“gazes far enough, beyond the flow of those persecuted in the Middle East and Africa that flood Europe, in order to see the gravity of the migration crisis of those who cross Mexico from Central America.”Along the routes through which these migrants transit, the Mexican Bishops' Council maintains close to 70 shelters. The majority provide basic assistance (food and shelter for the night), but a few shelters managed by members of religious orders have dared to go beyond basic assistance and put themselves at risk to protect and defend these visitors from the attacks of organized crime and the security forces that collude with them.
They are oases- in Tabasco, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Saltillo- that with frequency mean the difference between life and death for those who are undocumented. “The obligation of the church is to be by their side,” affirmed Brother Tomás González.
Three priests that form part of this humanitarian chain- Pedro Pantoja in Saltillo, Tomás González in Tenosique [Tabasco] and Alejandro Solalinde in Ixtepec, [Oaxaca], agree that their labor progresses without support from the Catholic Church, that has turned its back on them. The three priests were interviewed by La Jornada.
The organizers of Pope Francis’ tour have done a good job in keeping them as far away as possible from the acts that the head of the Vatican will participate in, especially in Juarez City [Chihuahua], where a central message about migration is being predicted.
Pedro Pantoja believes that the pontiff will not allow the unprecedented tragedy of the migrants in Europe to eclipse the extreme gravity of the floods of people from Central America towards the North.
“We know that he is bringing a very important proposal, that perhaps it won’t please those who govern very much, but it will definitely be a great light for us, the defenders.”Brother Tomás values the commitment of Francis regarding the problem of transmigration. He remembers that a few months after having been elected in Rome, the new Pope traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa to make visible the tragedy of those who were drowning in the Mediterranean.
“The following year we wanted to make a replica of this pastoral message and we went to El Ceibo, on the border with Guatemala, to shed light on the kidnappings, extortions, and persecutions that the migrants are suffering. The bishop of Tabasco, Gerardo Rojas, accompanied us. But the authorities kicked us out of there, along with the bishop. Two days later we received a message of encouragement from the Holy Father”.In turn, Solalinde considers: “The problem is not with Francis, but with those who are managing the visit”. In order to avoid a confrontation within the clergy, the director of the shelter Brothers on the Way in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, assures that the network of shelters will not make a pronouncement or public act. “So they can’t label us as protagonists or opportunists”.
Pantoja admits, "Our superiors are lukewarm, not very sensitive”. A priest from working class origins, he was a migrant during his youth, a grape harvester, and an activist in the battle of César Chávez in California during the 60s.
The Pastorate for Human Mobility is the area in the Catholic hierarchy that attends to the theme of migration. Presently, the bishop of Cuautitlán, Guillermo Ortiz Mondragón, directs it, a clergyman who is very close to the Atlacomulco Group [of PRI politicians including Peña Nieto, from this city in the state of Mexico].
Solalinde says:
“They put Bishop Ortiz there to get us religious people off their back, those of us warning about the way in which organized crime and the authorities were looking at the migration flood, as though it were one big business to exploit. The first thing he did was marginalize the prophetic church. With the previous person responsible, Bishop Rafael Romo, we had managed to put together a team. We went from being helpers to defenders and activists for human rights”.In 2009, Pantoja sent a report to former president Felipe Calderón.
“We showed him that in just one year close to 80 thousand migrants were extorted, which generated an earning of millions of dollars for organized crime at the cost of hundreds of murders and disappearances. We also alerted him that in this activity there was a lot of complicity with security forces. Nothing was done.”Months later, August 24th, 2010, came the massacre of 72 people from a convoy of migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, a zone rigorously watched by the military and federal police. Events continued to show that the warnings from the priests were real: in 2011 a second massacre occurred; at least 193 bodies in the clandestine pits in the same region. In 2012, in Cadereyta [Nuevo Leon], 49 dismembered torsos of Hondurian migrants.
After the replacement of Romo by Ortiz Mondragón, a prelate that had made himself known in his diocese for closing down shelters that were vital for the help of the migrants in their way thought the State of Mexico, an underground management began to dismantle the work of the Pastorate.
“And since the bishops are the ones who are in charge, many of the religious people of the shelter network have had to comply. But there are others of us that resist. We cannot nor do we want to be against the Church itself, but we have distanced ourselves from the meetings of Human Mobility in order to avoid friction.”Because of the politics of the Bishops’ Council, many of the shelters most committed to human rights separated themselves from the church structures. Various examples: the much-recognized Patronas of Amatlán de los Reyes, Veracruz [winners of the 2013 National Human Rights Award]; the shelter of Apaxco, in Hidalgo, that calls itself ecumenical; a lay shelter in Nayarit, The Train of Dreams. In Huixtla, Chiapas, Father Heyman Vázquez has tried to open a shelter, but the bishop of Tapachula has not authorized it. Spanish original