By Mark Stevenson
Tue., June 21, 2022
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two elderly Jesuit priests were killed inside a church where a man pursued by gunmen apparently sought refuge in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico, the religious order’s Mexican branch announced Tuesday.
Javier Campos Morales, 79, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80, were slain Monday inside the church in Cerocahui in Chihuahua state.
They were apparently killed after a man fleeing a drug gang took refuge in the church, authorities said. The gang apparently pursued and caught him, and killed all three.
Chihuahua Gov. Maria Eugenia Campos confirmed a third man was killed, without identifying him. But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during his daily news conference that the man fleeing the gunmen was also killed.
The state government later identified the third man as a tourist guide, and said he had been kidnapped and taken to the church, apparently by the gunmen.
The governor said the killings caused “deep anger, indignation and pain” and “shook us to our deepest depths.“
López Obrador said authorities had information about possible suspects in the killings and noted the area has a strong organized crime presence.
Violence has plagued the Tarahumara mountains for years. The rugged, pine-clad region is home to the Indigenous group of the same name. Cerocahui is near a point where Chihuahua state meets Sonora and Sinaloa, a major drug-producing region.
A statement from the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus in Mexico demanded justice and the return of the men’s bodies. It said gunmen had taken both of their bodies from the church.
“Acts like these are not isolated,” the statement said. “The Tarahumara mountains, like many other regions of the country, face conditions of violence and abandonment that have not been reversed. Every day men and women are arbitrarily deprived of life, as our murdered brothers were today.”
For some reason, the gunmen did not kill a third priest who was at the church, but refused his pleas for them to leave the bodies of his two colleagues, said Narce Santibañez, the press director for the Jesuits in Mexico.
The surviving priest said his two colleagues had been killed with gunshots at close range.
The Tarahumara Diocese said in a statement that “the killers, not content with murdering them, have taken their bodies ... leaving a wake of pain, sadness and indigation among all of us who want to mourn them.”
The killing of priests has been a persistent tragedy in Mexico, at least since the start of the drug war in 2006.
The Rev. Gilberto Guevara serves in the parish of Aguililla in the western state of Michoacan, a town which has been on the front lines of cartel turf wars for years. Three priests have been killed in the area over the last decade.
“The danger is always there,” Guevara said about working in the cartel-dominated region. “As long as we don’t get in the way, they respect us, just as the government respects as as long as we are useful to them.”
The church’s Catholic Multimedia Center said seven priests have been murdered under the current administration, which took office in December 2018, and at least two dozen under the former president, who took office in 2012.
The center said that on May 15, a priest who ran a migrant shelter in the northern border city of Tecate was found dead on a ranch.
In 2021, a Franciscan priest died when he was caught in the crossfire of a drug gang shootout in the north-central state of Zacatecas as he drove to Mass. Another priest was killed in the central state of Morelos and another in the violence-plagued state of Guanajuato that year.
In 2019, a priest was stabbed to death in the northern border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Chihuahua’s governor wrote in her Twitter account that she “laments and condemns” the killings and said security arrangements had been discussed for priests in the area.
Campos Morales was ordained as a priest in 1972 and spent almost a half-century working in parishes in the Tarahumara region, known for its grinding poverty and scenic beauty.
Mora Salazar was ordained in 1971 and worked off and on in the Tarahumara in the 1970s and 80s before returning full time in 2000.
The Tarahumara people, who prefer the name Rarámuri, suffered centuries of poverty, exclusion and exploitation, with loggers plundering their forests and drug gangs cultivating marijuana and opium poppies in the mountains.
The Jesuits started missions among the Rarámuri in the 1600s but were expelled by Spain in 1767. They returned around 1900.
The Indigenous community has gained worldwide fame for their skill at running dozens of miles through their mountainous territory, often in leather sandals or barefoot, and have inspired and competed in ultra-long-distance foot races.
2 priests killed in Mexico devoted decades to remote region
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Well before many roads were paved in Mexico’s remote Tarahumara mountains, Jesuit priest Javier Campos crisscrossed the area on a motorcycle. During five decades ministering to its impoverished communities, his familiar imitation of a rooster and love of singing earned him the nickname “Gallo.”
His colleague Joaquín Mora was often at his side during the past 20 of those years, during which drug cartels tightened their grip on the region, filling the mountains with opium poppy and marijuana. Together they brought a moral authority to balance the outsized influence of drug traffickers, their fellow priests said.
The two priests, age 79 and 80, respectively, were shot to death in the small church on Cerocahui’s town square Monday, along with a tourist guide they tried to protect from a local criminal boss. The killer, who President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday had been identified, took their bodies.
Chihuahua Gov. Maria Eugenia Campos announced later Wednesday that all three bodies had been recovered without providing details.
“They were respected. Their word was taken into account,” said Jorge Atilano, another Jesuit priest, during a Mass Tuesday night in Mexico City.
But the priests had noted changes that made it increasingly difficult to navigate the ever-expanding criminal world.
