A gang of armed men kills two Jesuits inside a church in Mexico

Inside the Temple of the Mission, from the 19th century, the two Jesuit priests, Javier Campos Morales, 78, and Joaquín Mora, 80, were shot dead.

A gang of armed men kills two Jesuits inside a church in Mexico

Inside the Temple of the Mission, from the 19th century, the two Jesuit priests, Javier Campos Morales, 78, and Joaquín Mora, 80, were shot dead. Both carried out missions in Cerocahui, in the Sierra de Taraumara of the state of Chihuahua, northwestern Mexico. "They took in a person identified by the narco and ended up in a fight," a missionary priest tells us when asked by this means. According to the State Prosecutor's Office, Pedro Palma also died, to whom the two priests generously gave shelter despite being aware of what they were exposing themselves to: certain death. It seems that the murdered Jesuit fathers approached when they began to hear the bullets, while Palma accessed the temple in search of a desperate shelter.

One of the Jesuit priests helped him while the other tried to calm the hit man who ended up shooting these two men of peace in cold blood.

In addition, "they took the bodies and they cannot give them a Christian burial" they say from the funerals celebrated in the Jesuit community. Toño Gallardo de Morales, priest Javier's first cousin, describes his relative for ABC as an exceptionally good man who he assures would have professed the famous verses 23 and 34 of Saint Luke: "Father, forgive them, because they don't know what they do" . "He transmitted that infinite love to us, he continues to live in all of us," confesses Margarita Morales, another first cousin of the disappeared. One of the Jesuit's brothers transferred the family that was carrying out his mission and died fulfilling it. He was never afraid even though he suffered from heart problems and wanted to return to the Sierra Taraumara, despite the fact that he was offered to retire in another more comfortable and accessible place. All the testimonies we collected coincide in showing us that they were deeply committed to the community and to the missions they had been given. We are left with the conclusion of those close to him: «Heaven will be deeply dazzled and full of joy with his presence».

Father Luis Gerardo Moro Madrid, provincial of the Society of Jesus in Mexico, who attends ABC confessing with regret that human life "does not have a cost, it is not worth it" in the face of the escalation of murders that Mexico is experiencing. This priest expresses emphatically that "we have to demand from the authorities the responsibility of fulfilling their duty." To our questions, the ecclesiastical figure also calls on society to "create strategies to stop this whole problem that is getting out of hand." He informs us that the figures on death reach the ears of the people "and nothing happens." "People can organize and demand from the authorities" and he highlights the missionaries who "are to a certain extent abandoned with great fidelity since despite being threatened they continue in their mission". The Mexican Jesuit community affirms to this newspaper the condemnation of the violent acts, they demand justice, the recovery of the bodies extracted from the temple by armed assassins and they ask that the security of the community of Chihuahua be guaranteed.

The escalation of violence on Mesoamerican soil no longer respects the majority belief in the sister nation, where one hundred million Catholics profess Catholicism, which positions Mexico as the second country in the world with the most practitioners, surpassed only by Brazil and followed by From philippines. But, the shootings, murders and kidnappings continue to increase in an inexplicable routine of terror. As confirmed by the tour guide and the four tourists, including a minor, who hours before the murder of the Jesuits and in broad daylight, were kidnapped from a hotel by the same assailants in the small and battered Cerocahui. Catholics in Mexico only have the unassailable mercy: "Bless those who persecute us," read a fragment of the Letter to the Corinthians from the mass of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the vigils for the fallen Jesuits during their fundamental mission.

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