One day their children didn’t come home. Faith helps these Mexican mothers in their search for them

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Every time the kidnapper hung up the phone, Veronica Rosas and her family members did the only thing they could think of: kneel, hold hands and pray.

“I said to God, please help me,” said Rosas, who has been searching for her son Diego Maximiliano for the past nine years.

The 16-year-old disappeared in 2015 after leaving her home to meet friends in Ecatepec, a suburb of Mexico City where robberies, femicides and other violent crimes have plagued residents for decades.

“Many joined us in prayer,” said Rosas, who received one of her son’s fingers as proof of life 10 days after the kidnapping. “Christians, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses. I opened my door to everyone and — maybe — that’s why I didn’t die.”

For weeks she could barely eat or sleep. How could she, when Diego might be starving, exhausted or injured?

Despite her efforts, Rosas was unable to raise the amount demanded by the kidnappers, and although they agreed to a lower amount, Diego was never released.

According to official figures, at least 115,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since 1952, but the true number is likely higher.

During the country’s “dirty war,” a conflict that lasted into the 1970s, disappearances were attributed to government repression similar to dictatorships in Chile and Argentina.

Over the past two decades, it has become increasingly difficult to track down the perpetrators and causes of disappearances as authorities in several states battle drug cartels and organized crime gains traction.

Human trafficking, kidnappings, reprisals and forced recruitment by cartel members are some of the reasons cited by human rights groups. Disappearances affect local communities and migrants traveling through Mexico in the hope of reaching the US.

For thousands of family members like Rosas, the disappearance of their children is a life-changing event.

“A disappearance puts a family’s life on hold,” said the Reverend Arturo Carrasco, an Anglican priest who offers spiritual guidance to families with missing relatives.

“While searching for them, they neglect their work. They lose their sense of security and many suffer from psychological problems,” he added. “In many cases, families fall apart.”

At first, the family members trust the authorities, but as time passes and no answers or justice are forthcoming, they take over the search themselves.

To do this, they distribute bulletins with photos of the missing person. They visit morgues, prisons, and psychiatric facilities. They walk through neighborhoods where homeless people spend the day, wondering if their sons or daughters might be nearby, afflicted with drug abuse or mental health issues.

“Ninety percent of the people who are searching are women,” Carrasco said. “And of that percentage, most are housewives who suddenly have a crime.”

“They lack the legal and anthropological means to do that,” he added. “But they have something that the rest of the population does not have: the driving force of love for their children.”

A mother’s quest

When Rosas was pregnant with Diego, she made a decision: “This will be my only son.”

She raised him alone, juggling several jobs and finding time to check his homework every night. They lived a simple, joyful life.

Diego played karate and soccer. He liked to wear costumes to his birthday parties. Their shared hobby was going to the movies. Their favorite movies? “Transformers” and “Spider-Man.”

Now that he’s gone, Rosas has been to the movies only once. She agreed because a friend she made after Diego’s disappearance — a Catholic nun named Paola Clericó, who comforts families with missing children — was there, holding her hand.

It doesn’t feel right for her to have fun, to take a break. But if she doesn’t take care of herself, who will know what happened to her son?

Three months after Diego’s disappearance, she was tired of waiting for a response from the police. She opened a Facebook page called “Help me find Diego” and although she was afraid to leave her house, she started looking for him, dead or alive.

For three years, her search was lonely. Family members, colleagues and friends often distance themselves from people with missing relatives, claiming that “talking alone about their search” or “listening to them is too sad.”

It wasn’t until 2018 that Rosas met Ana Enamorado, a Honduran woman who had moved to Mexico to find her son after he had migrated and disappeared. They got to know each other, and Enamorado invited Rosas to an annual protest where thousands of mothers demand answers and justice.

The resentment and disappointment of Mexicans affected by nationwide violence has grown recently. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum, who will succeed him on October 1, have consistently downplayed the recriminations of the survivors and claimed that the murder rate has fallen under the current administration.

But it’s not just the violence that’s galling to victims. On a recent night in the state of Zacatecas, a mother like Rosas stormed a congressional session. Soaked in tears, she screamed that she’d found her son — with a gunshot wound to the head — in the morgue. He’d been there since November 2023, she said, but authorities hadn’t informed her despite her tireless efforts to get information about what had happened to him.

