(ZENIT News / Mexico City, 01.15.2026).- In a country scarred by years of pervasive violence, Mexico’s Catholic Church is preparing to convene one of the most ambitious civil and moral initiatives in its recent history. From January 30 to February 1, more than 1,300 leaders from across Mexican society will gather in Guadalajara for the second edition of the National Dialogue for Peace, an effort the bishops describe not as a conference, but as the opening chapter of a decisive decade for the nation.
The meeting will take place at ITESO, the Jesuit university in Guadalajara, and is expected to bring together 1,370 participants, according to a statement released on January 12 by the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM). The list reflects the Church’s intention to go far beyond ecclesiastical boundaries: bishops, priests and lay Catholics will sit alongside victims of violence, university students, business leaders, public officials, intellectuals, security experts and representatives of other religious traditions.
The initiative is being promoted jointly by the bishops’ conference, the Episcopal Commission for the Laity, the Conference of Major Superiors of Religious in Mexico, and Jesuits Mexico. Together, they are attempting something rarely seen in the country’s modern history: a sustained, structured dialogue on peace that links moral authority, social analysis and concrete public commitments.
The roots of the National Dialogue for Peace lie in a moment of national trauma. In June 2022, Jesuit priests Javier Campos and Joaquín Mora were murdered in Cerocahui, Chihuahua, after trying to shield a local tour guide, Pedro Palma, from an armed attacker. The killings shocked the country and exposed, once again, the extent to which criminal violence had penetrated everyday life, even within church walls.
According to the bishops’ statement, that crime, combined with “hundreds of thousands of murders and disappearances” across the country, triggered what they describe as the largest listening process in recent Mexican history. More than 1,000 forums were held nationwide, gathering over 20,000 testimonies from victims, Indigenous communities, young people, entrepreneurs, academics, churches and civil society organizations.
Out of that process emerged the National Peace Agenda, which organizers call the most comprehensive and participatory diagnosis ever produced on Mexico’s crisis of violence. The document paints a bleak picture of vast regions where the state has effectively lost control and where violence has become the only governing force. It also insists that any credible peace strategy must begin with truth, justice and recognition for victims.
“Without truth and justice for victims, there is no peace for anyone,” participants have repeatedly emphasized during the preparatory stages of the dialogue.
The Church’s language is deliberately hopeful, but not naïve. “Mexico is not condemned to violence,” the organizers insist. “Peace is possible, it can be measured, and it must begin today.” The upcoming gathering in Guadalajara is meant to translate that conviction into long-term commitments, policy proposals and social alliances capable of surviving electoral cycles and shifting governments.
The political context remains complex. In March 2024, current President Claudia Sheinbaum signed the Church’s Commitment for Peace at the headquarters of the Mexican bishops. While the gesture was symbolically significant, Sheinbaum also made clear that she did not agree with several points of the pact, particularly those related to assessments of public security, institutional weakness and what the Church has described as the militarization of the country. In her view, Mexico was not experiencing the level of crisis implied by the document.
That tension underscores one of the central challenges facing the National Dialogue for Peace: bridging the gap between the lived experience of communities battered by violence and the official narratives of security policy. By bringing together actors who rarely share the same table, the Church is positioning itself as a mediator and convener at a moment when trust in institutions remains fragile.
Whether the dialogue will succeed in shaping public policy or social behavior over the next decade remains uncertain. What is clear is that the Catholic Church in Mexico is staking significant moral capital on the belief that peace cannot be decreed from above, nor achieved by force alone, but must be built patiently through listening, accountability and shared responsibility.
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