Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Oaxaca (Agenzia Fides) – An eighty three year old priest was found dead in the evening of 28 July, in his parish, in Oaxaca City in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The priest had been gagged and tied up, the local director of public prosecutions told the press. The authorities said the body of Rev. Carlos Salvador Wotto, who was parish priest at Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, Oaxaca City, had cigarette burns on his arms and knife wounds on other parts of the body, but death was due suffocation with a plastic bag over his head.
Salvador García the parish sacristan discovered the body and called an ambulance, but first aid was of no avail, the priest was dead. Catholics in Oaxaca City are under shock. Local officers sent by the prosecution director to investigate the 18th century church situated in the historic city centre, confirmed the suspicion of robbery since various articles of great value were reported missing. Oaxaca is often the scene of clashes between the police and drug cartels.
The spokesman of the archdiocese of Antequera Oaxaca, Fr José Guadalupe Barragan, said the local Church is awaiting the investigation results and that the funeral will be presided by Archbishop José Luis Chávez Botello.
The archdiocese of Antequera Oaxaca has a population of circa 2 million and 112 parishes served by 139 diocesan priests and 42 religious priests.
(CE) (Agenzia Fides, 30/07/2010)
