Mexico: Augustinian priest shot dead, archbishop attacked

Fr Javier García Villafaña

Source: AICA

Father Javier García Villafaña, parish priest of Santa Ana Maya, was assassinated yesterday on the road between Capacho and Cuitzeo. There was also an attempt to kill the Archbishop of Durango.

The Michoacán State Attorney General's Office is investigating the murder of Augustinian Fr Javier García Villafaña, which occurred on Monday, May 22 in the municipality of Huandacareo. According to information released by local press,Fr Javier, parish priest of the Santa Ana Maya parish, was found dead on the Capacho-Cuitzeo highway with gunshot wounds, on the road that leads to the Capacho community, to which he belonged.

At the time of the homicide, he was driving a white Nissan Sentra and was wearing a blue plaid shirt and blue jeans. The parish of Santa Ana Maya has published an obituary with the image of the priest, lamenting his death.

Huandacareo is a small rural community in the northern Mexican state of Michoacán.

In another act of violence, on Sunday, according to the Archdiocese of Durango, at the end of the Sunday noon Mass in the cathedral, Archbishop Faustino Armendáriz Jiménez, was attacked in the main sacristy by an unknown person. "Monsignor Armendáriz is without any injuries and in favourable physical condition," the diocesan media office said.

The local Church is attributing the archbishop's survival to the protection of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, patron saint of the archdiocese, and to the holy Durango Martyrs.

According to the archbishop's testimony, before the final procession with the Blessed Sacrament, the assassin wanted to go up to the presbytery, but he could not, so he occupied a nearby bench. The man, in his 80s, then waited until Monsignor Armendáriz went to the sacristy, where he usually receives people to greet or guide them, and entered there violently.

He asked him if he was the archbishop and, after receiving an affirmative answer, the man jumped on him, lunged at him with a knife. The archbishop reacted quickly, doubling his body and moved his arm to prevent the knife from injuring him. He just suffered a superficial scratch.

The archbishop said the priest and the sacristan immobilized the attacker, who had another knife inside a backpack. They escorted him out of the sacristy, and police arrived quickly.

Monsignor Armendáriz said he felt scared and saddened by the attack, but, he said it is also an opportunity to show solidarity with so many people in Mexico who suffer violence.

"I feel part of all the people who suffer because of the violence in the country, who are sometimes attacked by anything, in an environment of violence and polarization that exists in Mexico. It seems to me that it is an opportunity to show solidarity with all the people who suffer, with all the people who experience this, "he said.

He added: "we are vulnerable, and this can happen to anyone; it is part of the damage suffered by the social fabric due to anti-values. These situations are lived by the people in anonymity."

The archbishop then appealed to the bishops and priests of the country to continue living and carrying out their pastoral work, but reinforcing security in their parishes.