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Tainted Church cash rocks Mexico

When a Mexican bishop told reporters recently that drug traffickers often donate to the Catholic Church, shock waves ran through this predominantly Catholic nation, not because the news was a surprise, but because admitting it was tantamount to confessing that nothing is sacred -- not even God -- when it comes to organized crime in Mexico.

Provoking the uproar were declarations by Bishop Ramon Godinez of the central state of Aguascalientes, who remarked earlier this month that donations from drug traffickers are not unusual, but that it was not the Church's responsibility to investigate. He argued that the money is "purified" once it passes through the parish doors.

"Just because the origin of the money is bad doesn't mean you have to burn it," Godinez said. "Instead, you have to transform it ... We live on this, on the offerings of the faithful."

Organized crime, especially drug trafficking, and the threat it poses to public safety, are among the issues Mexicans rank highest among their concerns. And it's not just the criminals they worry about. They also don't trust the public agencies responsible for tackling crime -- prosecutors, police, the judicial system and politicians -- all of which have been corrupted, or are perceived to have been corrupted, to some degree.

The church, on the other hand, is the one institution that is still held in high esteem.

"Of all the institutions in Mexico, the church is ranked No. 1 in terms of people's confidence," said Roderic Ai Camp, an expert on Mexican religion at Claremont-McKenna College in California. It is "the one institution they find morally superior and basically honest and serving the interests of the average Mexican."

That trust holds steady even though it is common knowledge among the people that "many towns and chapels in Mexico have been remodeled and restored thanks to the generous contributions of people who work in drug trafficking," Mexican religion expert Roberto Blancarte wrote in the Milenio newspaper.

Especially in poor, outlying rural areas, drug traffickers have become a species of "Robin Hood," Blancarte said.

"It's not official, but it's probably fairly accepted," Camp added. "But you don't want to legitimize it ... because it's such a contradiction to the church's whole philosophy. People are looking to the church for moral leadership."

Godinez's admission once again has drawn into the center of controversy one of Mexico's most prominent, revered -- and criticized -- institutions.

For more than 300 years after the Spanish conquest of 1521, the Catholic Church was at the heart of Mexican power socially, politically and economically. Although the mid-19th century Laws of the Reform put an end to that dominance, the country has remained -- at least nominally -- 90 percent Catholic in the more than 140 years since.

"There are many ... who want to scare us with the idea" that the Church once again could become an all-powerful presence, said Jaime Septien Crespo, editor of the Catholic Observador weekly newspaper, in the central state of Queretaro.

"There is an interest in discrediting this presence, so when a minister of the church says something clumsy, he becomes an easy target," he said.
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