The Catholic Priesthood: Mexico's Unexpected Dangerous Profession Monica Campbell - PRI's The World
go to original December 8, 2015

Father Oscar Prudenciano González at the San Gerardo church in the small city of Iguala, in Guerrero, one of Mexico's most violent states. (Deborah Bonello)

Father Oscar Prudenciano González begins his Sunday mass with a blessing that’d be out of place in most parts of the world. It’s a prayer for the 20 or so people gathered at the front of the church. They’re young and old, mothers, sister and dads. Many hold machetes and wear hiking boots.

Father Oscar says that today these people will go dig in the hills searching for relatives who’ve disappeared. Pray for them.

He says he must offer his support. “They asked me to talk about their searches,” Father Oscar says. That way, he says, others will be less afraid to come out and look for their relatives too.

But this simple blessing comes with a risk. We are in Guerrero, Mexico’s most violent state — riddled with drug crime. And Father Oscar’s church is in the small city of Iguala, where 43 students vanished last year. Like the families of those students, the people here today are searching for missing relatives too.

Father Oscar, 43, knows his blessing — and public solidarity with these families — can put him in conflict with criminals. “Fear, we’ve always had that. But the needs of these people to find their loved ones, that is bigger than fear,” he says.

But the threats against priests in Mexico are real. Eleven have been killed here since 2012, making Mexico the most dangerous place for Catholic priests in the world, according to the Mexico City-based Catholic Multimedia Center (CMC).

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