Feb 15, 2012 / 08:03 am
As Pope Benedict's visit to Mexico approaches, Archbishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago of Leon urged members of organized crime and drug trafficking to repent and work for peace in the country.
“Once more we call on these people to realize that their behavior is destructive to peaceful coexistence and prevents any possible development and progress,” the archbishop said.
Archbishop Rabago, who will host the Pope during his upcoming visit to Leon on March 23, underscored that he was not asking for a temporary truce, “which would be like telling those who do evil to stop doing so for three days and then continue on. Obviously this is not what we mean.”
According to estimates by local media, from 2006 – when violence sharply increased in the country – to December of 2011, more than 70,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war.