Montebello driven out to Mexican drug heartland, where mayor was slain

Dominican friar Fr Mark Montebello will be starting a three-month experience in a Mexican town where yesterday, the mayor of its neighbour city Monterrey was found, probably murdered by members of a drug cartel.

The body of Edelmiro Cavazos was found beside a highway yesterday, after being abducted Sunday night, the latest in a string of attacks against politicians in Mexico’s north.

The Wall Street Journal today says his killing is “another incident in a terrifying spell for Monterrey residents that began Saturday when armed gangs set up more than a dozen roadblocks on key boulevards of the city, paralyzing traffic for hours. The next day, a grenade was lobbed at the offices of an important television broadcaster. On Tuesday night, grenades were also hurled at several small businesses on the city’s outskirts.”

News of the surge in drug violence shook those close to Fr Montebello, who will take up his sojourn in Santillo following a decision he took after meetings he had in Rome in March.

In 2009, the controversial priest was summoned to Rome for a meeting with the head of the Dominican Order, Fr Carlos Aspiroz Costa, after Archbishop Paul Cremona insisted that the Order take steps against Montebello.

The controversial Mark Montebello was disciplined by his superior in November 2009 for “offending the sentiment of the Maltese”, namely by saying he disagreed with a paedophile register; his defence of Nigerian Monday Iseki, who was charged with resisting arrest; claiming that Jesus was in favour of divorce, and saying that Crucifixes did not need to be “flaunted” in public buildings. In 2005 he was banned from speaking publicly because he said Pope Benedict’s appointment was “a sick joke”.

It is perhaps an indictment on the way the Church treats radical exponents, especially given the universal criticism it attracts on the way it has handled clergymen accused of sexually abusing children.

Now Montebello is to be flown, out of sight and earshot of the Maltese sentiment, to the drugs heartland of Saltillo, where yesterday the mayor of its neighbour city Monterrey was found murdered. The growing violence in Monterrey, long one of Mexico’s most modern and safe cities, is a sign that the country’s war against drug gangs is spreading ever further from poorer battlegrounds.

CNN’s Mariano Castillo says that as drug cartel violence continues unabated, journalists find themselves walking a thin line between covering the story and becoming part of it. “Already this year, three journalists have been killed in Mexico, reaffirming the country's place as one of the most dangerous in the world for journalists.”

In January, a crime reporter for the Zocalo newspaper in Saltillo, Mexico – Valentin Valdes Espinosa – was kidnapped. He was found dead shortly after, his body showing signs of torture and with several bullet wounds. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Valdes Espinosa was found with a message that read: “This is going to happen to those who don't understand. The message is for everyone.”

Fr Montebello has told the press his stay in Mexico is not missionary work, but his focus would be on study, prayer and reflection on very different realities than those of Malta. He will even continue writing his column in It-Torca.

If Saltillo does turn out to be the “privilege” he says it is for him to distance himself from Malta, we will be reading about it in his newspaper column.