Mexican Church will support whoever wins elections, bishops say

Father Manuel Corral Martin, spokesman for the Mexican bishops' conference, said the Church has not campaigned for any candidates running for president and will support whoever is elected on July 1.

“The Church will support any one of them, because the Church does not endorse candidates,” Fr. Corral told Efekto TV. “The Church looks at the proposals, and in general all the proposals are good, obviously with the nuances that each one has.”

Fr. Corral emphasized that at this time in history Mexicans want most to be able to live in peace. “Extreme violence is taking place,” he said, pointing to the importance of the bishops' 2009 pastoral letter titled, “May there be Peace in Mexico.”

In recent times, the bishops have “focused on three crises that the country is experiencing, the crisis of legality, the crisis or deterioration of the social fabric and the crisis of mortality, which are urgent,” he said.

“We must start working because the country is slipping away.”

Fr. Corral also noted that in many places in Mexico, “priests have also been killed. All the threats – more than one thousand priests have been threatened for siding with the poor and those in need – show that the Church is present among the people.”