LAT: In Mexico's Guerrero state, priests are a prime target for drug gangs

[MisterP]

In the last three years, 11 priests have been violently killed in Mexico, and two more remain missing. Last week, the body of Father Erasto Pliego de Jesus, which bore signs of torture, was found on a country road in Puebla state. He had been missing for three days, according to local news reports, after he was seized by a group of armed men who stopped his truck.

Violence against Catholic priests has been on the rise since President Enrique Peña Nieto took power in 2012, according to Mexico's archdiocese. Omar Sotelo, who works for the Catholic Multimedia Center, said that the jump in violence is "significant" and that priests working in Guerrero state are among the most vulnerable.
...
In Mexico, Catholic priests are among the most outspoken advocates of human rights, especially when it comes to the Central American migrants headed north to the United States. Father Alejandro Solalinde in Oaxaca and Father Pedro Pantoja in Saltillo are deeply involved in the defense of migrants, who are a key source of income for corrupt officials and organized-crime gangs, who kidnap them and extort money from them. Both priests have received death threats.
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"I got caught in the crossfire, but fortunately I escaped unharmed but very frightened — I thought I was going to die," he said. "People have so much ambition, so much hate, so much disregard for life."

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-priests-20151129-story.html

the PRI is what Graham Greene wrote about and nicknamed the "cartel party" when the cameras are off; it started as a technocratic party but as famine, corruption, and disease persisted the mask came off and the emptiness of technocracy's power was revealed

[Judi Lynn]

1. Overwhelming ignorance here, on my part. Had no idea the Catholic Church had ever been persecuted

in Mexico. Never, never knew.

Have to thank you for this explosion of information, needed it in a hurry. Never would have guessed.

This information bomb should blast all us W.A.S.P.'S or former WASPs out of our torpor, and encourage us to get busy, and make up for lost time. It is horrific learning all this, too, has been happening so close to our own homes, actually. We were kept in the dark about it, as ignorance works to make people more manageable.

I'll re-read your information again during the day to make sure I grasped it.

What a shame this is going on now. It's another reason Pena Nieto needs to get out, or be shown the door as soon as possible. He has been good for no one other than his wealthy, and empty, and disgusting friends.

[MisterP]

2. they declared war on the Church (and the Klan sent money)

while Boston and NYC backed the not-really-oppressed-peasant rebels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War#United_States_involvement

when the Catholic Church gets particularly reactionary it's because it had been banned from operating for a century (or butchered in the hundreds)--Ireland, Quebec, Iberia; 1910s Argentina's a special case; the French Church stayed "just conservative" and then résistant, and the Colombians saw a lot of Communist rebels