Politically Active Mexican Bishop Faces Threat of Removal by Vatican : Clergy: The prelate, a defender of Indian rights, is accused of grave pastoral and doctrinal errors.

Bishop Samuel Ruiz has faced down death threats and overcome government pressures during three decades of struggle to defend Indian rights in southern Mexico.

But now he is confronting a challenge that could end his fight: a Vatican body that oversees bishops reportedly is accusing Ruiz of “grave pastoral and doctrine errors,” grounds for forcing him to resign.

The charges have stirred a groundswell of support for Ruiz among human rights activists. The controversy has pitted a highly respected bishop against an unpopular, foreign papal emissary and an interior minister with a reputation as a tough guy, resulting in claims that Ruiz is a casualty of closer relations between the Vatican and the Mexican government.

That has focused attention on conflicts between Rome and the Catholic Church in Mexico, which functioned for decades without an official papal representative, because the government did not extend the Vatican diplomatic recognition.

Ruiz’s possible removal is also seen as a further indication of Pope John Paul II’s decade-long campaign to rein in politically active priests and nuns, especially those who advocate liberation theology, a doctrine that promotes human rights, social justice and human development.

“What has caused us the most consternation and indignation is that there has been no official document with accusations,” said Father Pablo Romo, spokesman for the bishop, who is usually accessible but has kept a low profile since the reports surfaced.

Romo confirmed that Papal Nuncio Girolamo Prigione notified Ruiz verbally on Tuesday that the Congregation for Bishops, which oversees bishops and their jurisdictions, has accused him of grave errors. Ruiz plans to request a clarification from the Vatican, said Romo, who also confirmed that the bishop is preparing a routine, five-year report on his activities for the Pope’s review.

An otherwise unimposing man with thick glasses and graying hair, Ruiz--who turned 69 on Wednesday--stands out at clerical gatherings because of his amber crucifix and colorful miter and stole, woven and embroidered in the distinctive style of the Indians who live around San Cristobal de las Casas, where he has served as bishop for 33 years.

Controversy is all but assured in Ruiz’s diocese because of its poverty, proximity to the Guatemalan border and its explosive mix of refugees and soldiers, a large Indian population and rich natural resources, from exotic lumber to recently discovered oil.

For a generation, the bishop has been at the center of the turmoil, always on the side of the Indians.

That work has brought Ruiz respect and enough danger that he is listed in a recent America’s Watch report of human rights activists under fire. Ironically, it also appears to be at the heart of the current case against him.

*

The diocese of San Cristobal “is full of friction and not just now, but for the past 20 years, because Don Samuel Ruiz has grave pastoral, doctrine and governmental errors that conflict with the ministry of the church and offend the Pope,” Prigione told a committee from the diocese in a meeting last month. The charge was widely reported in the Mexican press.

Prigione reportedly told the committee that on those grounds, Ruiz will be asked to resign as bishop.

The news brought a flood of protests from religious orders and human rights groups from as far away as Australia, including a letter from Novel laureate and Indian rights activist Rigoberto Menchu. The most moving letter came from 20,000 Indians Ruiz has defended.

“We see how he is filled with sorrow by our troubles and how his firm voice has come out in defense of our rights,” the letter to the Pope reads. “For that reason, we want to express our concern, in the hope you will make the right decision.”

Most of those writing sent copies of their letters to the Mexican Interior Ministry, which handles government relations with the church. Despite government denials of involvement in the controversy, the timing of the reports--coming shortly after the administration suspended anti-clerical laws in effect since the 1920s-- has raised suspicions.

Ruiz has powerful enemies in the government, notably Interior Secretary Patrocinio Gonzalez. When Gonzalez was governor of Chiapas, where Ruiz is bishop, the two men clashed repeatedly over Indian rights issues.

The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center that Ruiz heads has defended Indian refugees from Guatemala, as well as Chiapas residents, including 13 Tzotziles Indians accused of killing two soldiers last spring.

The center has consistently publicized the plight of Indians expelled from their lands because they preferred orthodox Roman Catholic or Protestant practices over their traditional tribal religion, which mixes Catholicism with pre-Columbian ceremonies and includes consuming massive amounts of alcohol.

*

The liquor vendors and tribal leaders who enforce the expulsions are also representatives of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled Mexico for six decades. They assure that their followers vote for the party, anthropologist Ricardo Pozas wrote in his classic work on Chiapas Indians.

“Our trade is not to pursue all violations of human rights, rather only those cases where people ask for our help in getting through the tangle of legal procedures,” Ruiz told the weekly political magazine Proceso in an interview last spring. “We also intervene when the trampling (on rights) is such that not to protest would be complicity.”

Ruiz also opposed Gonzalez’s attempt to legalize abortion in Chiapas last year.

More recently, the bishop is reported to have given Pope John Paul II a letter during his August visit to Mexico raising doubts about the honesty of Mexican elections. Gonzalez is also in charge of elections.

Even under Mexico’s more liberal current laws, representatives of religious groups are prohibited from interfering in politics.

During interviews while he was governor, Gonzalez--who did not respond to requests for comments--said that, just as Ruiz had opinions about the government, he had opinions about the church. The difference between them, Gonzalez added, was that he did not express his opinions about the church because that was outside his jurisdiction.

Leaders of the liberation theology movement, such as Peru’s Gustavo Gutierrez, have faced constant interrogation by Joseph Ratzinger, a German cardinal who heads the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog agency. He has called liberation theology “a fundamental threat to the faith of the church.”

Another prominent liberation theologian, Brazilian bishop Leonardo Boff resigned from the priesthood last year to protest censorship and restrictions placed on him by Rome.

In Mexico, controversial figures such as the late Sergio Mendez Arceo, known as “the red bishop” for his reputed links to Marxism, have been replaced by more conservative priests. Significantly, in this controversy, Mendez Arceo’s successor, Luis Reynoso Cervantes has been one of the few voices calling for Ruiz’s ouster.

In general, the Mexican church has reacted harshly to reports the Ruiz is under attack.

“To discard the voice of Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia would be to discard the progress of the continent’s Catholic Church toward a commitment to justice, peace and participation,” the priests of Ruiz’s diocese said in a prepared statement.

Dominican and Jesuit organizations expressed similar sentiments in newspaper advertisements.

An annual national conference of Mexican priests was even more pointed in its analysis: Papal nuncio Prigione “has created divisions between the church hierarchy and the people” and the laws liberalizing church-state relations “have done more harm than good.”

The defense of Ruiz has taken on a distinctively nationalist tone, with comments referring to his Mexican-ness, in obvious contrast to Prigione’s status as a foreigner. Prigione’s double status as a diplomat and church leader has caused resentment and charges that he has tried to influence internal politics.