EWTN News reports that Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega, archbishop of Guadalajara, warned that organized crime effectively governs multiple Mexican states and municipalities, imposing candidates through extortion and violence. While the cardinal laments this reality, his analysis remains trapped within a naturalistic framework that ignores the supernatural roots of Mexico’s crisis and the Church’s own complicity in fostering the religious indifferentism that enables such barbarism.
The Cardinal’s Diagnosis: Accurate Symptoms, Missing the Disease
Cardinal Robles Ortega stated that “at the level of many municipalities, at the level of several states, the government, the decisions, are in the hands of organized crime.” He described the extortion of “protection money,” the imposition of candidates through threats, and the reality that “drug traffickers govern in certain jurisdictions.” These observations are factually accurate and echo what any honest observer of Mexico’s collapse can verify. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel operates as a state within a state, and the discovery of extermination camps like Rancho Izaguirre reveals a descent into barbarism that rivals the worst atrocities of the twentieth century.
However, the cardinal’s analysis suffers from a fatal omission: he identifies the proximate cause—organized crime—while entirely ignoring the ultimate cause, which is the systematic rejection of the social reign of Christ the King. This is not merely a political failure; it is a theological catastrophe. When a society expels God from its public life, it does not remain in a neutral vacuum; it fills the void with demons. The cartels are not an external invader; they are the natural fruit of a culture that has embraced what Pius XI called “the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors” (encyclical Quas Primas, 1925).
The Heresy of Laicism and Its Fruits
Pius XI taught with prophetic clarity that “the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation” when “authority was derived not from God but from men” (Quas Primas). Mexico’s crisis is the living embodiment of this principle. The country’s constitution, modeled on the anti-clerical liberalism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, explicitly excluded Christ from public life, confiscated Church property, and persecuted the faithful during the Cristero War. The current cartel domination is simply the mature fruit of that original apostasy.
Consider the errors condemned in the Syllabus: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55); “The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools… should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority” (Error 47); “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Error 80). Mexico has implemented these errors with devastating consistency. The result is not freedom but slavery—not to the state, but to the most savage form of organized crime.
The cardinal’s silence on this dimension is not accidental; it reflects the post-conciliar Church’s systematic abandonment of the social kingship of Christ. After 1958, the conciliar sect embraced the very liberalism that Pius IX condemned, promoting religious freedom and dialogue with modernity. The consequence is that bishops like Robles Ortega can describe the symptoms of societal collapse without ever naming the disease, because naming it would require condemning the conciar revolution itself.
The Omission of the Conciliar Apostasy
What Robles Ortega does not say is far more significant than what he does say. He does not mention that the same Church structures he represents have, for seven decades, promoted the religious indifferentism that makes cartel rule possible. The conciar sect’s embrace of “ecumenism” and “interreligious dialogue” has communicated to Mexican Catholics that the Catholic faith is merely one option among many, thereby evacuating the supernatural conviction necessary to resist evil.
Pius XI warned that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Quas Primas). The conciar sect has actively participated in this removal, replacing the social reign of Christ with a vague humanitarianism that is powerless against the forces of darkness. When the Church no longer proclaims that “His kingdom shall have no end” (Daniel 7:14) and that all nations must submit to Christ’s authority, she abandons the faithful to the mercy of those who recognize no law but violence.
The cardinal calls for the enforcement of law and the prosecution of criminals, but he does not call for the one thing that could actually transform Mexico: the public, social, and legal recognition of Jesus Christ as King. This is not a call for theocracy in the pejorative sense; it is a call for the ordering of society according to the natural law and divine revelation, which alone can provide the foundation for genuine justice and peace. As Pius XI taught, “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men” (Quas Primas, quoting St. Augustine). Without Christ, there is no harmony, only the war of all against all.
The Silence on Sacramental Life and Grace
Equally damning is the cardinal’s silence on the supernatural means of grace. He describes a society in which “the drug traffickers govern” but does not call the faithful to the sacraments, to penance, to the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the sole efficacious remedy for sin. The post-conciliar reduction of the Mass to a communal meal, the abandonment of the sacrament of penance, and the dilution of catechesis have left Mexican Catholics spiritually defenseless against the forces of evil.
