Mexico renews debate on church taking drug cash

Catholic priest tells his flock traffickers put pesos in the plate

By ANDREW DOWNIE
Copyright 1997 Special to the Chronicle

MEXICO CITY Like many of the recent scandals in Mexico, it started
when a member of the establishment spoke out of turn.

Roman Catholic priest Raul Soto Vazquez told an astonished congregation
that all drug traffickers were not bad and that many had given donations
to the church. The comments set off a fierce debate in Mexico over the
church's relations with the country's staunchly Catholic drug
traffickers.

The revelations that two of Mexico's most notorious drug traffickers,
the jailed Rafael Caro Quintero and the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, had
put pesos in the collection plate has become big news in Mexico.

"People with little saving graces such as Caro Quintero how good it
would be if we gave so generously," Soto said last week. "And Amado
Carrillo, who sometimes gave money for great projects. People don't care
that he was a drug trafficker."

The comments provoked a storm of criticism from government officials and
church leaders and reopened a dormant debate over the degree to which
the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico knows about and condones trafficking
and traffickers.

Some experts believe the practice is common in areas where drug
traffickers have an established presence and that the church has simply
never acknowledged the problem.

"The Catholic church all over the world has a history of covering things
up," said Soledad Loaeza, an expert on churchstate relations at the
Colegio de Mexico.

"It's not surprising that this has never been spoken about," he said.
"People do not speak up about shameful matters."

The scandal has deeply embarrassed Catholic leaders in Mexico and brings
back painful memories of a few years ago when it was revealed that two
of the notorious Arellano Felix brothers who run the Tijuana drug cartel
met with the papal nuncio the Vatican envoy at his residence in
Mexico City.

The nuncio, Giralome Prigione, heard what he called a confession from
Benjamin and Ramon Arellano and agreed to pass on a message to the pope.

The two men had gone to the capital to express their innocence of the
May 1993 killing of Juan Jesus Posadas, the Guadalajara cardinal who was
brutally and, according to the government, mistakenly murdered during a
shootout between two groups of drug traffickers, one of which was made
up of members of the Tijuana cartel.

The priest who arranged the meeting with the papal nuncio was widely
held to be a confidante of the Arellanos, and the Mexican media has
reported other examples of priests who were on good terms with
traffickers.

But there are few concrete examples of those priests receiving money or
other help for their parishes. Unlike in Colombia, where top traffickers
built schools, soccer fields and even housing for the poor, in Mexico,
dealers are not renowned for their largess, partly because such deeds go
unsaid in Mexico and partly because there are not that many of them.

In one of the most publicized cases, the local priest in Carrillo's
hometown of El Guamuchilito acknowledged that the drug baron paid for
the pastelcolored chapel that sits incongruously among the dirtpoor
hamlet's cement and wood shacks.

Although the church was built several years ago, it was only after
Carrillo died in July that the federal attorney general's office opened
an investigation. And it is only now, thanks to Soto, that the debate
over what are being dubbed narcolimosnas, or drug donations, has become
public.

Loaeza said both sides have remained mum because, as in many Catholic
countries, the government and church have an unwritten agreement to
refrain from meddling in each other's problems.

For the moment at least, that agreement seems to be holding. Federal
Attorney General Jorge Madrazo said his office is not investigating the
narcolimosnas.

Church leaders, meanwhile, said that they do not have the resources to
launch an internal inquiry and are adamant that they have no way of
knowing who is donating what to their parish and even less idea of where
the money comes from.

"It is not possible (to ask) where did that 10 pesos that you are
putting in the collection plate come from," said Onesimo Cepeda, bishop
of Ecatepec.

Andrew Downie is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City.