(LifeSiteNews) — Recent statistics have revealed that Mexico is one of the world’s most populous Catholic countries. Yet the ineligibility of actor-producer and Catholic activist Eduardo Verástegui to qualify as a candidate in Mexico’s recently concluded presidential election because of a lack of signatures required to appear on the ballot meant that there was no candidate espousing pro-life, Catholic views in the election trail, for all remaining Mexican presidential candidates harbored leftist leanings.
Notably, this year’s candidates were competing to replace leftist incumbent Andrés Manuel López Obrador, otherwise known as AMLO, already known for his lax abortion stance and religiously ecumenical leanings.
Jewish Claudia Sheinbaum, one of the presidential candidates and the eventual winner, hails from the leftist and pro-abortion Movement for Social Regeneration (Morena) party and champions “progressive” issues like abortion and gender ideology.
The globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) even pointed out that during Sheinbaum’s stint as mayor of Mexico City, she ceased public school policy mandating gender-appropriate uniforms for children.
Unsurprisingly, Sheinbaum’s eventual electoral victory sparked concerns among pro-life and pro-family voices in the country.
The Catholic News Agency (CNA) cited Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, as saying that Sheinbaum’s victory was “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.”
Moreover, Sheinbaum’s rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, albeit acting as a senator for the conservative-leaning PAN party, is a self-labeled “Trotskyite by origin.” Media reports have described Gálvez as a “liberal,” “defender of abortion” and LGBT ideologies.
During her stint in the Mexican Senate (2018–2023), Gálvez supported the outlawing of so-called “conversion therapy.” She previously pointed out: “I believe it is an act of justice for the LGBTQ+ community. We owe it to them and I hope today we can make this law that will allow a human being to never again be subjected to therapy of this type.”
The third presidential candidate, the Citizen Movement’s Jorge Álvarez Máynez, is also pro-abortion and backs same-sex “marriage.”
When he was a representative in the Zacatecas state Legislature for the New Alliance party (2010–2013), Álvarez proposed several bills to legalize abortion and adultery.
Additionally, Álvarez promoted the so-called “right to painless death with dignity,” urging for the legalization and regulation of “active euthanasia,” according to CNA.
Little wonder that faithful Mexican Catholic voters did not have much of a political choice in this year’s elections.
Luis Antonio Hernández, director of the platform Voto Católico (Catholic Vote), told ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language news partner of CNA, that “the current election cycle is characterized by the absence of a presidential candidate who shows an outstanding commitment to respect and protect life, as well as to comprehensive education and fundamental rights.”
Such a situation undoubtedly raises the question as to the reasons behind the prevalence of leftist politicians with anti-Catholic agendas in Mexico, despite the country’s largely Catholic electorate.
Left-leaning media outlets like Americas Quarterly have argued that the incumbent AMLO’s seemingly pragmatic strategy of appealing to a wide spectrum of voters on both the right and the left, such as his reticence to publicly support abortion or “same-sex” marriage, has diminished the scope for more conservative figures like Verástegui to dominate Mexico’s political scene.
Arguably, the prominence of Mexico’s powerful drug cartels, driven partly by a huge drug demand from the United States, has shaped the country’s electoral landscape by eliminating political candidates perceived to be unfriendly to the drug trade, and should also not be ignored.
Based on a map of election-related political violence by the news site Infobae, at least 11 candidates have been murdered between January 1 and March 3 of this year in the run-up to the elections.
Yet the aforementioned Americas Quarterly analysis seems to be superficial, for it fails to explain why many Mexicans do not seem to be taking their Catholic faith seriously when it comes to choosing the leaders of their country.
Having said that, it is no secret that Catholicism and Catholic teachings on family and life in Mexico have taken a nosedive, especially in recent years.
For decades, the Mexican Catholic clergy and laity have been fighting the battle to defend Catholic teaching on family and human life, in the face of anti-family movements and the rising tide of liberation theology that swept Latin America in the second-half of the 20th century.
Nonetheless, the long pontificate of Pope John Paul II, reaffirmed the importance of upholding traditional Catholic teachings on the family, while decrying divorce, contraception and abortion.
After Pope John Paul II’s death in 2005, abortion-on-demand in the first trimester was decriminalized in socially-liberal Mexico City in 2007. In 2009, lawmakers in Mexico City authorized homosexual “marriage,” while the Mexican Supreme Court in 2010 decreed that the country’s 31 states must acknowledge such “marriages.”
Still, some Mexican prelates, such as the-then archbishop of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, denounced laws loosening abortion restrictions and permitting same-sex “marriage” and adoption by homosexuals.
