COLOMBIA: The kidnapping of Colombian bishop Jorgé Enrique Jiménez, freed by the army on Friday, has revealed the extent to which Colombia's Catholic Church has been drawn into the country's brutal internal conflict.
Dr Jiménez (60), president of the Latin-American Bishops Conference, was kidnapped as he prepared to visit a small town outside Bogota, the nation's capital. The military rescued him after a gun battle with FARC rebels.
The kidnapping followed the assassination of eight clergy this year, including the Archbishop of Cali, Dr Isaias Duarte Cancino, murdered in his home town in March.
The growing security crisis has prompted the launch of a neighbourhood watch system whereby 30,000 volunteers have signed up to patrol vulnerable parishes in rural locations.
Archbishop Duarte Cancino's murder came shortly after he delivered a homily in which he blamed drug money for "all the evils" of the country and advised his parishioners not to vote for anyone with suspected connections to drug money. The killers are believed to have links to the Cali drug cartel which enjoys power of life and death over public representatives.
Colombian police have drawn up a manual for the protection of clergy, advising priests to watch out for "strange behaviour" from their housekeepers and to look around them before they board vehicles or leave their homes.
The measures are unlikely to stop the violence which claimed the life of Father Juan José Núnez, shot dead in April as he gave out Communion in a country village.
The most frequent victims of violence are still ordinary citizens trapped between rebel and government gunfire. Last May, a FARC mortar bomb killed 117 inside a church in Bojaya, Choco province, after frightened locals took refuge during a gun battle. The incident led to calls for rebel leaders to be tried for crimes against humanity.
President Alvaro Uribe compared the church massacre to the terror attacks on New York and called for international support in his own war on armed groups seeking to overthrow the state.
Colombia's Catholic Church has also been active in civil resistance efforts to combat destructive armed takeovers of rural villages.
In one incident earlier this year, 3,000 unarmed townspeople led by a Salesian priest recited the rosary as they faced down 150 left-wing rebels, forcing them to leave empty-handed after a tense standoff lasting eight hours.
The church has enemies on all sides of the conflict, as bishops condemn the recruitment of children into rebel ranks while priests frequently denounce the effective imposition of martial law.