Mexico has protested to the Vatican over purported comments by Pope Francis worrying about a possible "Mexicanisation" of Argentina amid increasing drug trafficking activity in his homeland.
Foreign secretary Jose Antonio Meade said he had met Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's diplomatic emissary to Mexico, to inform him about the protest note.
"We express sadness and concern with respect to the communications that apparently were made, referring to a private letter from Pope Francis," Mr Meade said.
The pontiff apparently touched on drug activity in Argentina in a weekend letter to Argentine MP Gustavo Vera.
"Hopefully we are in time to avoid Mexicanisation," the letter said. "I was talking to some Mexican bishops, and it is terrifying."
Mr Meade said Mexico repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to fighting the cartels and there were more productive things to do than "seeking to stigmatise" the country.
Mr Vera said the Pope "loves the Mexican people very much," but was concerned Argentina did not end up following a path of "undeclared civil war between cartels".
Vatican spokesman the Rev Federico Lombardi would not confirm or deny the letter's authenticity, in line with long-standing policy of not commenting on what the Holy See considers personal or pastoral communications by the Pope.
Parts of Mexico have been plagued by drug violence for years and cartels have extended their operations to other countries in the hemisphere and around the world.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article