MEXICO CITY (CNS) The Mexican bishops’ conference has condemned the murders of a priest and two seminarians in the southern state of Guerrero as they were traveling to a religious retreat. "We … condemn the violence that is plaguing our country and demand that the authorities from all levels of government quickly carry out an investigation and find those responsible for this cowardly crime," said a statement issued June 15, two days after the killings.
"From our faith, we express the certainty that Father Habacuc Hernandez … and the seminarians Eduardo Oregon Benitez and Silvestre Gonzalez now enjoy the presence of our heavenly Father," the statement said.
The three men were shot dead by gunmen wielding 9 mm pistols while they traveled through the municipality of Altamirano in a violence-plagued region known as Tierra Caliente, where drug-cartel activities have been on the increase. Media reports said the three men, who worked and studied in the Diocese of Ciudad Altamirano, were shot in the back. No motive has been provided for the attacks.
"We don’t know exactly what happened, but everything points to organized crime," said Father Juan Carlos Flores, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Acapulco. "The deaths of these prelates is part of the violence that the entire state is living through."
The murders added to an already grim 2009 organized crime death toll that stands at 270 in Guerrero and 2,677 nationwide, according to the newspaper Reforma. The murders also were part of an upswing of drug-related violence in Guerrero, a mountainous state with a long, thinly populated coastline to the south of Mexico City. The state is best known for the beaches and glitzy villas of Acapulco, but also has marginalized regions, with human development index scores on par with sub-Saharan Africa.
Guerrero Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo promised a full investigation when he met with a group of prelates headed by Archbishop Felipe Aguirre Franco of Acapulco June 15.
Guerrero investigative police director Erit Montufar told reporters that the three victims were ordered out of their truck and shot dead.
Acapulco native and security expert Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz expressed doubts that the investigation will prove fruitful due to growing corruption and the forging of ties between law enforcement and drug-trafficking cartels.
"The level of corruption among police departments, government organizations, organized crime (and) political strongmen makes the state even more vulnerable," he said.
De la Cruz explained that, over the past three years, the state has been at the epicenter of a turf war between rival cartels that smuggle drugs through the region and control local drug dealing. High-profile murders by the cartels also have been common and included beheadings in Acapulco and the killing and the torture of soldiers near the state capital, Chilpancingo.
De la Cruz, who is affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said that those murders "sent a message," and that the method of murdering the three churchmen — shots in the back — suggested the same.
Others in the church agreed with the "sending-a-message" theory and lamented that priests were being inadvertently caught up in actions of organized crime — and, in some cases, becoming the targets of such groups.
"The deaths are a message for telling us that things are getting very serious," Father Pedro Pantoja, director of the migrant shelter for the Diocese of Saltillo, told reporters in Mexico City June 15.
Organized crime, he added, "could care less (who we are.) We’re no longer honorable to them."
