Communism is ‘imminent’ in Mexico, bishop says

Cristóbal Ascencio García, the bishop of Apatzingán in the Mexican state of Michoacán, asked the Catholic faithful to pray “that a Mexico [living] in freedom and a Mexico capable of showing its faith and love may not be lost.” / Credit: National Basilica of St. Mary of Guadalupe

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 12, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Cristóbal Ascencio García, the bishop of Apatzingán in the Mexican state of Michoacán, said that with the victory of presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum and her left-wing party MORENA in the June 2 elections, the arrival of communism to Mexico is “imminent.” 

In a Mass celebrated on June 30, a month after the elections, the prelate thanked those who remain in prayer for Mexico and pray “in face of the imminent arrival of communism.”

The prelate said “it’s becoming increasingly clear” that the electoral process that led to Sheinbaum’s victory “was an election [orchestrated by] the state, with as many irregularities as had ever been seen.”

Sheinbaum, the candidate of the Let’s Continue Making History political coalition comprised of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), the Labor Party (PT), and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM), was the winner of the presidential election and will take office on Oct. 1 of this year.

MORENA and its allied parties will also govern 23 of the country’s 32 states and will have a majority of the seats in the Congress of the Union, Mexico’s federal bicameral legislative body.

Given the electoral backdrop, Ascencio called on the Catholic community to remain firm in the faith: “What I congratulate is the Christians, the Catholics who continue to pray with the rosary and inviting people to pray the rosary before the arrival of communism.”

The bishop of Apatzingán, a diocese that is located in an area hard hit by the violence of organized crime, explained that communism is “an atheistic ideology that diminishes freedoms, especially freedom of conscience and religious freedom.”

In addition, he asked the Catholic faithful to pray “that a Mexico [living] in freedom and a Mexico capable of showing its faith and love may not be lost.”

During the six-year term of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — founder of MORENA — with initiatives promoted mainly by his party, abortion has been decriminalized up to 12 weeks of gestation in the states of Oaxaca, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Baja California, Colima, Guerrero, Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo, and Aguascalientes. In Sinaloa, abortion was decriminalized up to 13 weeks of pregnancy.

On May 17, 2019, five months after taking office, López Obrador instituted what he called “the national day to fight homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, and biphobia” in Mexico.

In May 2020, López Obrador’s then-secretary of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, encouraged the legal recognition of “the name and gender” of a child or adolescent who identifies as “trans.”

During these six years, using its social media, the Mexican government and its departments have celebrated the so-called gay “pride” month of June.

‘Irregularities’ in the elections

Ascencio said that there were “irregularities, votes sold, bought,” in low-income areas of the country.

“Here in Apatzingán I realized that [they bought] each vote for 1,000 or 1,500 pesos [about $56 to $84], but later speaking at a meeting I had in Morelia [the capital of the state of Michoacán], bishops from throughout Mexico, in some parts of the southeast of the country [they bought] a vote for 5,000 pesos [about $280].”

For the prelate, the elections should have been annulled due to “so many irregularities that have never been seen before.”

The bishop denounced the coercion exerted by organized crime to obtain votes in favor of certain political parties. “We just have to open our eyes,” he said, calling on the community to be aware of the problems that affected the integrity of the democratic process.

According to official figures from the National Electoral Institute, during the June 2 election day, 5,089 incidents of irregularities were reported throughout the country, most of them minor, such as cases of people who tried to vote without a voter registration card. However, 29 polling stations had to be closed due to robberies, gun violence, and ballots being burned, among other factors.

‘Do you have faith? Then the Lord needs you’

Recognizing the violence that exists in the country, but especially in the Diocese of Apatzingán, Ascencio pointed out that the Catholic Church should not only be a place of mourning. “Jesus did not come to found a funeral home to receive the dead but to care for them; it’s a work of mercy,” he said.

The prelate pointed out that “our faith is not, nor should it be, a garment that is utilized when we die, when we wear black [as a sign of] mourning,” and encouraged Catholics to “have faith so that our hopes are replete with the mercy of God.”

The bishop also urged the community to persevere in noble causes such as peace, security, and freedom in Mexico.

“From our faith, let us fight with all our soul so that the world around us stops being a flow of injustice, a constant flow of blood and disenchantment. Do you have faith? Then the Lord needs you,” Ascencio emphasized.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.