Human rights organisation Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has urged Mexican authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of Roman Catholic priest Father Bertoldo Pantaléon Estrada, whose body was found with several gunshot wounds in Guerrero State earlier this month.
Father Pantaléon Estrada, 59, went missing on October 4 during his travel back to his parish in San Cristóbal, Mezcala Municipality, after visiting the nearby town of Atzcala in Cocula.
His body was discovered two days later inside his vehicle, abandoned on a highway roughly 90 kilometres south of Atzcala and 65 kilometres from Mezcala.
Authorities announced the arrest of a suspect, identified as Miguel Ángel N, on 10 October.
Officials indicated that he had known the priest personally, though reports suggest he has given inconsistent statements about his contact with Father Pantaléon Estrada on the day of the disappearance.
Investigators have not yet explained why the priest was found so far from his route home.
Initial claims that the priest’s chauffeur was involved were swiftly repudiated by his diocese, which stated that Father Pantaléon Estrada did not employ a driver.
The killing took place in a region long plagued by organised crime and drug trafficking.
Rival groups, including Los Ardillos and Los Tacos, are known to operate in the area and have been involved in violent territorial conflicts.
Clergy in Guerrero have often been caught in the crossfire.
In 2018, two priests from the same diocese — Father Germain Muñiz García and Father Iván Añorve Jaimes — were killed in an armed attack on the highway.
Within the last twelve months, violence in the state has intensified, claiming the lives of several local officials, including the mayor of Chilpancingo in October 2024.
Anna Lee Stangl, CSW’s Director of Advocacy, said Father Pantaléon Estrada’s death highlights a worrying pattern of violence targeting clergy in Mexico.
She stated: “The violent killing of Father Bartoldo Pantaléon Estrada is yet another in a chain of murders of church leaders in Guerrero and across the country over the past two decades, making Mexico one of the deadliest countries in the world for priests and other religious leaders.
“We join in the calls for a full and transparent investigation into this horrific murder and call on the Mexican authorities at both the state and federal levels to ensure that all of those responsible for Father Pantaléon Estrada’s death are held to account and the motive behind this murder firmly established.”
CSW also noted that similar cases remain unresolved, referencing the 2014 murder of Father John Ssenyondo, a Ugandan missionary priest whose remains were later discovered in a mass grave, allegedly killed by organised crime.
Speaking on the Catholic news programme Sacro y Profano, during a panel discussion addressing the killing of Father Pantaléon Estrada, Catholic Multimedia Center’s journalist Guillermo Ganzanini expressed frustration over what he described as the lack of follow-through in murder investigations involving clergy.
“Unfortunately we have a paper with eight columns of news but continuity [of the coverage] on the case fades,” he said. “We don’t know what has happened with the families, we don’t know what happened in the interrogations, there is no official answer from the institutions about the result of the investigations.”