This is the reality that Rosas became aware of during the 2018 protest.

“When I got there, I saw a mother, and then another and another,” she said. “‘Who are you looking for?’ we asked each other. It was an awakening. It was horrible.”

After meeting other women like her, she wondered: what if we used our collective power to our advantage?

And so, as other mothers in Mexican states like Sonora and Jalisco have done, Rosas founded an organization to provide mutual support for their searches. She called it “Uniendo Esperanzas,” or Uniting Hope, and it currently supports 22 families, mostly from the state of Mexico, where Diego disappeared.

All members learn legal procedures together. They put pressure on the judiciary that is not always willing to do their job. They dress in boots, sun hats and gloves to explore remote areas where they have found human remains.

From time to time they find missing family members. Sometimes alive. Others, sadly, dead. Whatever the outcome, as any family would, they hug, pray and cry.

Sometimes it’s hard, Rosas said. Or ambiguous. “When we find other people, I feel a lot of joy and I thank God, but at the same time I ask him: why don’t you give me Diego back?”

Together we search, we pray

On a recent Sunday, Benita Ornelas was mostly serene. But when Carrasco mentioned her son Fernando during a mass honoring him on the fifth anniversary of his disappearance, tears began to stream down her cheeks.

Not many religious leaders—regardless of their religious affiliation—are prepared to address the disappearances in Mexico. Or to comfort hurting mothers in need of spiritual solace.

“Not everyone has the sensitivity to endure such pain,” said Catholic Bishop Javier Acero, who regularly meets with mothers like Rosas and Ornelas. He urged that a Mass be celebrated for the first time in 2023 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to commemorate their missing children.

“But the number of disappearances continues to rise and the government does nothing about it. Where the state is absent, the church provides guidance,” Acero said.

Some mothers see him as an ally, and Catholic Church leaders have expressed concern about Lopez Obrador’s security policies since the killing of two Jesuit priests in 2022. At the same time, relatives of missing people say many Catholic priests, nuns and parishioners have shown little empathy for their grief.

Shortly after their children disappeared, Ornelas and Rosas rushed to nearby parishes. “Please, Father, celebrate Mass so we can pray for our sons,” they both asked. But the priests refused.

“I cried and cried,” Rosas said. “But he replied, ‘I cannot say that people are being kidnapped, ma’am. I encourage you to pray for the eternal rest of your son.’”

On another occasion, Rosas said, she approached a group of elderly people praying the rosary and asked them to pray for her son. “Why don’t you accept it? Give him to God,” one of them replied.

In contrast, religious leaders like Carrasco and Clericó have always been there for the mothers, no matter the weather. They have walked with them through muddy terrain where excavations have been done. They have celebrated mass in the middle of busy streets and beside canal drainages. They have joined them on visits to prisons and morgues, and comforted them no matter what sorrow may come.

“We have a legitimate hope of finding our treasures alive,” Carrasco said. “We are not crazy and we understand that there is a risk that they are dead. But until we have proof of that, we will continue searching.”

Faith leaders like Carrasco and Clericó are part of an ecumenical group called “The Axis of Churches.” Its members include Methodists, evangelicals, spiritual leaders from indigenous communities, theologians and feminists. Sometimes they pray, but other times they share a meal, draw mandalas or simply listen to the mothers.

“When I have a problem and I don’t know what to do, I go to them,” Rosas said. “They always share examples of God’s life, which allows me to flow with love and peace.”

They are the only ones who can understand what she went through, Rosas said.

“When a friend tells me that I only talk about my quests or my organization, I respond, ‘You wake up every morning to cook breakfast for your child and take him to school, but I wake up and try to find where mine is,’” Rosas said.

“I am still a mother. My motherhood has not disappeared, even though it feels sad and unfair now.”

Among the mothers of her organization, their missing sons and daughters are always present.

For the gathering in Fernando’s memory, Ornelas cooked tacos, a Mexican dish her son loved. “They’re his favorites,” his mother said.

That Sunday night, in the rain, Sister Clericó, Rosas and the rest of the group shared tacos with homeless people outside a Catholic church in Mexico City. The food was gone within an hour, after which Carrasco celebrated Mass and the group embraced Ornelas.

“We live with such deep pain that only God can help us endure it,” Rosas said. “If it wasn’t for that light, for that relief, I don’t think we would be able to stand anymore.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.