Two Jesuit priests were killed Monday in a Mexican church after a man being pursued by gunmen took shelter inside, religious official said. Fathers Javier Campos Morales and Joaquín César Mora Salazar were killed along with the man the church opened their doors to. The church is located in Cerocahui, a city in the mountainous region of Chihuahua—a hotbed for drug cartel activity. In a statement, the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus in Mexico demanded that the priests’ bodies, reportedly taken by the gunmen, be returned. “Acts like these are not isolated,” the statement said. “The Tarahumara mountains, like many other regions of the country, face conditions of violence and abandonment that have not been reversed. Every day men and women are arbitrarily deprived of life, as our murdered brothers were today.” Cartel members killing priests has been commonplace in Mexico since at least 2006, The Guardian reported.
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