A Mexican diocese and the country’s bishops’ conference have called on authorities to carry out a thorough investigation after a Catholic priest was found dead this week in a region known for organized crime.
Fr. Román de la Cruz, 48, was the parish priest of Huejutla. He was shot dead and his body was left on the side of the Tolago-Tetlapaya highway in the Lolotla district of Hidalgo on Tuesday, 15 September. According to local press, a threatening note was found beside his corpse, but the content of the note has not been made public.
The region in which Fr Román was murdered is notoriously dangerous due to the activities of criminal organisations that fight over trafficking routes, including illegal fuel trade.
“The Mexican bishops’ conference expresses its indignation, sadness, and solidarity with the Church of Huejutla, Hidalgo, following the murder of Father Román de la Cruz Hernández on September 15th”, reads the statement from the Mexican Episcopal Conference.
“We fraternally join Bishop José Hiraís Acosta Beltrán, Bishop of Huejutla, his priests, consecrated religious, and all the lay faithful of this local Church. Together with him, we call upon the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to clarify these events and ensure swift justice is served.”
No motive has been proposed for the murder, but the region where Fr Román’s body was found is known to be home to several criminal organizations which act with extreme violence towards each other, the authorities, and civilians perceived to get in their way.
While it is possible that Fr. Román was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, social media personalities have pointed to a dispute between the priest and the local mayor as the reason for his murder.
The “Y que viva Cristo Rei” YouTube Channel is hosted by a man who goes by the name of “The Legendary Fr. Daniel”, and who wears a clerical collar, but hides his face. The real name and religious affiliation of the host are not known, but the channel is very critical of the ruling Morena party in Mexico, and espouses conservative content, including tributes to the Cristero movement, which fought a civil war against the anti-clerical government of Mexico in the 1920’s. The channel has 127 thousand subscribers.
“Fr. Daniel” recently published a video highlighting online criticism by Fr. Román against the mayor of Huejutla, made on the parish’s Facebook page, as well as other news reports of people accusing mayor José Alfredo San Román Duval and his family of violence against rivals and critics.
In the Facebook post, Fr. Román criticised Duval for not completing roadworks, forcing elderly indigenous people from the region to be taken to hospital appointments in wheelbarrows, because buses and trucks cannot get through.
The YouTube personality’s evidence is circumstantial, but it has caused some impact in a country where the overlap between criminality and politics is widespread and those who defend the interests of civilian communities, particularly indigenous ones, are often targeted for reprisals.
Only two days after Fr. Román was found dead, Guillermo Amador the mayor of the nearby city of Jaltocán, warned the local priest, Fr. José Rosario Arévalo, “to focus on his sermons and not interfere in politics”, due to an alleged dispute over the ownership of a plot of land. Jaltocán is only 10 km from Huejutla, and both municipalities are run by the Morena party.
Writing for Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Hidalgo correspondent Ricardo Camacho, links the two events, denouncing an atmosphere of intimidation against the Catholic Church “which historically has had a strong presence and influence among the region’s indigenous groups.”
“This is because the Church has sided with them in demanding their rights, as occurred in the 1970s when they fought to reclaim their land—which was then in the hands of landowners who used paramilitary groups to stop them, engaging in the killing of peasants and their leaders.”
Mexico has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for priests in recent decades. Over the past five years eight priests have been murdered, three in 2022, two in 2023, one in 2024 and one in 2025, according to data collected by pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Fr. Román is the first to have been killed in 2026.
Most of these have been victims of criminal organizations such as drug cartels.
ACN’s Religious Freedom in the World Report, published in 2025, highlights violence against the Church in Mexico, claiming that “the number of extortions, short-term kidnappings, instances of crossfire, and assaults inside churches and evangelization centers has increased drastically. Laypeople have been murdered within religious premises and communities.”
The report adds that “these crimes are not mere statistics; they reflect the harsh reality of a Mexico plagued by violence, where priests and evangelisers become symbols of hope amid terror.”