Mexican court upholds conviction of cardinal, priest for ‘inciting’ people to elect new gov’t leadership by Emily Mangiaracina for Life Site News
Even secular groups in Mexico are expressing alarm over a decision they see as endangering the ‘free expression of ideas.’
A Mexican court upheld the conviction of a cardinal and a priest for violating “separation of church and state” by “proselytizing” against Mexico’s political establishment.
During the January 19 session, the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judiciary of the Federation of Mexico (TEPJF) ruled 3-1 that Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, the Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara, and Fr. Mario Ángel Flores Ramos, former rector of the Pontifical University of Mexico (UPM), “unequivocally intended to incite people to vote against a political option” and thus violated the Mexican constitution, fsspx.news reported”
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“There is much at stake in these elections. If those who are in power win, a dictatorship will come, that is, liberty will be lost, because we’re talking about a system that is communist, socialist, that enslaves. You just need to look at the countries that have fallen into it,” Sandoval said in his offending statement in a YouTube video posted June 3, 2021.
The decision partially upheld a November 18, 2021 conviction that condemned not only Sandoval and Ramos but also Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, the Archbishop Primate of Mexico, Bishop Pedro Elizondo Cardenas of Cancún-Chetumal; and Fr. Ángel Espinosa de los Monteros of the Legionaries of Christ, shared fsspx.news.
The rulings followed a lawsuit filed by Mexico’s ruling socialist party, the Movement for Social Regeneration (MORENA), according to a report that Catholic World Report shared after the initial November ruling.
The clerics were held to have specifically violated Article 130 of Mexico’s Constitution, which states, “Ministers cannot associate for political purposes nor proselytize in favor or against any candidate, party, or political association. Neither can they oppose the laws of the country or its institutions, in acts of worship or of religious propaganda, nor in publications of a religious nature, nor offend national symbols in any way.”
According to Catholic World Report, Sandoval was, from the onset of the judiciary battle, the “primary target of the tribunal’s wrath.”
Sandoval has long been a staunch defender of Catholic doctrine as well a fearless critic of the New World Order and all who implement its agenda, including through COVID measures.
In the speech that sparked the ire of the ruling party MORENA, Sandoval not only slammed the government’s threat to liberty but warned that “the good of the family and of [human] life are at stake, because this government has adopted gender ideology, which brings with it all of the unnatural barbarities that they can unleash, which can impede and destroy the family.”
Besides promoting the inherent evils of, “abortion, express divorce, homosexuality, and homosexual marriage,” the political establishment posed a danger to “religious liberty” because “the communist-Marxist system asks for it, demands it,” according to Sandoval.