St. Pius X, in his encyclical Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), condemned the modernist errors that have since become the official theology of the conciar sect: the denial of the supernatural, the reduction of dogma to human evolution, and the adaptation of the Church to modern civilization. These errors have borne their fruit in Mexico and throughout the world. When the faithful are taught that the sacraments are merely symbolic, that dogma evolves, and that the Church must accommodate itself to the spirit of the age, they are disarmed in the face of evil. The cartels do not fear a Church that has embraced the spirit of the age; they fear a Church that proclaims the immutable truth of Christ crucified and risen.
The Example of the Cristeros and Its Suppression
The cardinal’s omission is even more glaring when one considers Mexico’s own history. During the Cristero War (1926–1929), Mexican Catholics rose up against the anti-clerical government, crying “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” They understood that the persecution of the Church was not merely a political issue but a spiritual battle. Their witness of martyrdom—many of whom were canonized by the conciar sect itself, though in a process tainted by modernist reinterpretation—testifies to the power of the social reign of Christ.
Yet the conciar sect has systematically suppressed the memory of the Cristeros and their cry of “Long live Christ the King!” This is not accidental; the social kingship of Christ is incompatible with the conciar sect’s project of reconciliation with liberalism and modernity. To proclaim Christ as King of nations is to condemn the entire post-conciliar project of religious freedom and ecumenism. Thus, the memory of the Cristeros must be forgotten, and the current crisis must be analyzed solely in naturalistic terms.
The Responsibility of the Hierarchy
Robles Ortega acknowledges that “I don’t know to what degree the authorities bear a shared responsibility — it could not be otherwise — or to what degree there is impunity.” This cautious, bureaucratic language betrays the conciar mentality. The responsibility is not merely political; it is theological. The Mexican hierarchy, like the global conciar hierarchy, has failed in its primary duty: to proclaim the whole truth of the Gospel, including the social implications of the faith.
Pius XI taught that “rulers of states… have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him” and that “the annual celebration of this solemnity will remind states that… they have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him” (Quas Primas). The Mexican bishops have not merely failed to remind the state of this duty; they have actively cooperated with the state in suppressing the public profession of the faith. The result is the cartel-dominated wasteland that Robles Ortega now laments.
The Only True Remedy
The only true remedy for Mexico’s crisis—and for the crisis of every nation—is the public, social, and legal recognition of Jesus Christ as King. This is not a utopian dream; it is the teaching of the Church, confirmed by the testimony of the saints and the blood of the martyrs. Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely “to address the needs of the present times and provide a special remedy against the plague that poisons human society” (Quas Primas).
The faithful must reject the naturalistic analysis of the conciar hierarchy and return to the integral Catholic faith. They must demand that their pastors proclaim the social reign of Christ, even if those pastors have been compromised by the conciar revolution. They must frequent the true sacraments, especially the Traditional Latin Mass, which is the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary and the most powerful remedy for sin. They must educate their children in the unchanging truths of the faith, not in the evolving dogmas of modernism.
And they must pray for the conversion of Mexico—not the false “conversion” promised by the Fatima deception, which omits the necessity of the Catholic faith, but the true conversion that comes through the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the submission of every nation to the kingship of Christ. As Our Lord Himself declared, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). No cartel, no government, no “pope” of the conciar sect can override this divine mandate.
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of Conciliar Analysis
Cardinal Robles Ortega’s warning about organized crime in Mexico is factually correct but theologically bankrupt. By analyzing the crisis solely in naturalistic terms, he ignores the supernatural cause—the rejection of Christ the King—and the supernatural remedy—the restoration of the social reign of Christ through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the true sacraments. His analysis is a perfect example of the conciar mentality: it can describe the symptoms of the disease but cannot name the disease itself, because naming it would require condemning the conciar revolution.
The faithful must see through this deception and return to the integral Catholic faith. Only then will Mexico—and the world—find true peace, which is “the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” (Pius XI, Quas Primas). Outside of that kingdom, there is only the rule of the cartels, the tyranny of sin, and the darkness of a world that has rejected its King.
Source:
Organized crime ‘rules’ in several states in Mexico, cardinal warns (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 07.05.2026