The Catholic Church in Mexico calls organized crime to leave weapons: allow God to transform them

Mons. Ramón Castro Castro, Bishop of Cuernavaca and president of the Mexican Episcopate Conference (CEM), called for the conversion of organized crime members: “allow God to transform them and that the evil perpetrated to neighbor does not miss his life or his conscience.”

Before a crowd gathered in the municipality of Cuautla, in the Mexican state of Morelos, on the occasion of the march for peace on Saturday, September 13, Mons. Castro Castro asked the criminals to “return to the community from which they have separated (…) will always find in the church a mother with open arms and a father who party. See their countrymen, see their friends who suffer.”

“That is why we invite you to depose weapons and invite you to have love for your brothers,” said the bishop of Cuernavaca, in whose jurisdiction Cuautla is found.

“Do not let the nets of evil suffocate them. You can live in another way. The dirty money they obtain by extortion, drugs, crime, corrupts and generates death and sooner or later enslave them,” he said.

Morelos, among the most violent states in Mexico

According to the report Mexico Peace Index 2025prepared by the Institute for Economy and Peace, Morelos is the third most violent state of the 32 federative entities of the country. Cuautla occupies the sixth place among the municipalities with the highest homicide rates in Mexico, while two other Mexican municipalities accompany her in the top 20 positions: Cuernavaca, in the 13th and Jiutepec, in 15.

He Mexico Peace Index 2025 He also points out that 90.1% of the inhabitants of Morelos consider that the State is insecure.

According to “Narcomapa” Prepared by the Mexican newspaper Milenio, in Morelos there are almost a dozen criminal groups, including the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, the Beltrán Leyva, the faction of the Sinaloa cartel known as “Los Chapitos” – directed by the children of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – and the Michoacan family.

“We are not alone”

Mons. Ramón Castro Castro stood out in his message, pronounced at the end of the walk, from the José María Morelos y Pavón Sports Unit, the “deep desire we have and that need for peace”.

“I would like to remind each of you, especially those who have suffered the most: we are not alone,” he said, highlighting that “we have the richness of each one of us. Let’s see, we are a single people, we are brothers, we are a single body, we are a people of God.”

“We have all (from) to commit ourselves to the common good, before, above all, the painful situation that Morelos crosses and particularly this region of the State. We have many conflicts that cannot be ignored or disguised,” he said.

It is necessary, he said, “accept that conflict and try to solve it, transform it. We with faith, but also putting each the grain of sand that corresponds to a process that changes us.”

“The Lord has left us his peace, but that peace is a task. And this walk is part of that task with which we try to respond and put that grain of sand,” said Mons. Castro Castro.

The president of the CEM regretted that the population faces “pain, anguish, impotence to organized crime, violence, insecurity, impunity, which is much of the reason why there is that violence, corruption, homicides and something so particularly painful in this part of the state that is extortion”.

“On the way several people approached and told me, we are tired of that extortion, we are tired of that ‘floor right,” he shared.

Remembering their emotional encounter during the march with the searching mothers, groups of women and relatives of missing people who independently try to find their loved ones alive or dead, Mons. Castro Castro regretted that they often face “so many obstacles to achieve their goal”.

In addition, the prelate stressed that “coexistence between some public servants and organized crime is not possible.”

“The Lord grants to those public servants who love the people wisdom to know how to serve them and find that security that we need so much. How different Mexico would be, how different Morelos would be living in legality and justice,” he said.

The family, key in the construction of peace

The bishop of Cuernavaca recalled the key role of the family for the construction of peace, because there “there is the primary place of humanization of the person, of society, the cradle of life and love.”

“It is the family where we learn to be good human beings, where we learn the values ​​of our life, where we learn what peace is and it is justice,” he said.

“Therefore, the family is irreplaceable in the education of peace and the depth of the human being,” he added.