The Vatican’s No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, calls for a ‘harsh deterrent’ to the drug violence that left more than 5,000 dead last year.

By Tracy Wilkinson January 13, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City — Decrying the violence that Mexicans are enduring, the Vatican has suggested excommunication as a possible punishment for drug traffickers whose war with the government has led to the deaths of thousands of people in the last year.

But the Roman Catholic Church’s severest form of rebuke would probably have little effect on traffickers and killers who lack a religious conscience, the Vatican’s No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, acknowledged. [latimes.com]