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After mudslide, priest gets narcos’ help to build new town

Friar Leopoldo Serrano celebrates Mass, broadcast via Facebook, at a chapel in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, late Saturday, June 19, 2021. Located on the border of the departments of Santa Barbara and Copan, his sprawling mission straddles the road that is one of the region's main drug trafficking corridors. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano celebrates Mass, broadcast via Facebook, at a chapel in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, late Saturday, June 19, 2021. Located on the border of the departments of Santa Barbara and Copan, his sprawling mission straddles the road that is one of the region's main drug trafficking corridors. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano celebrates Mass, broadcast via Facebook, at a chapel in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, late Saturday, June 19, 2021. Located on the border of the departments of Santa Barbara and Copan, his sprawling mission straddles the road that is one of the region's main drug trafficking corridors. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano surveys the landscape where he built a rehab center for drug addicts, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Tuesday, July 15, 2021. As Serrano stood on the lookout over the valley, he said, “Half of all the land and businesses you see from here belong to drug traffickers." (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano shoots for a goal while playing soccer with seminarians and residents at his drug rehab center in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Monday, June 21, 2021. Since moving to the mission in 2009, Serrano has preached the Bible, organized protest marches against violence, negotiated drug-free events such as soccer matches, and promoted religious celebrations and social work. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Children wait in line to receive donated used toys at a ceremony with government officials who arrived to open envelopes containing the bids from companies seeking to build homes for the victims of Hurricane Eta and Iota, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Monday, June 28, 2021. Friar Leopoldo Serrano, who runs the mission, warned the community to be wary: “In Honduras we live a daily storm more damaging than hurricanes, the storm of corruption. The authorities deceive us with false promises. That is why I tell you that I still have doubts about the construction of these houses.” (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano, right, shows soldiers images he made with his cellphone of a suspicious truck seen near the entrance of his mission, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Friday, June 25, 2021. Serrano’s message is not widely popular. He has sought protection for his mission, which is routinely observed by men passing by in oversized SUVs with tinted windows. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Seminarians monitor security cameras at the mission and drug rehab center run by Friar Leopoldo Serrano, located in a valley marked by poverty and drug violence, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Thursday, June 24, 2021. Serrano who is routinely observed by men passing by in oversized SUVs with tinted windows, complained to the prosecutor’s office which led to the installation of surveillance systems. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A policeman stands guard at the entrance of the mission and drug rehab center run by Friar Leopoldo Serrano, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Thursday, June 24, 2021. Father Serrano’s message is not widely popular. He has sought protection for his mission. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) An aerial view shows the property of drug trafficker Nery Orlando Lopez Sanabria, where he is buried in the mausoleum, center, still under construction, after he was killed in a prison riot, in the Santa Barbara department of Honduras, Thursday, July 15, 2021. More than 1,000 people are stranded in this area marked by poverty and drug violence that have driven so many Hondurans to the United States. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Seminarian Alfredo Santos, 21, brings water to a goat at the drug rehabilitation center in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. A year ago, Brother Santos, who used to go out to pray on the road, was kidnapped, beaten, doused with gasoline and subjected to a simulated hanging. He still is not able to talk about it. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A handmade road sign with a message that reads, in Spanish, "Don't kill" -- a reference to the Sixth Commandment, "Thou shall not kill" -- pokes out from overgrowth on Friday, June 25, 2021, on the outskirts of La Reina, Honduras, a hillside community destroyed by a mudslide triggered by the November 2020 Hurricanes Eta and Iota. Fearful that the disaster would spur emigration to the United States, Friar Leopoldo Serrano has sought to rebuild on land that was in the hands of drug traffickers. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Residents gather for a community meeting under threatening skies in Hacienda Uno, Honduras, Friday, June 25, 2021, near El Espiritu, an area historically controlled by the Valle family drug traffickers. