Saltillo, Mexico – Bishop José Raúl Vera López of Mexico has never shied away from controversy, defending unpopular minorities ranging from illegal migrants to prostitutes.
Now, as violence between Mexican drug traffickers and security forces pushes the drug war’s five-year death toll over 45,000, the Roman Catholic bishop is taking on the government. He claims that corrupt officials are allying with criminals to skim drug profits and using the military to murder criminals who might reveal any collusion.
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“The use of the army was the worst mistake of [President Felipe Calderón],” Bishop Vera says in a recent interview at his diocese in Saltillo, set in the desert mountains of northern Mexico. “This strategy is covering the corrupt people in government, the people washing the money. Organized crime is growing. The destruction of the criminals is impossible if you don’t put the justice of the people first.”
It is a stinging rebuke from a cleric in the Catholic church, whose collective stance has been more ambiguous.
The church hierarchy initially remained largely silent on the gore that has thrust Mexico’s drug war into the international spotlight.
While it is now increasingly condemning drug-gang violence and more vocally supporting
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