Bishop says that the Virgin protected him in an attack he suffered in Nayarit, Mexico

Mons. José de Jesús González Hernández, current bishop of the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, said that it was once saved thanks to the intercession of the Virgin Mary after an armed group opened fire against its vehicle during a pastoral visit.

During the Sunday Mass From August 10 in the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary Most Holy in Chilapa, when he explained that God corresponds to who serves him and has confidence, the prelate recalled a story that lived at the beginning of his episcopal ministry in the prelature of Jesus Maria-el Nayar, the first headquarters of which he was bishop, between 2010 and 2022.

Mons. González Hernández said that before starting his pastoral tour to know the parishes that had been assigned, he visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Huajicori, where there is a miraculous image of the Virgen de los Remedios, to put the mission in his hands and request his protection.

“There the territories fight, just like here,” he said in reference to the confrontations of organized crime groups both in his previous pastoral territory and in the state of Guerrero, where he is now bishop. The Prelature of Jesús María-El Nayar, located mainly in a mountainous area of the state of Nayarit, also covers territories of Durango, Jalisco and Zacatecas.

In front of the image of the Virgin, the bishop entrusted himself by saying: “I am new, I do not know, but you do know. Virgencita Linda, you are the pastor, you know your faithful, you know all these ravines, rivers, streams and mountains, you well know the territory and you well know the paths, you know your children that they walk here;

Some time later, during his visit to one of the parishes near the border with Durango, the prelate recalled that when he was traveling aboard his truck members of an armed group “confused us and threw us with shots at the head in the vehicle. He didn’t hit us any (bullet).”

“The bandits reached us. They said: ‘Báje’, and we got off (all) (…) Thank God they were surprised because they saw that we were priests. I had my habit and my Christ” in his pectoral cross, he mentioned.

The attackers told them that they were looking for another person to kill her but, when he realized the error, “the boss came and said: ‘Forgive us, disculpened, is that we are wrong.” They even offered to cover the damage caused to the glass, a proposal that the bishop rejected.

Before leaving, the criminals asked for the blessing of the prelate. Mons. González Hernández confessed that although I felt that “my sugar and blood was lowered and lowered, and the spirit” for the experience experienced, seeing “the weapon smoking” even of the recent detonations, he decided to grant them the blessing.

The bishop reflected that at that time he understood that as a pastor of a territory “they are also my children, I just received the prelature that is equivalent to diocese, and I received it with everything he has, and then I already gave him the blessing.”

From this experience, Mons. González Hernández said that “the Virgin is the pastor, the Virgin is the one who takes care of her rejection, of all who resorted to her, and if we entrust us to her, she does not disappoint.”

The bishop commented that he imagines how, with her mantle, the Virgin said: “Do not hit them, let them leave (…), and surely, many bullets spoiled.” “The Virgin was there,” he added.

“When one has as a treasure the Virgin in her heart, when one has her treasure in Jesus, truth, in that encounter with him, and you do not stick to money or the powers of the earth, but he is the maximum for you, he protects you even at the time of death,” he reiterated.

Other bishops who have suffered the violence of organized crime

Other Mexican bishops in the area have denounced being held by organized crime when traveling by road.

Mons. Faustino Armendariz, Bishop of Durango, indicated in February 2022 that both he and the priests of the diocese have been intercepted by armed groups in their pastoral work. However, he said, “we continue to do our task in the places where we need and go, and there we will be with the people who suffer.”

In addition, Mons. Sigifredo Noriega Barcelóthe bishop of Zacatecas, in June that same year, said he was arrested in a retainer of organized crime in Jalisco, when he was going to visit communities belonging to his diocese.

For his part, Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega, Archbishop of Guadalajara, said he was “arrested for two seals, which are obvious of organized crime, and requires one to say where it comes from, what is he dedicated, what he does.”