State battling town bosses in San Juan Chamula; other Christians still without water lines.

LOS ANGELES – Chiapas state officials arrested 14 “traditionalist Catholics” following the destruction on Sunday (July 22) of an evangelical church in a community of San Juan Chamula, near San Cristobal de las Casas, in Mexico’s Chiapas state.

State Public Security officers arrested several of the traditionalist Catholics, who practice a blend of traditional Mayan religion and Roman Catholicism, for tearing down Prince of Peace Pentecostal Church in Nishnamtic, evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez told Compass.

In retaliation, Nishnamtic village bosses or caciques on Sunday jailed five evangelicals; those officials in turn were arrested early Monday morning and the Christians freed, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Undaunted, according to the attorney general’s office, Nishnamtic traditionalist Catholics on Monday (July 23) then illegally locked up seven evangelical women, including one carrying her 9-month-old baby, in the municipal jail of San Juan Chamula. Authorities in turn rescued the women and infant, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.

“The seven women were detained on Monday morning by traditionalist Catholics in response to the rescue operation of the five evangelicals in Nishnamtic,” according to the attorney general’s office. For this reason, it added, the state government arrested the additional village officials.

In all, according to the state attorney general’s office, Public Security officers arrested 14 traditionalist Catholics, including seven Nishnamtic officials.

The Chiapas attorney general’s statement makes no mention of the church demolition, saying only that in coordination with Ministry of Public Security officers it rescued the evangelicals from traditionalist Catholics who had jailed them for “refusing to pay the fees for the patron saint festivals of the town.”

“For this reason,” the statement continues, “the traditionalist Catholic authorities had denied them [the evangelicals] access to potable water and education services.”

Alonso noted, “The government statement doesn’t make any mention of it, but the arrest of the traditionalist Catholic caciques has to do with the destruction of the church. At three in the afternoon they went to destroy the church, and they jailed the brethren until they were rescued.”

The attorney general’s office notes that state officials were able to negotiate peacefully with the indigenous authorities of Nishnamtic for the release of the evangelicals. Those freed were seven women – Paulina Pérez Díaz, Dominga Hernández Patishtán, María Gómez Pérez, Verónica Gómez Ruíz, Verónica Gómez López, Verónica Hernández López, Teresa Hernández Gómez – and the 9-month-old infant, Elías Hernández Gómez.