Body of Catholic Priest Found in Southern Mexico on Christmas Day
The body of a kidnapped Roman Catholic priest with a gunshot wound to his head was found in the drug cartels-dominated state of Guerrero on Christmas Day, his diocese said Friday. This is the third murder of a Catholic clergy in that state this year.
The body of Rev. Gregorio Lopez Gorostieta was found near his seminary on the outskirts of Ciudad Altamirano. He was supposedly kidnapped by a local drug gang Monday, and his truck was found abandoned two days later.
"This is another priest added to those who have died for their love of Christ," The Associated Post quoted Bishop Maximino Martinez as saying. "Enough already of so much pain, of so many murders. Enough already of so much crime. Enough extortions."
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The bishop also said that a group had been seen around the seminary before the priest disappeared.
While the motive behind the murders is not known, priests in the past have received threats for refusing to perform marriages or baptisms for drug gang members.
"At times, if they ask for a baptism and you don't do it, they start to threaten you," Martinez explained.
Last month, the body of a Ugandan priest, Father John Ssenyondo, was found in a secret grave in a nearby Guerrero diocese.
In September, the body of the Rev. Ascension Acuna Osorio was found floating in the Balsas river near his parish of San Miguel Totolapan not far from Ciudad Altamirano.
The latest killing comes about three months after the disappearance of 43 student teachers, six of whom died after an encounter with police, in Iguala city in the same state.
City's Mayor José Luis Abarca was charged with six counts of aggravated homicide and one count of attempted homicide last month.
Abarca allegedly ordered the police to attack the students on the night of Sept. 26 because he feared they were going to disrupt an event meant to promote an attempt by his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, to replace him as mayor in 2015.
The kidnappings were allegedly carried out by police officers who turned the students, who were from a radical teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel.
Mexican citizens have been expressing their increasing frustration with government corruption and inability to deal with the country's large problem of criminal gangs since the Iguala city incident.
