The Diocese of Tehuacán, located in the Mexican state of Puebla, reported that Bishop Gonzalo Alonso Calzada Guerrero was driving on a highway when he was “assaulted and his vehicle and personal belongings were stolen.” / Credit: Diocese of Teh… […]
Cathedral of Our Lady of Refuge in Matamoros, Mexico (left), and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Reynosa, Mexico, which will be a “co-cathedral.” / Credit: Michael Martin from Cypress, Texas, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Robox91, CC BY-S… […]
ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 18, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The Archdiocese of Puebla in Mexico has announced a series of measures that it will take to combat “the throwaway culture and the culture of death” fol… […]
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… […]
Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.” / Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 5, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA).
Various pro-life, pro-family, and lay leaders of the Catholic Church in Mexico have reacted with concern to the election of Claudia Sheinbaum as president of the country.
Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.”
For the pro-family leader, Sheinbaum represents continuity with the same progressive agenda of the outgoing administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Citing the growing legalization of abortion and use of gender ideology throughout the country, Cortés explained that “the López Obrador regime culminated in a culture of death, of ideology, not only of gender confusion but also of socialist populist indoctrination.”
However, in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” EWTN’s Spanish-language news program, Cortés emphasized that just as people didn’t vote for López Obrador because of his position on abortion, gender ideology, or for freedoms to be canceled, people didn’t vote for Sheinbaum for those same reasons. What happens, he indicated, is that “when they come to power, they implement [that agenda].”
For Juan Dabdoub, president of the Mexican Family Council (ConFamilia), there are “two important factors” that would explain Sheinbaum’s victory in the presidential elections.
The first, he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, is that in Mexico there is “a poor political culture, which makes a large majority of the people manipulable.”
A second factor, Dabdoub noted, is that “Mexican Catholicism has failed in something extremely important that Pope St. John Paul II already pointed out: ‘A faith that does not create culture is a useless faith.’”
In a Jan. 16, 1982, speech, John Paul II said: “A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”
For the president of ConFamilia, “Mexico has stopped being a country of practicing Catholics and has become one of simply baptized people; and when a Catholic doesn’t live his faith in the outside world, that is, outside his home and his parish, those who dominate the world take control.”
Dabdoub considered Sheinbaum’s victory to be “a brutal threat” to the defense of life, family, and freedoms, since she has “a radical progressive agenda.”
‘Formation and serious work are needed’
For Father Hugo Valdemar, who for 15 years headed the communications office of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico when Cardinal Norberto Rivera led the archdiocese, “Catholics must learn that social media are not enough to really influence; serious formation and work are needed, otherwise everything remains up in the air.”
“The big problem is that we haven’t been seriously forming the laity, and nothing is being done to do so,” he told ACI Prensa. However, he noted that with a Sheinbaum administration, “the Church is not in danger. I don’t see an adverse climate, much less persecutory, and Christian values have been violated for a long time.”
What’s next in the battle for life and family?
Pilar Rebollo, director of the Steps for Life platform, pointed out that Sheinbaum’s election “means much more work” for pro-lifers: “It requires us to be united, it requires us to be coordinated,” anticipating possible “frontal attacks on what we know as our values that are foundational.”
Rebollo also emphasized the importance of serving underserved and vulnerable populations, which, she considered, were key to Sheinbaum’s victory. This, she said, must be done “not out of a desire for numbers but zeal for souls, a desire to [heal] wounds, zeal for humanity, to see Christ in others.”
It should be noted that all three candidates for president — Sheinbaum, Xóchitl Gálvez, and Jorge Álvarez Máynez — backed the legalization of abortion and the LGBTQ policy agenda, so Mexican voters had no real alternative to vote for a pro-life and pro-family candidate.
Sheinbaum is the first person of Jewish ancestry to be elected to Mexico’s presidency. In February of this year, she visited Pope Francis at the Vatican, where she asked him to bless a rose wrought in silver by a Mexican artisan. She later presented it to the rector of the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
During her campaign, Sheinbaum was seen wearing a skirt bearing the image of the revered Virgin of Guadalupe. According to Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance, Sheinbaum also wore a rosary around her neck at a public event. He and others suggested that this was an act of demagoguery intended to appeal to Catholics, who comprise approximately 78% of the country’s population.
