Finding of the Izaguirre Rancho is the “Punta del Iceberg”, denounces Mexican Catholic Center

A month after its discovery, the “Rancho Izaguirre” in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, continues to shock Mexico. This place, found by the collective “Jalisco seekers” Warriors on March 5, functioned as a training and extermination field of organized crime where burned human remains were found, hundreds of scattered garments and shoes, revealing the brutal reality of violence in the country.

According to the authorities, the site was already known by the National Guard – the Federal Police Body of Mexico – since September 18, 2024. “At that time ten people were arrested, which are subject to criminal proceedings; two more were deprived of their liberty and a corpse covered with plastic was also found,” said the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office, in a communication Extended on March 12.

But it was not until the group “Jalisco seeking warriors” arrived at the scene on March 5 of this year that public opinion knew the magnitude of the cruelty that was committed inside.

The site would have been used by the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, one of the largest criminal groups in Mexico, at least since 2012, according to the testimony of a person who would have managed to flee the place, whose history was Published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada.

The finding, According to the Mexican Episcopate Conference (CEM), “It constitutes one of the most cruel expressions of human evil and misery that we have witnessed in our country.”

“These findings highlight the irresponsible omission of government authorities of the three levels in the face of one of the most critical problems that the country faces: the disappearance of people,” added the CEM, which also demanded “definitely breaking with the alliances that could exist between organized crime and some political environments to free Mexico from this moral decline.”

According to them Official figures of the Ministry of the Interior of the Government of Mexico, from December 31, 1952 to April of this year, total 127,039 disappeared and not located in Mexico.

Only so far from 2025, 4,280 disappearances of people throughout the national territory have been registered.

“Mexico is a common grave”

“When this situation appeared, this ranch, these clandestine graves, obviously gives us a feeling of much sadness, gives us a feeling of (ask ourselves) really what is happening in this country that cannot be solved and that is a country that is a common grave?” Said Fr. Omar Sotel of research on religious freedom and how violence impacts the life of the Catholic Church in the country.

According to A recent report Of this center, the crime has charged in just over three decades the lives of a cardinal and dozens of priests, religious and laity.

“Unfortunately Mexico is a common grave (…) and what happened in Jalisco is just the tip of the iceberg of what is unfortunate in many places in our country,” he warned.

“It also puts us to think about those missing, because as we know the figures are very high and many of them, unfortunately they are no longer among us, but their remains are scattered throughout the national territory and this is tremendous,” he added.

The Mexican authorities said, “they must accept their incompetence, they must accept that organized crime has completely exceeded.”

Mexico: between great faith and great violence

Although the Ranking 2024 of the 50 most violent cities in the world It is headed by Puerto Príncipe (Haiti), among its first 10 positions are seven Mexican towns: Colima, Acapulco, Manzanillo, Tijuana, Ciudad Obregón, Celaya and Zamora.

So far this year, the authorities They register More than 6,400 homicides.

This contrasts with a Mexico where almost 78% of the population declares itself Catholic. For Father Sotelo, “thanks to Mexico is a believing country, things are not worse than they are already.”

In addition, he stressed that “there are more good people than bad, there are more people who get up, open their business, work and do it with an enthusiasm, as you have no idea, despite the painful circumstances that the country faces.”

Given the crisis, he stressed that Catholics have “the great opportunity to continue being sowers of hope in a country where it would seem that there is no, in a country where it would seem that it does not exist.”

“A reality that always refused”

For Fr. Mario Ángel Flores, an advisor to the CEM and former rector of the Pontifical University of Mexico, the discovery of the “Rancho Izaguirre” puts the country “before a reality that always refused”.

“What has been denied for six years can be found in daylight,” he said, in reference to the past six -year after the founder of the Morena political party, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who ruled Mexico between 2018 and 2024 with a controversial policy of “hugs, not shots” against organized crime. López Obrador was happened in October last year by Claudia Sheinbaum, also from Morena.

“That is, the way so shameless, so free and so atrocious that organized crime has worked in view of the authorities of all kinds,” he added.

“This does not come out of nowhere, it is part of our society and that speaks very badly of the situation in which we are, so we talk a lot about the decomposition of the social fabric, which indicates that from the family and the reflection, the society itself, because it is in very bad conditions,” said Fr. Flores.

The priest adds that the situation “questions us, demands as church greater effectiveness, not only presence, but a greater capacity to communicate the gospel, to train the new generations.”

Although the phenomenon of organized crime and its violence “as such can be older, but not this level of cruelty, crime and above all of amplitude. They are not small groups, but now they are large groups of people, many young people who are involved there,” he said.

López Obrador’s six -year term has been the most violent in the modern history of Mexico. According to the report MX: The war in numbersprepared by T-Osearchmx, its administration ended with 199,970 registered homicides.

“When there is so much pain, in the end God appears”

Mons. Francisco Javier Acero, auxiliary bishop of Mexico, is known for its approach to seeking mothers, as women who have associated in various groups are known to search in various parts, often without the help of the authorities, their missing children.

Upon helling of the discovery of the extermination center, the prelate confesses that he felt “much sadness and a feeling of blocking and helplessness.”

“He left me thinking, especially that it is from the most painful suffering, such as this, an extermination field, when we react. And these seeking mothers have been crying out for years, not only justice, but they return their children to close the cycle of life with them.”

While “Mexico is blessed by Guadalupe (…) and here we guard this venerated image since so many centuries, and that has been an image that has joined the country … because there is evil. And evil is not that being with horns, trident. No, we have evil. We have evil in corruption, in indifference,” said the prelate.

Mons. Steel stressed that any effort for peace can stay in something theoretical “if peace does not reach the heart of each inhabitant of our country, starting with me.”

“When peace reigns in the heart of one, it takes away self -referentiality, that narcissism, that wanting to control another. We have to get to that, start with peace in our heart,” he reiterated.

The prelate stressed that his encounter with the seeking mothers is like that of a “father who serves their children”, with an “attitude of compassion, tenderness and mercy towards each mother, every seeking family.”

“It is a job of emotional containment,” he acknowledges, while warning that closeness to God is necessary in that effort.

“Whenever I have this space with the seeking mothers, I look for a space, the afternoon, for me, to pray, to read, to live the liturgy of the hours, the eve, the completely complete, the Eucharist (…) because what I receive is so sacred that I have to elaborate it from God, you cannot humanly.”

Given the suffering of the relatives of the disappeared, the prelate reflects: “When there is so much pain, in the end God appears.”

“There one learns to see that from the disease and from pain in the end God is the rope with which you support you so that you do not sink,” he said, highlighting that it is important to know “that hope does not disappoint.”