The bishop of La Paz, Baja California Sur, has delivered a scathing assessment of Mexico’s political leaders, describing them as ignorant, inefficient, ineffective and inept.
Bishop Miguel Ángel Alba Díaz issued the rebuke during a Mass earlier this week for victims of violence and their families. Baja California Sur, currently governed by Mexico’s ruling Morena party, is now one of Mexico’s safest states, but it was plagued by violent crime as recently as the second half of the last decade.
In a contemptuous homily, Alba charged that the nation’s political leaders are “ignorant, inefficient and ineffective.”
He didn’t name any names, but it was apparent that President López Obrador was one of the targets of his criticism.
“[Mexico’s leaders] are good at talking, … they can have us laughing with our mouths open every day, but they’re inept at governing,” he said.
The bishop attacked political leaders and governments for failures in a range of areas including healthcare, public security, education and the economy. They haven’t ended corruption or inequality, he bemoaned.
“Nothing. [They’re] inept. They knew how to win over the people but they don’t know how to govern them,” Alba said.
The bishop went on to accuse politicians of putting their own interests and those of their political parties first.
“We see them laughing at all the campaign closing events of all the candidates of their parties in all the states: in Colima, in Nayarit, in Guerrero,” Alba said, mentioning three states currently governed by Morena.
“They’re they are, laughing and laughing with all all the candidates of their parties. … There are no medicines, [there are budget] cuts and republican austerity but there are resources for [political events], for [political leaders] and for all the bootlickers that accompany them,” he said.
“Our country is dripping with blood, enough already,” Alba added. “We’ve gone to the men [in power] asking for justice and peace, asking them to contain the high levels of criminality that exist in our homeland but our authorities haven’t known how to respond.”
Alba advised his congregation to pray for those in power, to ask God to give them the wisdom they currently lack and to purify them of the corruption that has invaded their souls. He suggested that a lot of politicians are in cahoots with organized crime, an accusation that a former Morena lawmaker made against López Obrador earlier this year.
“Perhaps a lot of … [politicians] owe their positions to [criminal] gangs that supported them with money, with resources, with violence. In how many states are narco-elections and narco-governments spoken about? … Let’s pray for our authorities,” Alba said.
The bishop has previously criticized the Baja California Sur government for not doing enough to combat crime in the state, a move that triggered a war of words with Governor Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío.
Alba is far from the first Catholic Church leader to be critical of Morena, the federal government and López Obrador, who openly professes his Christian faith. In 2020, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez accused the president of leading Mexico into communism, while Cuernavaca Bishop Ramón Castro Castro earlier this year described the government’s non-confrontational “hugs, not bullets” security strategy as “demagoguery and to some extent complicity.”
Several Catholic priests last year urged citizens to vote against Morena at elections, prompting the federal government to issue a statement calling on all religious figures to stay out of politics.
With reports from Zeta Tijuana
