A community comes together to rebuild a humble chapel destroyed by henchmen in a land dispute.
By Fr. Bill Morton

Men lifted a new main beam into place for the Jesus de Nazaret chapel. The church was rebuilt three days after hired men of Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes tore it down as part of ongoing efforts to drive away residents of Lomas de Poleo.

The men turned off their lights and parked next to the clearly marked church. A chain attached to the back of one truck was secured to the church roof’s main beam. The truck’s driver then hit the gas, breaking the beam and pulling down the entire roof.

The men smashed everything they could with hammers and shovels and picks. Four eyewitnesses said the destruction took less then three minutes. There was no doubt about what had happened and who had done it.

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The Jesus de Nazaret chapel sits in the middle of the sparsely populated mesa known as Lomas de Poleo. It’s one of four chapels that comprise the Columban parish of Corpus Christi in Anapra, a colonia (an unincorporated rural subdivision) west of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The destruction of the chapel was just the latest sad chapter in an ongoing land dispute between the legal residents of Lomas de Poleo and Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes, whose family-owned business — Grupo Zaragoza — has been trying to gain control of this mesa land since 1992.

Luis Urbina, 87, began a tiny, agrarian community on the mesa in 1971. He told me he spoke directly with Pedro Zaragoza’s father about his plans at the time. The elder Zaragoza, now deceased, told Urbina, “That land has nothing to do with me; it is federal land.”

Thus for the next 21 years, Urbina and eventually more than 100 other families peacefully lived on the mesa. It was not until 1992 with talk of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement beginning and plans for developing the western part of Juárez, that Grupo Zaragoza began legal maneuvers to gain control of the land. The business was never able to establish ownership in court, and their efforts to buy out settlers on the mesa failed.

In May 2003, Grupo Zaragoza began a series of illegal and violent efforts to force the residents of Lomas de Poleo to leave.

At one point, Zaragoza was able to influence a judge to order the Federal Electricity Commission to remove the infrastructure for electricity on the mesa, leaving residents without light, fans or refrigeration. Residents stood by helplessly as the police protected electricity workers as they removed electric power for which the residents had contracted and paid.

Zaragoza then hired a grupo de choque — a vigilante group — to intimidate the residents and stop new families from moving in.

In October 2004, Faustino Olivares, the leader of families fighting their eviction, was severely beaten by two men everyone believes were hired by Zaragoza. The destruction of the chapel had taken place six weeks earlier.

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The Columban parish of Corpus Christi is in Anapra, an unincorporated rural area near where the borders of Mexico, New Mexico and Texas come together.

We left the destroyed chapel as it was, waiting until the media, police, neighbors and lawyers could observe what had happened. The Lomas de Poleo Asociacion Civil (a nonprofit community organization) filed a complaint with the Chihuahua state attorney general against the Zaragoza organization. By mid-morning, reporters from the Diocese of Ciudad Juárez’s Catholic newspaper, Presencia, were there along with journalists from Norte, a Juárez daily newspaper.

On Friday morning, Columban Father John Wanaurny and I went to see the Bishop of Juárez, Don Renato Ascencio Leon, to report the destruction of the chapel.

The bishop was quite upset. He offered to celebrate the Eucharist at the chapel site with the parishioners on September 30.

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There’s a simple reason why the people of Lomas de Poleo, the Columbans and other concerned parties are fighting so hard to keep the land out of Zaragoza’s hands: because he has no legitimate legal claim to it.

According to the Mexican Constitution, anyone who peacefully occupies a piece of land for five years and one day, without using violence and without ever receiving a personal visit from the owner or the owner’s agent showing legal title to the land, becomes the legal owner. In other words, people can own the land by simply “squatting” for at least five years, if there is no intervention from the legal owners, if there are any.

Many residents, like Luis Urbina, have been on the mesa for decades, and others have been there for much longer than the required five years before there were any visits from Zaragoza or his agents.

The land belongs to the residents of Lomas de Poleo.

Zaragoza has had some success skirting the law, thanks to the help of corrupt political officials working in his best interests. But as this dispute has gained more attention, Zaragoza has faced criticism for perpetrating this injustice, and judiciary rulings have gone against him.

Still, Zaragoza’s efforts continue. Although the mayor of Juárez kicked the grupo de choque off the mesa June 13, 2003, they returned in March 2004, erecting cement posts and barbed wire to cut off the land they are trying to grab and putting up massive steel gates to control who comes and goes.

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The Bishop of Ciudad Juárez, Don Renato Ascencio Leon (center), celebrated the Eucharist at the new Jesus de Nazaret Church 15 days after it was destroyed. Attending the celebration were (from left) Columban Fathers Bill Morton, John Wanaurny and Kevin Mullins.

On the third day after the vigilantes tore down the chapel, about 50 people gathered in a spirit of love and joy and repaired the chapel’s basic structure.

There was great laughter and camaraderie as we went about separating the wood, pulling out old nails and clearing the space. Men, women and children all pitched in.

Sister Janet Gildea, a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati with whom we work in Anapra, cooked two hams while women in the community prepared beans, tortillas and drinks.

Our lunch together that day was a moment of communion marked by a unity of purpose and a sense of hope.

Bishop Renato’s willingness to celebrate the Eucharist with the people was a tremendous blessing. Even before the violence by the vigilante group, he had already planned to visit the people and bless them and the chapel.

“I am happy to be with these people that are so forgotten and to celebrate the Eucharist with them,” Bishop Renato said during the Mass attended by more than 200 people. “This simple chapel of wooden pallets is as dignified as any other, because the dignity does not come from the way it is built, but from Jesus and the people gathered together within it.”

The bishop encouraged the people to continue struggling, peacefully, for their rights and to forgive the perpetrators who destroyed the chapel as Jesus forgave his crucifiers because “they know not what they do.”

At the conclusion of the Mass, Bishop Renato presented the beautiful white-and-gold vestment he was wearing to the community of Jesus de Nazaret, saying that it was a sign of his constant prayers for them and all the people of Juárez.

Father Mullins thanked the bishop and said, “The people here have had to endure adverse circumstances and have often been treated poorly, but your presence encourages us to continue working together to see that our religious and civil rights are respected.”

The crisis had brought us to a deeper level of community, with one another and with the Diocese of Juárez. From my initial anger and sadness, I began to see how true it is that “all things work together for the good of those that love God” (Romans 8:28).

Not only had we rebuilt the chapel, but it was now bigger and better than before. We employed better construction techniques, using a mixture of straw, clay and sand to stuff the wooden pallets and then stuccoing the building inside and out. Our new chapel is a cool, quiet adobe-like structure that is nearly fire-resistant.

We continue to celebrate the Eucharist, pray and live the liturgical year together, trusting that God will change hearts and that the land conflict will be peacefully and justly settled. Members of the various factions on the mesa who would not speak to one another are now offering one another the sign of peace during Mass.

The Catholic Church can be the sacrament of unity, its grace overflowing from worship into the world. Because God is for us, we will not lose hope.

Fr. Bill Morton of Philadelphia was ordained in 1985 and served on mission in Taiwan before working in Texas and Mexico. Fr. Morton and other Columbans assumed responsibility for the parish in Anapra in 2001.