Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Priest was only one in Coahuila authorized to conduct exorcisms

The Catholic Church in Saltillo, Coahuila, is mourning the death of the only priest who was authorized by the Vatican to practice exorcisms in the state.

José Luis del Río y Santiago died on Sunday of acute pancreatitis. He was 86.

Hundreds of people attended Del Río’s funeral on Tuesday, which was held at the Santo Cristo del Ojo de Agua church in Monclova, where he was parish priest for almost 30 years.

In a eulogy, Bishop emeritus Francisco Villalobos Padilla called del Río “a priest who made his life holy through his service to God’s people.”

Del Río was from Monclova and was ordained a priest by Pope Paul IV in 1970.

After he turned 75, he resigned from Ojo de Agua and worked by offering masses at other churches and selling books and religious objects. He also continued to perform exorcisms.

His followers remember him as a devout man who lived and died in poverty.

“During a mass, the devil would manifest itself, and if the devil was close to someone, that person couldn’t look the priest in the eye,” one mourner told the newspaper Vanguardia. “When people asked him if he was afraid, he responded, ‘The devil is afraid of me.’”

Satillo Bishop Raúl Vera will choose a replacement for del Río as exorcist priest of the diocese of Saltillo.

Source: El Universal (sp), Vanguardia (sp)

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
In a video announcing the appointment of Edgar Amador Zamora, President Sheinbaum described the departing finance minister (L) Rogelio Ramírez de la O as Mexico's "best economist."

Sheinbaum appoints Amador as finance minister after Ramírez steps down

1
Former Bank of Mexico adviser Edgar Amador will be Mexico's new finance minister, though Rogelio Ramírez de la O will continue to advise the president on international affairs.
Dusty, abandoned backpacks and shoes at a secret crematorium in Jalisco

Search collective calls on authorities to investigate a grisly find in Jalisco

1
Volunteer searchers have uncovered three clandestine crematoriums in Jalisco, containing burnt remains, a list of apparent missing persons and 200 shoes.
Each year, large quantities of sargassum contaminate Mexico's southeastern beaches.

UNAM researchers develop drywall from sargassum

1
UNAM researchers have invented a way to repurpose the seaweed — 23 to 25 million tonnes of which could wash ashore in Mexico this year — as the principal component for drywall.