Mexico Catholics fear church influencing election

By Lorraine Orlandi

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A group of Mexican Catholic
community groups said on Thursday the church may be using
hot-button issues like abortion to sway voters in favor of the
conservative ruling party candidate in the presidential
election.

They said workshops and other forums arranged by church
leaders could illegally interfere in the July 2 election,
taking advantage of ties with President Vicente Fox and his
National Action Party, or PAN.

“The risk of the Catholic hierarchy influencing votes has
been greater in these federal elections than in others due to
its closeness to the federal executive,” said Guadalupe Cruz,
speaking on behalf of six community-based “progressive”
Catholic groups. “The main risk is with the PAN.”

Fox’s party has roots in Catholicism, the dominant religion
in Mexico. PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderon, tied in
first place in opinion polls, comes from a devout Catholic
family and opposes legalizing abortion.

Cruz said church leaders may be backing candidates who fit
an ideological profile, mainly on questions of “sexual
morality” and in rural and indigenous areas where church and
government often are intertwined and voters are unaware of the
laws.

“Those factors increase the risk of influencing votes in
favor of the PAN,” Cruz said. “But the PAN is not the party of
Catholics, Calderon is not the Catholics’ candidate.”

Her coalition includes Catholics who oppose church doctrine
on birth control and support legalizing abortion, now banned in
most cases in Mexico. It has a national campaign to persuade
Catholics to vote freely and denounce church interference.

Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church held unprecedented private
meetings with the top presidential candidates this year and
called on them to speak up on issues like abortion. It is
running a series of educational workshops for voters.

That puts it on delicate ground in this nation of more than
100 million people, some 85 percent of them Catholic. Many
church members cherish the legal separation between church and
state and question religious doctrine on birth control.

The church insists its nationwide workshops are designed to
give Catholic voters a clear idea of where candidates stand
rather than influence their choices.

A few Mexican clergymen already face formal complaints
before election authorities of trying to sway voters from the
pulpit.

Fox, a practicing Catholic elected in 2000, is seen as
opening the way to greater church influence within the state.
He stunned the country when he kissed Pope John Paul II’s ring
during the pontiff’s visit to Mexico in 2002.

His Interior Minister Carlos Abascal has been accused of
pushing a Catholic agenda in opposing a federal decision to put
the emergency contraceptive, or “morning after” pill, in public
clinics.