Archdiocese of Mexico City denounces city officials' intolerance

The Archdiocese of Mexico City's weekly newspaper published an editorial criticizing the city's officials for their intolerance and for persecuting people of faith in 2010, reports Catholic News Agency.

The editorial specifically referred to the officials' responses to those opposing the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage on the basis of religious principles and convictions.

“This is not happening in any other part of the country, only in the Federal District, where officials have made intolerant secularism their sole ‘religion,’ carrying out ‘secular’ rites against true religions,” the newspaper said in a Jan. 2 editorial.

Those who express their opposition to such measures on the basis of their Christian faith are “threatened with lawsuits,” including priests and bishops, the archdiocesan newspaper continued. It then pointed to the cases of Cardinal Juan Sandoval of Guadalajara and the spokesman of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, Fr. Hugo Valdemar.

The editorial also referred to Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the World Day of Peace on Jan. 1, in which he noted, “The same determination that condemns every form of fanaticism and religious fundamentalism must also oppose every form of hostility to religion that would restrict the public role of believers in civil and political life. It should be clear that religious fundamentalism and secularism are alike in that both represent extreme forms of a rejection of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularity.”

Nevertheless, “Desde la Fe” warned, some officials in the Federal District behave like a sort of “secular Taliban” with no tolerance for criticism and are “fundamentalist in their immoral principles, incapable of accepting the challenge of dialogue with rationality and the law.”

“The authoritarianism and intolerance (which border on disrespect and vulgarity) with which those who are in authority behave is not a good sign” for the future of Mexico City, the newspaper said. “The legalism in which they cloak themselves is only another sign of their intolerance,” the editorial asserted.

“Desde la Fe” also mentioned religious persecution in countries such as Iraq, and even in Europe, where it occurs “under the guise of defending the secular state.”

“If respect for religious freedom is the path towards peace, that means that every believing citizen has the right not only to personally live in accord with his own religious principles, but to have those principles respected so that he can make a positive contribution to building up the society to which he belongs,” the editorial stated.