Two Jesuits murdered defending person in Mexican parish
Jun 21, 2022
by David Agren, Catholic News Service
Mexican Jesuits Fr. Javier Campos Morales and Fr. Joaquín César
Mora Salazar were murdered in their rural parish June 20 while
providing shelter to an individual fleeing a gunman.
(CNS/Courtesy of The Jesuit province in Mexico)
MEXICO CITY — Two Jesuit priests were murdered in a rugged region of Mexico rife with violence as they provided refuge to a person being pursued by a gunman, according to the Society of Jesus and state officials.
Jesuit Frs. Javier Campos Morales and Joaquín César Mora Salazar died defending their parish in the community of Cerocahui in the Copper Canyon of Chihuahua state, which serves the Indigenous Tarahumara population.
The priests had opened the parish to an unidentified person June 20, according to the Jesuits, but an armed individual burst inside and killed that person along with Campos and Mora, according to a statement on social media by Jesuit Fr. Gerardo Moro Madrid, provincial in Mexico.
"We condemn these violent acts and demand justice and the recovery of our brothers' bodies, which were taken from the parish by armed persons," the Jesuits' Mexican province said in a June 21 statement.
More:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/two-jesuits-murdered-defending-person-mexican-parish
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Two Jesuit priests and man seeking sanctuary killed in Mexican church
Incident occurred in violence-plagued remote mountainous region of Chihuahua, which has strong organized crime presence
Associated Press in Mexico City
Tue 21 Jun 2022 14.10 EDT
Two elderly Jesuit priests have been killed inside a church after a man pursued by gunmen apparently sought refuge in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico.
Javier Campos Morales, 79, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80, were killed on Monday inside the church in Cerocahui, Chihuahua.
Violence has plagued the Tarahumara mountains for years. The rugged, pine-clad region is home to the Indigenous group of the same name. Cerocahui is near a point where Chihuahua state meets Sonora and Sinaloa, a major drug-producing region.
. . .
The Tarahumara, who prefer the name Rarámuri, suffered centuries of poverty, exclusion and exploitation, with loggers plundering their forests and drug gangs cultivating marijuana and opium poppies in the mountains.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/21/two-jesuits-priests-killed-mexico-church
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