are tired Roman Catholic bishop who was famous for trying to intervene drug cartels in mexico The Mexican Council of Bishops said Monday that she had apparently been kidnapped, but was later located and taken to a hospital.
Church leadership in Mexico earlier said in a statement that Msgr. Salvador Rangel, a bishop emeritus, disappeared on Saturday and called on his captors to release him.
Catholic bishops in Mexico host peace talks with drug cartel leaders
But the council later said he “has been located and is in hospital,” without saying how he was found or released.
Earlier, the council had said Rangel was in ill health and urged his captors to allow him to take his medications as an “act of humanity.”
Rangel was bishop of the notoriously violent Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa in the southern state of Guerrero, where drug cartels have been waging war for years. In a later effort supported by the government, Rangel tried to convince gang leaders to stop the bloodshed and reach a compromise.
Rangel was apparently kidnapped Morelos State, just north of Guerrero. Bishop’s statement reflects the very fine and dangerous line that prelates have to walk in cartel-dominated areas of Mexico, in order to avoid drug capos who can end their lives on a whim, in an instant. Are.
A retired Roman Catholic bishop, famous for trying to mediate between drug cartels in Mexico, was apparently kidnapped but was later found and taken to hospital. (Fox News)
“In view of her poor health, we strongly but respectfully urge those who held Ms. Rangel to release her as an act of humanity as appropriate and in a timely manner,” the Council of Bishops wrote before her. To be allowed to take medicines.” met.
It was unclear who might have kidnapped Rangel. Ultra-violent drug gangs known as the Talcos, Ardilos and Familia Michoacana operate in the region. No one immediately took responsibility for the crime.
Had Rangel been harmed, it would have been the most sensational crime against a senior Church official since 1993, when drug cartel gunmen killed Bishop Juan Posadas Ocampo, apparently during a shootout in Guadalajara. It was a case of mistaken identity. airport.
Prosecutors in Guerrero state confirmed the kidnapping but gave no further details, saying only that they were ready to cooperate with their counterparts in Morelos. Like Guerrero, Morelos has been affected by violence, killings and kidnappings over the years.
In a statement, Rangel’s old bishop wrote that he is “much loved and respected in our diocese.”
In February, other bishops announced that they had helped arrange a ceasefire between two warring drug cartels in Guerrero.
The Rev. Jose Filiberto Velazquez, who had knowledge of the February talks but did not participate in them, said the talks included leaders of the Familia Michoacana cartel and the Tlacos gang, also known as the Cartel of the Mountain.
The bishop and priest try to get the cartel to talk to each other in hopes of reducing the bloody field fighting. The underlying assumption is that cartels will divide up the territories where they charge extortion fees and smuggle drugs, without any killing.
Earlier, the current bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, José de Jesús González Hernández, said he and three other bishops in the state had spoken with cartel bosses to negotiate a peace deal in an isolated region.
Hernandez said at the time that those negotiations failed because drug gangs did not want to stop fighting over territory in the Pacific coast state. Those turf battles have shut down transportation in at least two cities and led to dozens of killings in recent months.
“They asked for a cease-fire, but with conditions,” González Hernández said of talks held a few weeks ago about dividing territories. “But these conditions were not acceptable to one of the participants.”
In February, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he approved of such talks.
López Obrador said, “Priests and pastors and members of all the churches have participated, helping to calm the country. I think it’s great.”
Critics say the negotiations reveal the extent to which the government’s policy of not confronting the cartels has left average citizens to work out their own separate peace accords with the gangs.
A parish priest whose town in Michoacan state has been dominated by one cartel for years said in February that the negotiations were “an implicit recognition that they (the government) cannot provide safe conditions.”
The priest, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said, “Undoubtedly, we have to talk to some people, above all when it comes to people’s safety, but that does not mean that we agree with it.” Are.”
For example, he said, local residents have asked him to ask cartel bosses about the fate of missing relatives. This is a role that the Church does not like.
“If the government had done its job properly, we would not have had to do this,” Pujari said.
In February, Rangel told the Associated Press that cease-fires between gangs often do not last long.
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“They are somewhat fragile, because in the world of drug traffickers, broken agreements and betrayals happen very easily,” Rangel said at the time.
Priests are widely respected in Mexico but they are by no means safe.
In 2023, a Roman Catholic priest was murdered in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. The church’s Catholic Multimedia Center said he was the ninth priest killed in the country in the past four years.
