Migrant Rights Defenders Face Growing Pressure from Mexico Church Leadership Emilio Godoy - Inter Press Service
go to original September 3, 2013

Mexican priest Alejandro Solalinde on migrants' perilous journey to US (Democracy NOW!)

MEXICO CITY - “No one can stop me from working for migrants’ rights, because no one is above my own conscience,” said Mexican Catholic priest Alejandro Solalinde.

Solalinde, one of the most dauntless activists for the rights of undocumented Central American migrants who cross Mexico en route to the United States, was referring to new changes imposed by the Catholic Church leadership.

“There has been no support for our work,” he told IPS. “The pastoral structure is being dismantled and everything is going to be directed from above, by the bishops.

“It’s a top-down ecclesiastical project,” complained the parish priest, founder of the “Hermanos en el camino” (Brothers on the Road) shelter in the city of Ixtepec, in the impoverished southern state of Oaxaca, which assists hundreds of Central American migrants a month.

Solalinde said that while “there was a great need for involvement by the bishops, the danger now is that pastoral work will be disregarded.”

The changes were announced at the 13th national workshop of the Pastoral Dimension for Human Mobility (DPMH), held Aug. 26-29 in the northern city of Monterrey.

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