(Jacume, Mexico) -- Mexican drug traffickers locked into a brutal and bloody turf war are now violating honor codes by killing priests.

Gunmen killed a Catholic priest and two seminary students as they were leaving a church in southern Mexico earlier this month.

Hundreds of Catholic priests who are speaking out against the violence face constant threats from drug cartels to silence their voices, or they will do so for them.

Over 12-thousand people have been killed since December of 2006 as heavily-armed drug gangs battle each other and the Mexican army over smuggling routes into the U.S.

A gruesome trail of carnage, tortured bodies, beheadings, assassinations and abductions stretches from Cancun to Mexico's desert border with the United States.

Mexico's bloody drug war has become a major concern for the U.S, with fears of the violence spilling over into border states.

　

　

(Copyright 2009 by Newsroom Solutions)