The Rev. Pedro Humberto Arriaga, a Jesuit superior at a mission in southern Mexico and friend of Campos since their student days, said that when they last spoke in May, Campos told him of “the seriousness of the situation, of how the drug gangs had advanced in the region, how they were taking control of the communities.” Things were spinning out of control with more and more armed criminals moving throughout the area, he said.
Arriaga was not aware of threats against either priest, but everyone was conscious of the risks — there and across the country.
The church’s Catholic Multimedia Center said seven priests, including Campos and Mora, have been murdered during the current administration, which took office in December 2018, and at least two dozen under the former president, who took office in 2012.
The mountains have been the scene of other recent killings of Indigenous leaders, environmentalists, human rights defenders and a journalist who covered the area.
Mexico's persistently high murder rate has been a problem for López Obrador, who entered office making clear he had no interest in pursuing the drug war waged by his predecessors, which he blamed for the increased violence. His government has managed to slow the rise in killings, but not reduce them.
Even without pursuing cartel leaders and instead focusing on the country’s social ills, the killings have continued.
Barely halfway into López Obrador’s six-year term, the number of homicides — nearly 124,000 — has surpassed those during the presidency of former President Felipe Calderon, who accelerated the head-on conflict with the cartels.
There had been talk of pulling Campos and Mora out of the area for their safety and due to their age, but they refused. “They died as they lived, defending their ideals,” said Enrique Hernández, a friend of both men, during a Mass in Chihuahua’s state capital.
Both men were integrated into their communities of Indigenous Tarahumara, who prefer the name Raramuri, performing social work, defending the local culture and advocating for basic services, including education.
Arriaga recalled Campos' love of basketball and passion for singing, but said it was his willingness to immerse himself in the local culture that set him apart. Campos spoke two Raramuri dialects and participated in their dances and rituals.
The Jesuits have been known for their mission work in Latin America dating to colonial times, especially among Indigenous peoples, Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in an email.
“In fact, they were expelled from both Brazil and Spanish America during the second half of the 18th century for being accused of depriving colonists of Indigenous labor by concentrating them at their missions,” Chesnut said.
During the past half-century, the Jesuits have been known as defenders of human rights and promoters of social justice. “The two are the latest victims in a country that has become one of the most dangerous in the world for Catholic clergy, mostly due to endemic drug violence,” he said.
At the Mass in Mexico City Tuesday night, Luis Gerardo Moro, the top Jesuit in Mexico, said the killings marked “a breaking point and a point of no return in the path and mission of the Society (of Jesus) in Mexico.” He said the order’s priests would continue denouncing the abandonment and violence that persists in the region and would not stay silent in the face of injustice.
López Obrador lamented the killings Wednesday and said that authorities were searching for a man who had a pending arrest order dating to 2018 for the suspected killing of a U.S. tourist.
On Wednesday, authorities put out a wanted poster for the accused killer, José Noriel Portillo Gil, alias “El Chueco,” or “The Crooked One.” They offered a reward of about $250,000 for information leading to his arrest.
Portillo Gil was also accused in the 2018 killing of Patrick Braxton-Andrew, a 34-year-old Spanish teacher from North Carolina who was traveling in the Tarahumara mountains. Portillo Gil's gang apparently suspected Braxton-Andrew of being a U.S. drug agent and killed him. Despite the criminality, the area’s natural beauty continues to draw tourists.
On Tuesday, Javier Ávila, another Jesuit priest working in the region since the 1970s, told local radio that the two priests knew their killer because he was a local crime boss. He said the man was “out of his mind, drunk” and had threatened locals to keep their mouths shut.
The man “told them, ‘If you talk and there’s some movement, I come for all of you and kill you all,’” Ávila said.
Authorities were also searching for three other people abducted Monday in the town of about 1,100 people.
Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, said via Twitter: “How many murders in Mexico! Violence does not resolve problems, but rather only increases unnecessary suffering.”
Ávila said there was impunity for the crimes in the Tarahumara mountains and in all of Mexico. It is increasingly shameless and is fed by “the ineptitude of authorities at all levels,” he said. “We’re fed up.”
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Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.
EXPLAINER: What led to priests being killed in Mexico?
Posted Jun 23, 2022,
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two Jesuit priests and a tour guide murdered in Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara this week are the latest in a long line of activists, reporters, travelers and local residents who have been threatened or killed by criminal gangs that dominate the region.
The Revs. Javier Campos, 79, and Joaquín Mora, 80, had spent much of their lives serving Indigenous peoples of the region. Authorities said they were shot to death in the small church on Cerocahui’s town square Monday, along with a tourist guide they tried to protect from a local criminal boss.
Tourists are drawn to the area’s imposing mountains, deep canyons and the indomitable Tarahumara Indigenous people, who refer to themselves as the Raramuri and are famed for their ability to run dozens of miles barefoot or in leather sandals. The mostly roadless region contains wonders like the Copper Canyon, often called Mexico’s Grand Canyon, and one of the country’s last working passenger trains.
