Close-up of a Santa Muerte south
of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
Posted on 04/06/2009 3:33:40 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — About 200 worshippers marched Sunday to protest the government's destruction of "Death Saint" shrines, saying Mexico's fight against drug cartels has veered into religious persecution.
"We are believers, not criminals!" the protesters chanted as they marched from a gritty Mexico City neighborhood to the Metropolitan Cathedral downtown.
At shrines, chapels and small churches across the country, tens of thousands of people worship the Death Saint, which is often depicted as a robe-covered skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper.
It is popular with drug traffickers, and soldiers often find shrines to the saint during raids on cartel safe houses. But in crime-ridden neighborhoods, people of all walks of life believe the "Santa Muerte" protects against violent or untimely deaths. Devotees often use elements of Catholic rites, leaving offerings of candles or praying to the folk saint for protection.
Mexican law enforcement won't say it is targeting the "Santa Muerte." But last month, army troops accompanied workers who used back hoes to topple and crush more 30 shrines on a roadway in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. Many were elaborate, one-story, marble-clad constructions with electric lighting and statues of the skeletal Death Saint.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
I often wonder whatever happened to them.
Halfway decent band, they were.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Yeah, let’s let another 15 million of these people immigrate here and bring their vibrant multicultural values to our country.
The horse has been upgraded.
This is not Catholic, any more than an ugly caricature of the Pope is Catholic.
It's an Aztec holdover. A great book about old Mexico is by Hugh Thomas -- "The Conquest of Mexico"
Too bad the conquistadors didn't have nukes to wipe out this human sacrifice cult
Have the book. Read it. Best I’ve read on the subject since Prescott’s The Conquest of Mexico, which was written in the 19th century. I can also recommend Nelson Reed’s Caste War of Yucatan, if you can find it, it was out of print last time I looked. I am suiting up for Katz’ biography of Pancho Villa. Sigh. I have to be in the right mood.
You are a real scholar compared to me. Caste War is listed on Amazon— $15. You cannot understand Mexico until you understand that it is an (indigenous) Indian nation with some Euro-Spanish exploiters at top of the heap
Wasn’t Apocalypto such a mish mash of Aztec and Mayan? I liked it anyway
Oh you liked Thomas.... good. At least I read a good (long) account. I read it in 1995
You might also enjoy Fanny Calderón de la Barca’s “Life in Mexico during a Residence of Two Years in That Country.” It was written in 1843 and is full of juicy details. She was a Scot, and her husband was the first Spanish ambassador to Mexico after Mexico won its independence. Travel in those days was a battle in and of itself, and she traipsed all over.
death cult? communists?
Wonder if the shrines are used to tell traffickers they are in a “safe” neighborhood.
Ping!
Sometimes, when I see the picture, I know your name’s going to be at the bottom.
LOL!
I keeeel you!
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