Latin American bishops call for protection of life and end to drug trafficking

Drug trafficking promotes the “dissolution of states and the rule of law, signaling the collapse of Western civilization,” lamented the Catholic bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, while urging the Church and people to protect life rather than power and money and to give hope by supporting those who suffer.

“The fact that drug trafficking manages to infiltrate and corrupt state power, the police, the armed forces, the media, businesses, in short, all institutions of democracy, is a cause for great concern “, declared the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) in a June 26 statement.

Drug trafficking activities “have found complicity in financial systems, escaping controls and inspections and even using decentralized financing through cryptocurrencies,” the bishops said. “Drug trafficking promotes the dissolution of states, the replacement of the rule of law with another law, that of the strongest. This is a sign of the collapse of Western civilization.”

In the service of life

Every life is sacred, and Christians and the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean must continue to work for the protection of life, “placing it above power and money,” the bishops said. “Wherever we welcome those who suffer, wherever we create the conditions for integral human development, wherever we set the table so that everyone can eat, hope is born,” reads the statement, which coincided with the celebration, on June 26, of the International Day against Poverty. Drug abuse and illicit trafficking.

The bishops stressed that drug trafficking networks are gaining more and more ground, forming armies, gangs and violent groups to control territories. This causes immense damage to young people who lose their lives to drug addiction and to families broken by this painful reality. This is why CELAM created the Latin American Office for Pastoral Care and Addiction Prevention two years ago, “to put itself once again at the service of life and to bring together all the spaces in the region that are committed to to protect it.”

Latin America still has the largest Catholic population in the world. The region’s Church reported some 562 million baptized members in 2020, or 41% of the global share.

CELAM was founded in 1955 by Pope Pius XII and is known for its enthusiastic support for the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), particularly the social teachings of the Church. The organization held two major conferences in 1968 and 1970, seeking ways to implement the teachings of Vatican II in Latin America. Liberation theology, which emphasized social justice and human rights, is said to have taken shape from CELAM’s officially recognized ideas. Since its inception, it has promoted fraternal mutual aid among bishops, creating a space for communion and providing pastoral support to episcopal conferences.

The Drug Trafficking Crisis in Latin America

Many researchers attribute the rise of drug trafficking in Latin America to the region’s instability and its complex political and social landscape, according to the Harvard International Review. Latin America has long been a region of deep inequality: in 1985, 45.6 percent of Colombians and about 25 percent of Mexicans lived below the poverty line. “Income gaps have pushed people into the lucrative illegal drug market to make easy money and escape a life of necessity,” the review says.

Organized crime and rising violence in Latin America threaten the safety of its citizens and strain governments. Despite stagnant homicide rates and declines in violent countries like Colombia and El Salvador, the region remains grim. A third of the world’s murders occur in Latin America each year, often linked to organized crime. Gender-based killings are on the rise, and criminal groups are exacerbating humanitarian crises, including mass displacement, according to the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that works to prevent wars and shape the policies that will build a more peaceful world. Latin America’s geography has also made it a global hotbed of crime. It is home to three major cocaine producers—Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia—and major export points to Europe and the United States. This has fueled violence in Central America, Colombia, and Mexico for decades. Recently, changes in drug routes have increased violence in previously peaceful countries like Ecuador and Costa Rica, he said.

Almost all the cocaine produced comes from the Andean region. With 61% of total production, Colombia remains the world’s leading producer of coca, followed by Peru (26%) and Bolivia (13%), according to the European Parliament’s Think Tank. Recent political instability in the Andean countries has coincided with a deterioration in public security and an increase in the supply of cocaine. Ecuador, in particular, has seen a dramatic deterioration in security, with the homicide rate falling from 13.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021 to around 45 in 2023, making it one of the three countries most violent in Latin America, according to the report.