"Pandemics and disasters are like springtime for phony priests," said Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a sociologist who studies the Mexican church.

“Asylum on the border is pretty much impossible,” a legal advocate with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said. “Covid is being used as an excuse to close the border.”

Sister Norma Pimentel says that migrants that come for help ask for safety as well as sustenance.

The attack on a pacifist community during prayer and the sheer cruelty -- with the assailants chasing victims through a cloud forest for hours and not even sparing four pregnant women -- highlighted the struggles of Indigenous communities in Chiapas.

No sooner had federal forces arrested José Antonio Yépez Ortiz -- a crime boss known as "El Marro" -- than stories surfaced of his supposed generosity with the Catholic Church and devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Catholic church authorities are demanding an investigation into one of Mexico's most notorious crimes: the murder a decade ago of 72 migrants by drug cartel gunmen.