Mexico’s progressive hell

Every morning I check to see if Rodrigo Iván Cortés has published the ‘apology’ that the court in Mexico has written for him and which it has ordered him to post on his social media accounts for 30 days in a row. I still have a flicker of faith left in civilisation and the rule of law, but the day Cortés actually makes his forced confession is the day that flicker dies out. And I’d be interested to know what my progress–minded friends think about his case. Is this the sort of justice system you envision?

Rodrigo Iván Cortés was a congressman in the days before Morena, the party of progress, took over, and he’s now head of a Catholic thinktank, the National Front for the Family, at a time when it’s tricky to be Christian in Mexico. It sounds strange to say it’s hard to be Christian in a country where 80 per cent of people are Catholic, but it is.

I don’t think Mexico’s President, the avuncular Mr Obrador, cares much either way, but the young activists he presides over are hellbent on stamping Christianity out. It’s the faith of the invaders, they say, and indigenous beliefs must be elevated. Like the Aztec religion, perhaps, with its jolly predilection for child sacrifice. Christians in Mexico now get it in the neck from every angle. Drug gang members target priests as a form of initiation and enjoy leaving their dead bodies carved with what the press call ‘narco-satanic messages’. And as the Cortés case shows, the law is out to get them too.

Cortés’s problems began with the politicians Morena is most proud of, the two trans women it appointed to their lower chamber, deputy Salma Luévano Luna and deputy María Clemente García.