Michoacan News: Catholic Priests Support Vigilantes In Cartel War

Vigilante groups in the Mexican state of Michoacan have found an unlikely ally in their fight against the powerful drug cartels overrunning the country: the State's Catholic clergy. In the embattled state, Catholic priests are openly backing the vigilante groups in both word and deed. Some priests are allowing the self-defense groups to ring church bells to summon citizens to meetings, while others use their pulpits to attack local and state officials as well as voicing their support for the community groups.

Bishop Miguel Patino Velazquez of Apatzingan has written an open letter to government officials, calling Michoacan a "failed state" and demanding greater action form government authorities in the fight against cartel groups. "Their leaders are fully identified and yet no authority stops them," the letter says. "We ask politicians, the government and the Interior Secretariat to give people of our region clear signals that in reality they want to halt the ‘killing machine," Patino writes.

Michoacan has become a center of violence as powerful cartel the Knights Templar has fought for control with the New Generation Jalisco cartel, leading to public executions, attacks on energy stations as well as kidnappings and murders of citizens. Residents complain that corruption endemic in government authorities has resulted in little being done to stem the violence, leading citizens to form vigilante groups in February of last year to combat the powerful cartels.

Local priests have come out to publicly support the community self-defense groups. "We are fed up,” said the Rev. Andres Larios Chavez, a parish priest in Coalcoman, who spoke with McClatchyDC. “St. Thomas Aquinas talked about the just war, and one criteria is self-defense.” While vigilante groups are acting outside the law, many fear that without them the state would fall under cartel control entirely. In 11 months, the self-defense brigades have taken control of over 15 towns in the state.

Religious leaders in the state also fear the cult-like following attained by many of the cartels. La Familia Michoacana was a powerful cartel that emerged in 2006 and later splintered and became the Knights Templar. The cartel teaches its own version of the bible, authored by La Familia founder Nazario Moreno Gonzalez: "They've created their own sect," Bishop Patino said. "They've put small chapels in all the hamlets. They inaugurated them with drunken parties."

Mexico'ss interior secretary, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, announced the deployment of federal police and troops to Michoacan in order to quell the violence and disarm the vigilante groups, fearing that any attempt to dislodge the cartel would lead to an all-out bloodbath. Federal police have assumed security control of 20 townships, often through fierce fighting with local vigilantes. However, religious leaders say not enough is being done to oust the cartels which have, it seems, infiltrated society, government and religion.