As poverty rises, Mexican parishes encourage neighbors to help neighbors

Jesuit Father Raul Vazquez always wanted to better include the marginalized barrios alongside a sewage canal, which, centuries earlier, had been named "Canal de la Compania" after the Society of Jesus.

As the COVID-19 crisis crept into Mexico, he inquired about the barrios' needs, but discovered most people there already received some sort of social assistance or political patronage.

The real problem, he discovered, came from the barrios populated by merchants, many of whom sold their wares in itinerant markets and "no longer have a place to sell," Vazquez said. Others simply lost their jobs.

"They no longer have anything to maintain their families with," he said from one of the 14 chapels belonging to the St. Ignatius of Loyola Parish, which serves this bedroom community on the southeastern outskirts of Mexico City.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reaped misery on Mexico, where the economy is cratering and the death toll is soaring.

The pandemic is pushing people into poverty and, according to Catholics working in charitable causes, provoking problems like hunger, mental health issues and an upswing in vices such as domestic violence.

"We're confronting a problem of hunger. There's also a second problem ... the health systems in Mexico have collapsed," said Fr. Rogelio Narvaez, executive-secretary of Caritas Mexico.

"There's a problem of emotional attention," Narvaez added. "People are seeing that their families don't have anything to eat."

The Health Secretariat has reported 90,664 COVID-19 cases and 9,930 deaths as of May 31.

Still, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is proceeding with plans to reopen Mexico in stages, starting June 1, claiming the country had already "tamed" the pandemic. He previously rejected strict quarantines, preferring voluntary measures, and downplayed the pandemic's potential impact — moves some in the church say aggravated the COVID-19 crisis.

"The quarantine was not carried out as it should have been," said Narvaez. "The problem now is the economy is more affected because there are signs of contagion. We're all affected because there wasn't seriousness in government policy."

Lopez Obrador has responded to the crisis with calls for austerity. He's unveiled loans for small businesses of roughly $1,100 and pushed up payments for social programs. He's also spoken of families supporting each other in the pandemic — as often occurs in Mexican economic crises due to scant state assistance.

Narvaez said families were stepping up as always, but noted, "There is a high incidence of family violence, precisely because economic problems have turned into family problems."

The Catholic Church has responded by calling for donations and marshalling support from the private sector to provide care packages. It's also staffed a helpline with priests, psychologists and doctors.

The Jesuits, working with the Mexican bishops' conference, also unveiled a parish-level program called "Neighbor Networks of Solidarity in Parishes." It encourages parishioners to identify and address needs through their own initiatives, rather than depending on outside assistance.

"The biggest success is community organization," said Jesuit Father Jorge Atilano, who based the program on his experiences in rebuilding the social fabric of towns plagued by violence. "It's citizens organizing to mutually support each other, making use of their own resources and strengthening their own abilities to cope with problems."