Sheinbaum, 61, holds a doctorate in physics specializing in energy and taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. Her political militancy began during her student years, joining a group that became the founding youth movement of the socialist Party of Democratic Revolution. She later joined the ruling Morena party. She has been described as a climate activist, having been part of a Nobel Prize-winning commission advising the United Nations on climate change.
Sheinbaum’s tenure as Mexico City mayor was marked by progressive initiatives. For example, the World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab, noted that as mayor she ended public school policy requiring gender-appropriate uniforms for children. Sheinbaum said: “The era when girls had to wear a skirt and boys had to wear trousers has been left behind; I think that’s passed into history,” and added: “Boys can wear skirts if they want and girls can wear pants if they want.”
While she did not raise the issue during her campaign, Sheinbaum’s Morena party is a firm supporter of abortion. The newly-elected congress will be seated in September, one month before Sheinbaum’s inauguration, thus allowing incumbent president López Obrador an opportunity to push through his legislative initiatives.
Poblete told “EWTN News Nightly” that the 2024 election may have led to a Morena majority in Mexico’s Congress, which has vowed to amend the constitution in order for Mexican Supreme Court justices to be elected by popular ballot, thereby confirming partisan control of the heretofore independent judiciary, which would rule on issues such as abortion and matters of gender ideology. He fears that Sheinbaum will govern under the shadow of the current president and his leftist party.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
The cathedral church of Mexico City, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, in the historic center of the city, is seen here on May 29, 2024, during the closing campaign rally of the country’s victorious presidential candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 4, 2024 / 16:22 pm (CNA).
The bishops of Mexico congratulated Claudia Sheinbaum, president-elect of the country, “for her victory at the polls” in the June 2 election.
As of the late afternoon of June 3, the preliminary results tallied by the National Electoral Institute showed Sheinbaum — candidate of the leftist alliance Let’s Keep Making History — with 59.17% of the votes. Her closest competitor, Xóchitl Gálvez — representing the Strength and Heart coalition — had 27.84%, while Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement party had 10.45% of the votes. When the final count is completed, the institute will officially certify the winner.
In a statement posted on X yesterday by the Mexican Bishops’ Conference, the prelates prayed for Sheinbaum so that “with the responsibility and wisdom that the position demands, and always seeking the common good, she may lead Mexico toward better horizons where the republic is strengthened, the rule of law is fully established, democracy allows political transition without violence, progress and justice in the entire nation are achieved more effectively, and, above all, that we may begin a period of social reconciliation in the entire country.”
Besides voting for president, Mexicans elected new federal representatives and senators as well as the governors of nine states, state legislators, and presidents of municipalities.
The bishops also congratulated the Mexican people for “exercising their civil and political rights to strengthen democracy,” noting that this was achieved “despite the obstacles and problems that arose during the electoral process, especially due to criminal violence and some authorities interfering with the law.”
The election campaign was not without violence as 37 local candidates were assassinated. In addition, the National Electoral Institute reported 5,089 incidents throughout the country on election day, most of them minor, such as people trying to vote without a voter registration document. However, 29 polling stations had to be closed due to robberies, gun violence, and ballots being burned, among other factors.
“As pastors,” the bishops wrote, “it fills us with hope to see how citizens embrace the values of the common good. May this spirit continue to encourage and inspire us in building a brighter future for our beloved homeland.”
After reminding all the winners of the 2024 elections that “when they take office, they will do so for everyone,” the prelates urged that “the common good be the star that guides everyone who was elected by popular vote” as they govern their districts.
Finally, they entrusted the nation to the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe and prayed that she would grant the people “the wisdom, serenity, and strength to accept the results of this civic celebration and to work together, government and society, in the building of a Mexico where we all recognize each other as brothers, beloved children of the same Father, and together let us forge the promising destiny of our great nation.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 3, 2024 / 19:45 pm (CNA).
In a historic election, Claudia Sheinbaum will be the first woman to become president of Mexico, succeeding incumbent Andrés … […]