But the mountains are a land of tragedy as well as beauty. The Raramuri are still largely impoverished after centuries in which their ancestral land was taken from them. They have suffered famine and starvation during the worst years, even in this century.
WHY IS THE SIERRA TARAHUMARA SO DANGEROUS?
Drug cartels have long used the remote mountains to plant illicit crops of marijuana and opium poppies. In the 2000s, the cartels expanded into illegal logging on Raramuri lands, driving out or killing anyone who opposed them. The Ciudad Juarez-based La Linea gang is battling the Sinaloa cartel, whose local branch is known as Los Salazar.
Isela Gonzalez, director of the Sierra Madre Alliance environmental group, said the gangs now compete to control local alcohol sales, extortion and kidnapping. “The Sierra Tarahumara is under a constant climate of violence,” Gonzalez said. She just returned from a Raramuri community, Coloradas de la Virgen, and noted, “There is a very violent atmosphere, a lot of shootouts between groups, and that is forcing a lot of people to flee.”
WHO ELSE HAS BEEN KILLED?
At least a half dozen Raramuri environmental activists have been killed in the Sierra Tarahumara in recent years, including anti-logging activist Isidro Baldenegro, who received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize and was slain in 2017. The few suspects detained in those killings were likely only triggermen, and their possible links to drug gangs were apparently never fully investigated.
Journalist Miroslava Breach was killed by gunmen linked to the Los Salazar gang in 2017, apparently in retaliation for reporting on drug gangs’ ties to politicians.
Perhaps the case that drew the most attention was that of 34-year-old American hiker Patrick Braxton-Andrew, who was killed in 2018 in Urique, near where the Jesuits were murdered. Officials at the time identified the killer as José Noriel Portillo Gil, alias El “Chueco,”or “The Crooked One.” An alleged local boss for the Los Salazar gang, he is the same man wanted for killing the two priests.
WHAT HAS THE GOVERNMENT DONE?
The fact that Portillo Gil could be accused of killing a U.S. tourist and not be caught —and then be accused of slaying the two much-loved priests — left many people stunned.
“I just never understood how is it that the United States didn’t raise holy hell until they captured him” said Randall Gingrich, an environmental and educational activist who has worked in the Sierra for three decades. “Why wasn’t there a massive manhunt until this was resolved? How could he still be there?”
The Chihuahua state governor at the time, Javier Corral, pledged to “mete out an exemplary punishment to this criminal and his gang who, paradoxically, by acting in this cowardly way, have put an end to the Sinaloa cartel’s influence and control of this area. Nothing will stop us from capturing him.”
None of that happened. Portillo Gil continued to operate so freely that — according to state prosecutors — when the local baseball team he sponsored lost a game recently, “El Chueco” went to the home of two players on the opposing team, shot one, kidnapped the other and set their house on fire the same day the priests were killed.
“This illustrates a systematic impunity,” said Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope.
WHO ELSE HAS BEEN THREATENED?
Most who work in the Sierra Tarahumara report intimidation, threats and drug-cartel checkpoints even on main roads in the mountains. That atmosphere led in 2015 to the cancelation of the 50-mile-plus Copper Canyon ultramarathon after violence near the course.
The annual race was founded by ultramarathon competitor Micah True, who lived among the Raramuri, was inspired by their running prowess and wanted to benefit them while highlighting their culture. It was held successfully in March this year.
“Most people had a really good experience,” said Gingrich.. “But well, there were people on the streets that were, you know, pretty questionable. I mean, there was definitely a heavy narco presence… The community benefits from (the race) but there’s potential there that something could go wrong.”
WHY WERE THE PRIESTS THERE?
The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are known, has a long history of defending Indigenous peoples, and longstanding ties to the Sierra Tarahumara. The Jesuits started missions among the Raramuri in the 1600s but were expelled from all Spanish territories in 1767, in part because colonists complained the missions were depriving them of Indigenous labor. They returned around 1900. The Jesuits carry out educational, health and economic projects and have a seminary there. The two murdered priests were well-regarded among the Raramuri, learning their language and customs.
WILL THIS REFLECT ON PRESIDENT ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR?
López Obrador has declared his government is no longer focused on detaining drug cartel leaders, and has often appeared to tolerate the gangs, even praising them at one point for not interfering in elections. The killings and other outbursts of violence come at an uncomfortable time for López Obrador.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, said last year that “transnational criminal organizations … are operating oftentimes in ungoverned areas, 30 to 35% of Mexico.” Hope calls that number “made up,” but says the government faces “a real problem of territorial control.”
In June, the U.S. Congressional Research Office released a report saying that López Obrador “has advocated policies that focus on the root causes of crime, but his government has not carried out counternarcotics operations consistently… More than halfway through López Obrador’s six-year term, he arguably has achieved few of his anticorruption and criminal justice aims.”
Mark Stevenson, The Associated Press
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