Organized crime groups have a significant hold on Mexico's society and the Catholic Church.

As Mexico's drug trade booms, Catholic Church leaders are forced to interact with organized crime groups through the narco-donations practice. Some people believe that the money used to renovate cathedrals across the country doesn't always come from legitimate -- and clean -- sources, according to Los Angeles Times. Plenty of Church leaders have given in to drug traffickers while others were either pressured or complicit in accepting tainted money.

Suspected narco-donations are evident in some parishes, where churches or chapels display the names of notorious drug trafficker benefactors on walls and pews, Los Angeles Times added. Priests also reportedly accepted money for dispensing sacraments and have been seen in public with drug cartel members.

In his trip to Mexico, Pope Francis called out the Church's failure to protect society and its priests from drug violence. The pontiff addressed top church bishops last Saturday, urging them to not "underestimate the moral and antisocial challenge which the drug trade represents for Mexican society as a whole, as well as for the church," the news outlet wrote.

An archbishop acknowledged that Pope Francis' speech was tough, but he stressed that they intend to follow the pontiff's remarks.

"It wasn't a scolding, in no way; all the contrary, it's profound motivation, a beautiful thought.... It fills our hearts with great desire to work," Carlos Aguiar Retes, the archbishop of Tlalnepantla, a suburb in Mexico City, said in an interview quoted by Los Angeles Times.

According to the news outlet, local priests who clashed with drug traffickers in recent years often fought by themselves as little help or recognition were given from Church leaders. Gregorio Lopez, a Michoacan priest, was forced to lessen his aid to migrants after cartel members threatened him. Plenty of priests have also publicly criticized organized crime groups through the media and ecclesiastical letters.

Alejandro Solalinde, a firebrand priest who operates a migrant shelter in Oaxaca, travels with three bodyguards in tow after he got death threats from human traffickers, Los Angeles Times reported. According to Solalinde, support networks of local priests, bishops, and Catholic lay organizations exist, but he said that top church leaders in Mexico City are snubbing their efforts.

Around 100,000 people have been killed and 27,000 have disappeared due to the drug violence in Mexico since 2006, CBS reported.

According to a recent report by the Catholic Multimedia Center, 35 priests in the country have been killed since 1992. This makes Mexico the second most dangerous Latin American nation for priests, Los Angeles Times noted. The priests' deaths were usually overlooked, which suggests that the Church has been compromised by drug cartels and by politicians pressuring authorities to tone down the existing violence.