Long live Mexico!: The prayer of the Church in a country bled by violence, confused by ideologies

In a country, “bleeding for violence, confused by ideologies and threatened in its institutions,” the Catholic Church raises a prayer “to God and our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe”: “Long live Mexico!”

This is expressed by the bishops of the Mexican Episcopate Conference (CEM) In his most recent statementon the occasion of the Mexican national holidays, which remember the beginning of the independence process on September 16, 1810.

Remembering that on the night of September 15, in the main squares of the cities throughout the country, the proclamation “Long live Mexico!” From the heart, live Mexico! ”

However, they specified, “for us, this exclamation is not a party cry, but a deep prayer to God and our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe.”

In their message, the bishops called for children to respect the life of the country “from conception; that they are offered decent conditions; that they do not give their innocence with ideologies that confuse their heart.”

For young people, they asked “to offer opportunities to develop their dreams with equity and justice; that they are rescued from the claws of drugs and violence; what Mexico shines through ingenuity, courage and courage of their young people.”

They also sued that Mexican women are provided “safe spaces, respect and equity; that their dignity, their gifts and possibilities are valued; that their maternity and their irreplaceable ability to educate our children are respected; that they are offered opportunities for development and improvement”.

They also called “each family discovering their vocation to be a school of life, respect and love; that families live free of violence and become promoters of peace.”

Violence in Mexico

According to the report MX: The war in numbersin these first 11 months of the government of the current president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum – of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) -, add 24,696 homicides, although there is a downward trend with respect to the sexennium of its predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, founder of the same political group, which closed his sexennium as the most violent in the modern history of Mexico with 199.970 Homicides

These figures seem to confirm the trend registered by the Mexico Peace Index 2025which acknowledges that “Peace in Mexico improved 0.7% in 2024, marking the fifth consecutive year of moderate improvement, after four years of pronounced deterioration.”

However, along with the decrease in homicides, another figure remains up: the disappearances.

“A growing trend of people reported as missing throughout the country has been identified,” says that report. “Since 2010, approximately 292,000 cases of missing persons in Mexico have registered, and more than half of these cases occurred in the last six years,” he adds.

Along with violence, mainly linked to organized crime, the shadow of corruption allegations loom over Mexico. In recent weeks, the scandal of the so -called “fiscal huachicol”, a hydrocarbon smuggling network to the United States, seems to involve businessmen, customs authorities and military commanders.

In the midst of this reality, Sheinbaum gets ready to be the first woman president of Mexico to make the “Grito de Dolores” from the National Palace balcony the night of September 15.

“Realities that exceed any data and any figure”

Fr. Omar Sotelo, a priest, journalist and director of the Multimedial Catholic Center (CCM) – which he has the registration of how violence affects the Catholic Church in Mexico – regrets that the Sheinbaum government “has been based on an opaque reality, flagging between data, figures, when realities slap us in a forceful way”.

“They tell us that homicides have lowered, but the disappearances increase. They tell us that there is no corruption and we find now, unfortunately, this fact of corruption, I believe that it is one of the greatest, which is taking place with the famous ‘Huachicol’, the Navy included in this type of situations, controls that remain obviously penetrated by organized crime and that are captured.”

“Those are the realities that exceed any data and any figure,” he warns of ACI Press.

Father Sotelo points out that Sheinbaum has had the “historical” opportunity to have “his own style”, moving away “from the commitments that possibly took her to the presidency.”

This, he says, was to recognize that “obviously crime, organized crime, have exceeded us.”

Accepting that reality, insists, “is simply saying that we are analyzing and we are accepting that we need to change”, because “we cannot deny that reality is of violence that is overwhelmed, that attacks everywhere, in all ways, and that it comes from many sectors and that it has infiltrated high levels of government.”

The hope of Mexico

However, Fr. Sotelo resists hopelessness: “We have to know that we are not prophets of bad omen, and that we always have to have your eyes on the hope always improve and always try to get ahead.”

“I think it is important to recognize that Mexico is a great country. That we cannot forget,” he emphasizes.

From the scope of politicians they need to be willing to “accept this reality before justifying.” “That will be the first step for the transformation of Mexico that we truly want to celebrate.”

The CCM director also indicates that the Catholic Church has a double responsibility: “announce and have to denounce what goes against the Gospel”, so that “we have to be the first promoters of a complaint that reconstructs dignity, trust. And that is not to remain silent.”

This, emphasizes, is opposed to the maneuvers of the criminal groups: “Organized crime sometimes loved us, has kept us quiet and that is what you want, maintain a quiet and submissive people.”

The faithful Catholics also have a responsibility in this work of peace, he adds, because each one must “fully assume Christianity”, remembering that “we are going to recognize the teacher Jesus Christ to fill us with him and then sow that love of Jesus Christ to all corners of the world, so that we can transform what is now arid, what has fallen today, what has been fallen today.

The family and the fight against “narcocultura”

The priest and journalist also warns of how organized crime has permeated the so -called “narcocultura” in Mexican society, presenting the life of drug trafficking as “something aspirational.”

In this way, he warns, criminals attract young people “with the intention of being cannon meat and tomorrow will be used and then thrown away.”

“Only the family is one that can fight against this narcoculture that is invading our communities, which is invading social networks and others,” he says.

“Today we have to resume with forcefulness that the family is where the authentic citizen of values ​​is born, where the authentic Christian is born and where the next saint will be born,” he emphasizes, remembering the recent canonization of young people Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acuytis. “We have to resume the strength of a family that will generate decent and responsible men again, Christians delivered and possible saints.”