Also, the Cardinal Archbishop of Mexico City, Norberto Rivera Carrera, lambasted Mexico City’s homosexual “marriage” law, maintaining that the Catholic Church “cannot cease to call evil, evil.”
Arguably, it was during the reign of Pope Francis that pro-life and pro-family Catholic movements in Mexico suffered the biggest setbacks.
A Catholic World Report article in 2023 described the deteriorating situation of Catholicism in the country as follows:
Since Pope Francis visited in 2016, Mexico has rapidly lost ground to anti-family movements, while the country’s Catholic hierarchy has fallen increasingly into disarray. In 2017, news outlets began to note that the violent, pro-abortion and anti-Catholic ‘International Women’s Day’ marches, that previously had been confined to Argentina, were now beginning to occur in Mexico City. The marches, which left a trail of graffiti and physical damage on Church buildings, spread quickly, and soon became an annual ritual in major cities throughout the country. Today, they are being openly endorsed by major archdioceses.
The same Catholic World Report article stated:
In contrast to John Paul II, who had encouraged and supported the episcopate in its battle for life and family, Pope Francis publicly lectured the Mexican bishops following his arrival, implying that they were in corrupt alliances with the wealthy and powerful and out of touch with their flocks.
Also, the article continued:
On the same trip Francis made it a point to present to the public a Mexican man living in an invalid second marriage with a woman who had been married previously in the Catholic Church. The man showed no remorse for his behavior, and proclaimed that ‘we are blessed because we have a marriage and a family where the center is God.’ He received praise from Francis, who declared him ‘integrated into the life of the Church,’ and gave him a long hug while sentimental music played from loudspeakers…
… In the month following his visit, Francis issued the papal encyclical Amoris Laetitia, which many believed undermined or even reversed Pope John Paul II’s clear teachings against giving Holy Communion to those in adulterous second marriages.
Before 2016, homosexual “marriage” was only authorized in four states in Mexico. A total of 15 states approved such “marriages” by November 2020.
Furthermore, in his 2016 papal visit, Pope Francis also visited the tomb of the controversial Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia. As per the aforementioned Catholic World Report, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia was “famous for his perceived support for neo-Marxist movements in the state of Chiapas, where a military uprising allegedly inspired by his highly politicized pastoral approach took place in the mid-1990s.”
Also, Ruiz was “reputed to encourage a syncretistic approach to indigenous cultural practices, seeking to promote indigenous traditions rather than teaching the gospel to the locals, and resulting in a mixture of pagan and Catholic practices among the Maya of the region that remains to this day.” Consequently, during Ruiz’s time in office, “the sacraments were reportedly neglected by his activist clergy; membership in the Catholic Church plummeted and 30% of children in his diocese were reportedly unbaptized when he left office.”
Likewise, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) reaffirmed that under Ruiz’ influence in the Chiapas diocese together with his alleged Marxist sympathies, “the number of Catholics leaving the church for other congregations also increased, leaving Chiapas with the lowest number of Catholics in the country.”
Even former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, no friend of the Catholic Church, praised Ruiz, “My colleagues say he was a tireless mediator that searched for reconciliation and justice through dialogue, and that is exactly the legacy we must honor and the example we all must follow.”
Needless to say, Francis’ apparent approval of Ruiz, a figure who “publicly associated with notorious condemned exponents of liberation theology, such as ex-priest Leonardo Boff and others,” raised eyebrows among the more conservative elements of Mexican society.
To make matters more complicated, a portion from a private 2019 interview with Francis by a reporter from the Mexican television network Televisa was broadcast in which the pontiff backed homosexual civil union legislation and spoke of the homosexual “family” as a “right.”
“Homosexuals have the right to be in a family,” said Francis. “They are children of God and have the right to a family. What we have to do is create a civil union law. That way they’re covered legally. I support that.”
Notably, Teresa Villa, a spokeswoman for Televisa, confirmed Francis’ alleged support for same-sex unions with the New York Times (NYT).
In December 2020, the Cardinal Primate of Mexico Carlos Aguiar Retes voiced his backing for Francis’ statements.
“I strongly agree with the Holy Father, strongly agree,” Cardinal Retes told Reuters, elaborating, “Everyone has a right to their family. If they, by their own decision, in their freedom, decide to be with another person and unite, that is freedom.”
The Catholic World Report stated that in October of 2021, Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega backed homosexual civil unions with an X post that seemed to go against his earlier condemnation of such unions.