Priests Obey Pope, Drop Mexico Protest

On orders from Pope John Paul II, scores of Roman Catholic churches in northern Chihuahua state that were to have canceled Sunday Mass to protest alleged election fraud held services as usual.

Archbishop Adelberto Almeida and 100 priests in the huge Chihuahua archdiocese, which has a Catholic population of 924,000, had announced the planned suspension of services after the July 6 state elections.

In a letter to priests Saturday, Almeida said, “A communique arrived from Rome telling us not to suspend worship services on Sunday the 20th, as had been announced, because the Pope doesn’t want the people to go without the Eucharist.”

But Almeida said that the archdiocese’s stand on voting irregularities has not been revoked.

Supported by Pontiff

“Our denunciation with respect to the electoral fraud remains intact and is supported also by the Holy Father because it deals with a grave violation of human rights that he continuously and energetically has denounced,” he said.

The Chihuahua archdiocese, made up of about 300 churches in 60 parishes, united with opposition parties and business in public criticism of alleged government vote-rigging on July 6.

The government Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, won the governorship, all 14 state legislative seats and 65 of the 67 mayoralties at stake in the elections.

The opposition National Action Party, led by gubernatorial candidate Francisco Barrio, is demanding that the elections be annulled.

President Orders Talks

National Action congressional representatives said they will meet Tuesday with Secretary of Government Manuel Bartlett Diaz in Mexico City to begin talks ordered by President Miguel de la Madrid over complaints of vote fraud.

“It’s not a matter of presenting proof, because you don’t get a receipt for the theft of a ballot box,” National Action congresswoman Carmen Jimenez de Avila told the daily Chihuahua newspaper Novedades.

“The government knows better than anyone that it has to resolve this problem.”

Other opposition members said that they delivered to De la Madrid proof--including documents and one videocassette tape--showing the elections were rigged.

The PRI’s Fernando Baeza is scheduled to take the oath of office as governor of this state bordering Texas and New Mexico on Oct. 3.

Church bells rang throughout the Chihuahua state capital on Sunday as worshipers filed into Mass.

Priests read Almeida’s letter during services and also reiterated part of a July 17 letter from the archbishop to church members.

The church’s decision, said the earlier letter, “is not to take away the importance of the Eucharist but to emphasize, with the suspension of Masses, the magnitude of this social sin.”

A cancellation would have been the first instance in 60 years in which the church had refused to hold services for political reasons.

A Mexican official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the government was “taking steps” against church interference in electoral activity. He declined to specify what actions the government would take.

The Mexican Constitution of 1917 denies members of the clergy the right to vote and prohibits clergymen from criticizing the government, laws or officials in public or private. They also are forbidden to wear their clerical garb in public.

Almeida has always been careful not to cite the government directly or name officials in his denunciations.

Catholic Church leaders in Chihuahua deny supporting any side in the election controversy, saying they only demand that the government respect the vote of the people.