Bishops ask violence-hit Mexico to vote for common good

Church leaders in Mexico have accelerated efforts to promote cleaner candidates in the upcoming elections amid continuing violence between gangs vying for influence in the Catholic-majority country.

The Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM) has asked citizens to go to the poles on June 6 and cast their ballast for candidates who promote the common good.

The midterm election is being billed as the largest in the country’s history.

"Today, more than ever, the common good demands more action than words," the bishops said in a May 6 statement.

It was issued after the first of three meetings they have planned to prepare the voters.

Mexicans must "show discernment with the goal of opting for the people who can bring about the authentic common good”, the bishops said.

The meetings are being held on three consecutive Thursdays.

Called “elections under the gaze of faith”, the sessions are being led by Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City.

"It seems that the sense of exercising politics as service has changed. There's a struggle for power, a power that brings unjustifiable enrichment,” Bishop Cristóbal Ascencio García of Apatzingán said during the May 6 meeting.

The bishops have decided not to “proselytize for or against any candidate” in the polls.

The decision was in line with an April 26 governmental direction that warned religious associations against intervening in partisan politics.

The government asked religious associations “not to incur in propaganda or political proselytism, whether in favor or against candidates, partisan ideologies or political parties.”

However, the archdiocese of Mexico City later released a statement defending its rights to speak out on public issues in the country of 127 million people, 80 percent of whom are Catholics.

Some 90 million voters are set to elect more than 2,400 representatives to the local, state and national governments. They include 15 governors.

The election comes after a period of unprecedented violence.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Mexico since the government deployed the army in 2006 to fight drug trafficking. Authorities say most of the killings are related to inter-gang rivalry.

Since April the country has witnessed escalated violence as rival criminal gangs clashed to further their interests in the polls.

A string of political assassinations and violence, particularly in the western state of Michoacán, forced at least 1,000 people to flee the area, media reports said.

"These elections have shown a desire for power at all costs," Bishop Ascencio said during the May 6 meeting.

His diocese is hit by drug cartel violence. It was highlighted by Archbishop Franco Coppola, apostolic nuncio to Mexico, during a recent visit to the besieged town of Aguililla in the diocese.

Some of the people in the diocese who are running for public office, including a mayoral candidate in Michoacán, are on the wanted list of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"What's not seen is that power is not in the hands of legitimate rulers," Bishop Ascencio said.

"Power in many places is held by organized crime syndicates. It seems like the political sector is at the service of organized crime," he noted.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is hoping for a landslide victory in the lower house of Congress to consolidate his position further.

Opinion polls show his party has a comfortable lead because of the president’s popularity and a lingering voter apathy towards the opposition parties.

The 67-year-old Obrador, who is commonly called AMLO, came to power in December 2018 promising to curb crimes and increase economic growth.

But his first two years in office saw more homicides than ever before. The country’s economy also shrunk.

Obrador wrote a two-page open letter to Pope Francis last October asking for an apology for the Church’s role in the Spanish conquests 500 years ago.

“The Catholic Church, the Spanish monarchy and the Mexican government should make a public apology for the offensive atrocities that Indigenous people suffered,” he said.

The ties between the Mexican Church and the government have been delicate and shaky.