Parish of San Ignacio Loyola: between the threat and the complicity of drug traffickers

Part II

The investigations and testimonies that revealed that Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, alias El Verdugo and/or Z-3, leader of the Los Zetas cartel, donated for the construction of the Church of Nuestra Señora de los Lagos, in Pachuca, Hidalgo, sparked a fiery controversy about the power of drug trafficking in Mexico and its alleged links with the Church Catholic.

Among the long list of events that confirm these links, we find the case of the chapel of San Ignacio de Loyola in Tamazula, Durango — a small town located in the Golden Triangle region, known for drug production.

Built of stone, the chapel is one of the most important historical sites in the region. Its name is due to the former Spanish religious soldier, Ignacio de Loyola. It was built by the Jesuits, who established a community in Tamazula.

This church is known not only for the religious acts that have taken place in it, but for the alleged donations of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel. The site, which preserves the architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries, contains inside it the seal of the most fearsome drug traffickers: Joaquín el Chapo Guzmán and Rafael Caro Quintero.

A reconstruction of the site carried out by local journalist Rodrigo Vera, details that inscriptions of his benefactors can be read on the benches. One of them has the name of Sandra Ávila Beltrán, known in the underworld as The Queen of the Pacific.

In 2015, Avila Beltrán was released after seven years in prison. Her release from a prison in Nayarit (on Mexico's Pacific coast) ended with a prison trip that began on February 28, 2007, when she was arrested with her partner, Juan Diego Espinosa, alias El Tigre, after leaving a restaurant in Mexico City.

It was 1997, when for the first time Rafael Caro Quintero, The Chief of Chiefs, was denounced for making donations to the Church. Ecclesiastical Raúl Soto revealed that the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was a benefactor for works of charity.

The statement was made to three regional journalists, who were attacked for seeking more information about the case: they were beaten and their tape recorders were broken.

The religious authorities are aware that drug trafficking has infiltrated the religious establishment, even some priests have publicly hinted that dirty drug money can be purified when the person intends well.

Religious living in hot areas of drug trafficking have warned that it is dangerous to mess with criminals, since they charge twice the favors: “They ask you for special masses and until you store their vehicles in your parking lot.”

In the 1990s, the Arellano Felix brothers (founders of the Tijuana Cartel) were accused of donating huge amounts of money to the then bishop of Tijuana, Baja California, Emilio Berlie, who got the brothers to have a private interview with the Mexican apostolic nuncio, Jerónimo Prigione.

This clan is linked to one of the most famous cases involving drug traffickers and the Catholic Church: the 1993 murder of Bishop Juan Posadas Ocampo in Guadalajara, Jalisco. The Mexican government concluded that the execution of the religious was by mistake, as the Tijuana Cartel gunmen mistook Posadas for a rival kingpin.

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