DRUG GANGS GENEROUS CHURCH PATRONS, BISHOP SAYS

MEXICO CITY - Violent drug gangs in Mexico, which kill thousands of
people a year, fund the building of churches in impoverished villages
to try to win over locals, a senior Catholic bishop said.

"They are very generous," Bishop Carlos Aguiar was quoted as saying in
a local newspaper Saturday.

Aguiar, who heads Mexico's Catholic bishops' conference, said drug
traffickers pour money into poverty-stricken towns where the
government lacks funds to build roads or provide electricity.

"The drug smugglers build things that mean a lot for these
communities," he said. "Many times they will build a church or a chapel."

Aguiar said the Church does not condone drug trafficking and tries to
use its influence to get gangsters to leave the trade. "I'm not
justifying it, I'm just saying how it is," he said.

More than 2,500 people died in Mexico last year in a war between rival
cartels for control of smuggling routes to the United States. Cartel
hitmen often torture, suffocate or behead rivals.

Aguiar did not say if the drug gangs directly gave money to the Church
for building or if it supported construction in other ways.

Church officials could not be reached for comment on Aguiar's
statements.

The apparently cordial relations between gangsters and clergy, at
least in small towns, stands in stark contrast to President Felipe
Calderon's aggressive anti-drug war.