“Every person from Mexico is affected,” says parishioner Ricardo Carlos. “One way or another they’ve been in this situation through their families.”
Carlos attended a November 20 vigil in solidarity with the students and their families that filled the church to capacity. Father Miguel Ceja, parish administrator, led attendees through prayer, scripture reading, songs, video reflections and he offered impassioned preaching about the injustice of the issue. He says he offered the vigil because it was on the minds of his parishioners.
“In listening to the people, I realized there is a direct connection,” Fr. Ceja said. “It hits home.”
The students, who attended a teacher’s college, Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero, were said to have been detained by police in Iguala on September 26 and have not been seen since. The incident has set off wide spread protests in Mexico, fueled by reports that political leaders had a role in the abduction and death of the students. Though the students are presumed killed, Fr. Ceja led those at the vigil in the urgent Spanish chant “Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos.” (They were taken alive, we want them alive) that has been heard at many of the protests.
Midway through the Vigil the plight of the students came dramatically to life when the abduction was reenacted by a large group. They entered the church in white t-shirts stained with red dyed bullet holes, each carrying a photograph of one of the students. They acted out the abduction of the students, voicing their refusal to accept government corruption. Then, as Fr. Ceja read the name of each student, the actor holding the corresponding photo collapsed to the floor as a loud drum cracked to simulate a gun shot. After all had fallen, an actor portraying Jesus emerged. He, too, was felled by mock gun fire but soon rose and picked up the fallen students one by one and led them from the church.
Angie Torres, one of the actors who participated in the dramatization, said she was overcome with emotion during her performance.
“I’m a mother,” she said. “I was thinking about my kids, if my son disappeared like that for no reason.”
On Oct. 2, St. Bernardine Church in San Bernardino held a vigil for the 43 students, organized by Inland Congregations United For Change (ICUC), a faith-based community organizing group in the diocese.
“There were people who were just weeping,” ICUC Executive Director Tom Dolan said of the Vigil. ”I think I heard four or five stories just talking to people who have had family members murdered or disappeared in Mexico.”
In the past decade, an estimated 100,000 people have been murdered and 27,000 disappeared as a result of conflicts among drug cartels and with the Mexican government.
Riverside Arlington High School student Emily Navarro came to the OLPH Vigil to learn more about the students and the violence plaguing Mexico.
“It’s really sad that because people want to voice things they get consequences like that,” she said.