By David Luhnow

MEXICO CITY, Sept 21 (Reuter) Mexico's Roman Catholic Church, facing
controversy over an official's reported remarks that the church took
donations from top drug traffickers, has condemned the narcotics trade as a
sin.

``The Catholic Church rejects drug trafficking, considering it a scourge on
humanity, and an activity contrary to religious doctrine,'' said a statement
issued by the the archdiocese of Mexico City on Saturday.

The statement followed remarks attributed in newspaper accounts to Church
official Javier Soto, a canonist and highranking member of a Mexican order,
in a homily on Friday at Mexico City's Guadalupe Basilica marking the 12th
anniversary of the city's devastating 1985 earthquake.

According to El Universal newspaper, Soto told his stunned listeners that
drug traffickers such as the jailed Rafael Caro Quintero and late cocaine
capo Amado Carrillo Fuentes had given generously to the church despite being
``sinners.''

``People with as few outstanding qualities as Caro Quintero how good it
would be if we gave as generously as he ... and Amado Carrillo, who sometimes
gave funds for great projects,'' Soto was quoted as saying by El Universal on
Saturday.

Soto also reportedly said Caro Quintero gave some 300,000 pesos almost
$100,000 at the time to the church for help in relief efforts following
the 1985 quake, which claimed tens of thousands of lives.

``There are many others whose names we don't mention but who do good works,
meaning that not all that these people do is bad,'' he was quoted as saying.

The archdiocese's statement did not mention Soto's comments and church
officials were unavailable for further comment on Sunday.

Archbishop Norberto Rivera refused to comment on the allegations, saying they
were based only on printed reports. Newspapers on Sunday said Rivera's
bodyguards scuffled with reporters who were trying to ask the archbishop
about the reported comments.

The allegations posed a new headache for the church, which has said in the
past it cannot be responsible for knowing the origin of all of its donations.

Questions about the church's relationship to wanted drug dealers first arose
in 1993, when Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was shot dead in what
officials said was a case of mistaken identity in a shootout between rival
drug cartels.

Last year, the former papal nuncio to Mexico, Geronimo Prigione, caused an
uproar when he admitted to having met privately with the leaders of one of
those gangs, the Arrellano Felix brothers.