI’s visit was announced, Javier Sicilia, Catholic poet and moral leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, was invited to attend the Mass the pope would celebrate in León, Guanajuato. Sicilia declined to participate in what he called a “media show” and announced that, instead, he would personally take a letter to the pope before his visit, in which he would talk to him not as a representative of the Vatican but as the Vicar of Christ. In his letter, Sicilia told the pope about the victims suffering from President Calderón’s drug war and informed him how Mexico had been suffering the agony of an ongoing “Holy Week” for the past five years. He provided official statistics: 47,551 murdered in the most ruthless way, 20,000 missing and more than 250,000 displaced. According to Sicilia, 98% of the crimes have gone unpunished. He added that Mexicans aren’t the only ones suffering in Calderón’s war; so are the Central Americans who cross Mexico in deplorable conditions as emigrants trying to find work in the US. “Mexico and Central America are today’s body of Christ, abandoned in the Garden of Gethsemane and crucified.” A body bombarded by crime, governmental omissions and serious corruption, by the weapons the US sells to criminals, by money laundering and, with few exceptions, by a Church hierarchy that keeps a complicit silence. Sicilia reminded the pope that he represents the love of the Father and not the power of Caesar and warned him that, behind the media and political gloss they will put on for him in Mexico are thousands of people dead and suffering. For those reasons Sicilia asked him to embrace this “broken body of Christ that begs for a Father’s response, over and above political order and criminal chaos.” Bishop Raúl Vera: Time to examine our conscience Sicilia delivered his letter at the Vatican on March 22, where he was assured it would reach Benedict XVI’s hands. On his return, Sicilia said he was hopeful that the pope would give the victims of the drug war a message of solidarity and condemn this war and its accomplices. “If he doesn’t, the Church will lose credibility.” One of the ecclesiastical exceptions Sicilia referred to in his letter is Bishop Raúl Vera who, before the visit, declared that the pope was coming to a fractured country and that his visit would force an examination of conscience. Vera was confident that the pope would have words of consolation for the victims of the drug war and said he was ashamed that his country is led by a self-proclaimed Catholic who, without law enforcement and in violation of human rights, is using the army to implement a strategy against street crime. He declared that the Church is also responsible for abandoning youth in this context of widespread violence. Drug charity and drug chapels Certain aspects of Mexico’s omnipresent drug trafficking and organized crime involve ecclesiastical power, which is why, after the papal visit had already been announced, the Mexican Bishops’ Conference declared in a note that there would be no so-called “drug charity” in the event. It has long been an open secret that many Mexican parishes receive donations from organized crime. In April 2007, the bishop of Aguascalientes justified it by saying that a woman anointed Jesus Christ with very costly perfume and that he received this homage without asking her where she got the money for something so expensive. In 2008, the House of Representatives’ Center for Social Studies and Public Opinion acknowledged that it knows criminal organizations launder money by funding religious activities. The case of a modest village chapel in Hidalgo became renowned in October 2010 for having been transformed into a luxurious church through donations from a leader of Las Zetas, whose name appears on a plaque in the church. In November 2010 the Catholic hierarchy was forced to declare that in certain communities “the dirtiest and most bloody money may have been used” in the construction of some chapels, suggesting that this only happened with some small-town priests. The hierarchy also asked which state in Mexico or sector of society hasn’t already been infiltrated by drug trafficking. Given these statements, the National Fellowship of Evangelical Christian Churches asked the federal Attorney General’s Office to investigate donations from drug trafficking to the Catholic Church. In January 2011, research led to proof of drug money being used in hospitals, schools and Catholic churches in many parts of Mexico, while a researcher from the Monterrey Technological Institute noted that when the time came to investigate drug charity, the government’s “hand was shaking.” In March 2011 the archbishop of Puebla urged his priests not to accept drug money. The arrival and the first gestures The pope arrived in the country on the afternoon of Friday, March 23, to an atmosphere ripe with expectations of statements and attitudes responding to Mexico’s harsh reality. On the flight he had said that the violence in Mexico is caused by the idolatry of money. In his first speech, Benedict XVI simply praised Pope John Paul II, thanked President Calderón for his warm reception and specially mentioned Archbishop Rábago, his host, and the president of the Mexican Episcopal Conference. He referred to the bicentennial celebrations, spoke of the fundamental right to religious freedom and promised to pray “for those who suffer from old and new rivalries, resentments and forms of violence.” In his welcoming address, Calderón told the pope he was being received by a people who had suffered a lot from violence, although he obviously didn’t see himself as one of its causes. The next day the pope met privately with Calderón. They spoke of the need for an international treaty on small arms, whose rapid and excessive spread favors organized crime, and also mentioned world hunger. Afterwards, the President took Benedict XVI to meet with several people, among them eight victims of the war, invited by Calderón for self-justification.