Mexico's Democratic Revolution Party takes protests to the pulpit

Published: 2006-08-24

MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- In the ramshackle tent city that recently sprouted in downtown Mexico City, Deacon Alvaro Sierra preached to his flock about a dark conspiracy to rig July's presidential election. "The rich and the powerful, our right-wing adversaries, conspired to steal victory from us," Deacon Sierra said. Then, Bible in hand, he led the 20-odd farmers and laborers in chanting what has become the battle cry of the Mexican left since conservative candidate Felipe Calderon posted a razor-thin victory in the July 2 polls. "Vote by vote, polling station by polling station," they shouted together, referring to leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's demand for a full recount, which the candidate says would reverse his 243,000-vote loss. Deacon Sierra, who is steeped in liberation theology, a Latin American Catholic movement that stresses social justice, has spent nearly a month living and preaching in the protest camp, a chain of tarps and improvised tents occupying the capital's central plaza and five miles of a major thoroughfare.

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