Organized crime and dictatorships persecute the Catholic Church in Latin America

Fr. Omar Sotelo, director of the Multimedial Catholic Center (CCM), and Félix Maradiaga, former presidential candidate and leader of the Freedom Foundation of Nicaragua, denounced that organized crime and dictatorships attack the Catholic Church in Latin America.

Religious persecution in Mexico

In an interview with Ewtn News, within the framework of a recent forum on religious freedom made in Washington DC (USA), P. Sotelo stressed that in recent years around 80 priests have been killed in Mexico. As he explained, this alarming figure is part of a “very aggressive harassment system” against the Catholic Church, which puts the lives of its ministers and priests at risk.

“Unfortunately, many of them have been victims of organized crime, which has attacked the pastoral work of priests dedicated tirelessly to serve,” said Fr. Sotelo. He stressed that these ministers support women, provide assistance in the field of health and offer “migrant human rights protection services”, in a country that is a passage for those who seek to reach the United States.

The priest said that the work of priests in favor of many immigrants in houses specially built for them “has been a determining factor for organized crime groups to see their activity affected.”

The presbyter regretted that, in addition to the murders, the CCM has registered “850 extortion and death threats to priests throughout the national territory” in 2024.

An emblematic case was that of Fr. Marcelo Pérez Pérez, “an extraordinary man, defender of indigenous rights, who died at the hands of hitmen” in San Cristóbal de las Casas, where he served.

The director of the CCM said that in Mexico “26 Catholic temples a week are violated, assaulted or desecrated” and that these attacks are part of the persecution against priests, since their work acts as “a social stabilizer”, while the Organized crime seeks to impose “the culture of terror, the culture of silence” to establish itself.

Father Sotelo highlighted the importance of “visible” and publicizing how religious persecution is given in countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, warning that “what can affect locally has a global affectation and we cannot stop talking” about the subject.

Religious persecution in Nicaragua

Félix Maradiaga, an Nicaraguan Expressopolitical and president of the Libertad Foundation, stressed that in his country “the panorama is bleak,” but said with certainty that “the Church throughout history blooms in martyrdom.”

“Although the dictatorships, in this case that of Nicaragua, has tried to silence faith, citizens and committed lay people continue to resist from prayer, but also from a church almost in catacombs, and with 70% of the clergy Nicaraguan forced into exile. ”

The latest edition of the report Nicaragua: a persecuted churchof the lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina presented approximately 1,000 attacks of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo against the Church in recent years.

This happens, Maradiaga points out, because “the Catholic Church is the moral voice of greatest credibility” and “an institution that provides spiritual relief, pastoral guide, but also material relief”, as well as good education to deal with poverty in the country .

The Nicaraguan leader also warned that “dictatorships around the world want to be the only ones that can have some kind of assistance to people to manipulate hunger, to manipulate education, to use propagand Only in Nicaragua, but around the world ”as an enemy.

When talking about Mexico and Nicaragua, Maradiaga denounced that “organized crime, political dictators He has pointed out the malevolent forces that affect the dignity of the human person. ”

“Enemies of humanity”

When asked about statements by Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State of the United States, Catholic and of Cuban origin, who recently said that the regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela “”They are enemies of humanity”, Maradiaga said he agreed with the statement.

“Total and completely according to the Secretary of State, our good friend Mr. Marco Rubio, who was in fact one of the main promoters of this summit” on religious freedom. “We feel that believers have an ally in the Secretary of State,” he concluded.