In US politics, where elections are held on the first Tuesday in November, there is always talk of the October Surprise… unexpected events not necessarily even related to the on-going campaigns, but possibly effecting whatever the voters will decide at the ballot box. Here, election day is the first Sunday in June (25 days from today)… we’re in for the May surprises.
Although the PEMEX insurance scandal (see the post below) has obvious relevance to the various campaign proposals (how to fight“corruption”, and whether PEMEX needs further outside control, or more closely integrated into the state apparatus), the odd stry of Bishop Menendez Rangel’s “disappearance” calls into question how crime is being investigated, the role of the Catholic Church in dealing with the criminal orgazatnions, and… for that matter, how much political weight the Catholic Church has, or should be tolerated.
The 78 year old Sergio Menendez Rangel — emeritus bishop (that is, retired but still holing his title) of the Diocese of Chilpancingo — has been a controversial figure for his well-publicized attempts to, if not prevent violence in his troubled crime-ridden region, at least ameliorate the harm. His willingness to “dialogue” with gangsters, and his support for legalizing the narcotics trade to some extent (in his rural, mountain backwater diocese, farmers grow opium poppies and marijuana for the simple reason they need a salable crop).
Not quite “hugs not drugs”… as US media misinterprets the well know AMLO formula abrazos no balazos (which I take to mean providing assistance and support by the state for persons who otherwise would turn to crime as an alternative means of support), it does undermine other state initiatives to “stamp out” gangsterism, and whether just exhorting criminals to stop targeting peasants, or keep them out of the cross-fire when the gangs go to war with each other is a policy the Catholic Church should undertake is a political question in a country where religion and specifically Catholicism does influence voting and public policy.
The Bishop has been known to go on “secret missions” of one sort or another before, which makes the almost immediate claim that he’d been reported kidnapped following a note posted by the Mexican Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops on 29 April that the bishop had gone missing. He reappeared, and was in need of hospitalization when he was found two days later — reportedly in in a “Motel de Paso” with cocaine in his system (allegedly) and a couple viagra pills at the scene. And another, unidentified male. The Red Cross claims the Bishop walked into the hospital on his own. And he is rather frail 78 years old, not exactly party-animal material.
Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, in his excellent story for Los Angelés Press (“The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week of the Church in Mexico”)1, suggests the Bishop was not a willing participant in whatever happened— as many might hope (or would at least satisfy our taste for schadenfreude) that the old boy had gone off the reservation and was just another of those “holy men” with a wild side — but possibly the victim of a state crime. Or, of elements with the government that seek to undermine the Bishops’ initiatives in the region (apparently backed by the Pope) or at least the military protecting its own, or gangsters themselves.
With Menendez Rangel and his methods questioned not just by those within the state who seek a “hard hand” against organized crime, as well as those within the more conservative and traditionalist of the Catholics, as well as the traditional anti-clericalism that has always been a feature of Mexican political discourse (and some nasty wars to boot), in the heat of an election in a state where violence, political and otherwise, has been too much the norm, make whatever happened to the Bishop more than a one-off, but one that matters not just in matters of faith, but at the ballot box.
I disagree with Rodolfo on many things, but he is without a doubt the best writer on Mexican Catholicism available in English. And, if one is going to write about politics or history in Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter, but ignore the impact of popular belief systems (or those of a sizable minority) is negligence.