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Julio Villanueva Melgar, 70, stands on the edge of a lagoon created when heavy rains caused by the November 2020 Hurricanes Eta and Iota triggered a mudslide in La Reina village, Honduras, Wednesday, Sunday, June 20, 2021. More than 1,000 people are stranded in the valley marked by the poverty and drug violence that have driven so many Hondurans to the United States. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A bird's eye view of the Honduran hilltop community La Reina, seven months after it was buried by a mudslide triggered by the November 2020 Hurricanes Eta and Iota, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. To rebuild their houses and replant their crops, the villagers needed land -- much of which is in the hands of drug traffickers. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A boy carries a rock at a construction site for new homes for the residents of La Reina, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Saturday, June 26, 2021. Hurricane Eta, then, Hurricane Iota, unleashed rains of biblical proportions in November 2020, causing a mudslide that obliterated the hillside community of La Reina. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Guillermo Alonso, 54, cradles his 6-year-old grandson Elvin, in the bed of a pickup truck as they leave the site where his home once stood, in the hillside village of La Reina, Honduras, Thursday, June 24, 2021. His home was obliterated by a mudslide triggered by Hurricanes Eta and Iota. "We feel sad because we are homeless but the important thing is that the whole family is alive,” said Alonso. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Seminarist Oveniel Garcia, 21, left, kneels during a Mass celebrated by Friar Leopoldo Serrano in the chapel at Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Saturday, June 19, 2021. Garcia, a former drug addict and trafficker, entered the rehab center at the mission run by Serrano. Over the years, he became Serrano’s right-hand man. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Ivan Varela carries a cinder block as he helps day laborers lay brick for a new home for his parents, who were left homeless in November 2020 when their house was obliterated by a mudslide triggered by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, at the construction site in Mission San Francisco de Asis Honduras, Thursday, July 15, 2021. Each family must send one person to work on the construction of their home. They do not receive wages and if they don’t work, they must pay into a kitty about $6 a day (150 lempiras). (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano shows bulldozer operators which direction he would like them to pave a road for a new community being constructed for the residents of La Reina, whose homes were devastated by a mudslide triggered by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Tuesday, June 22, 2021. Twenty-five years ago, the powerful local cartel run by Arnulfo Valle bought the 70 acres adjacent to the mission where Father Serrano hopes to put those displaced from La Reina. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A bird's eye view shows the drug rehabilitation center run by Friar Leopoldo Serrano, in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. Serrano arrived here in 2009, after spiritual missions in New York and the Mosquitia region of Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Alejandro Mejia, 80, rests in a chair alongside a dirt road after a visit to the site where the home he built once stood, in the hillside community of La Reina, Honduras, Saturday, June 26, 2021. The home that Mejia and his wife had lived in for 48 years was buried in an epic mudslide triggered by heavy rains brought on by Hurricanes Eta and Iota in November 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) La Reina residents left homeless when their community was buried in an epic mudslide triggered by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, attend an outdoor Mass at Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Sunday, June 27, 2021. It was the the first time in recorded history that successive Category 4 and 5 Atlantic hurricanes slammed the same place. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano celebrates an outdoor Mass at Mission San Francisco de Asis, in Honduras, Sunday, June 27, 2021. The pastor of souls has turned into a project manager and construction foreman for the families of La Reina, a nearby Honduran village buried in an epic mudslide in November 2020, its families among nearly half a million Central Americans displaced by Hurricanes Eta and Iota. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Marian Castron, from left, Maria Castron, 25, and Jenny Castron, 19, visit their home devastated by a landslide triggered by consecutive hurricanes in La Reina, Honduras, Friday, June 25, 2021. The Honduran town was hammered in November 2020 by Hurricanes Eta and Iota and then obliterated by a mudslide. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Friar Leopoldo Serrano celebrates a Mass broadcast via Facebook from a chapel in Mission San Francisco de Asis, Honduras, Saturday, June 19, 2021. Located on the border of the departments of Santa Barbara and Copan, his sprawling mission straddles the road that is one of the main drug trafficking corridors in the region. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)