Exorcism rituals on the rise as way to battle evil of Mexican cartels

In the heavily Roman Catholic country of Mexico, exorcisms battle the evil violence of drug cartels, priests say. Also blamed for syndicate savagery is the rising popularity of Santa Muerte, folk saint of narcotics kingpins and some two million Mexican followers.

It was the most awful confession Father Ernesto Caro ever heard in 22 long years of serving the church. The sinner was a killer for the Los Zetas cartel, Mexico's most heinous crime syndicate. His specialty was chopping people into pieces, while they were still alive.

"He said he smiled while he was doing it. He said he enjoyed it and that he was laughing," Caro, a priest and exorcist in Monterrey, told the Daily News. "He told me terrible things."

It took four months of weekly visits to rid the murderer of demons possessing him, Caro said.

"Evil is growing."

It certainly is. The Gospels tell us there was an outbreak of demonic activity during Christ's first coming. There seems to be an outbreak of demonic activity as we eagerly await his second, and we may be getting very close.

I think this is very good. When the Church first came to the Indian peoples of Mexico, converting them from the worship of vicious, death-dealing gods was taken of first importance, not because it was some sort of “imperialist dream,” but because the Indian peoples basically lived in fear and faith in Christ set them free. For the first centuries, the missionaries fiercely defended the faith and were particularly careful not to let the converts mix in bits of their former terrible superstitions.

Unfortunately, once the focus on doctrine weakened after the Second Vatican Council, the Church let some of these voodoo-type syncretist cults take hold without much opposition, partly out of a left-wing “indigenist” mentality and partly because of a bizarre misunderstanding of “ecumenism,” which in the mind of many churchmen simply meant that one could never say anything was false. And the Devil came back again, impressed by this show of weakness.

I think one of the most important things that can be done is the defeating of this “Santa Muerte” cult and the purification and restoration of the True Faith in Mexico. And it may be a one-to-one thing, one exorcism at a time, because the Devil has thrown down deep roots in these gangs and has turned these people into monsters.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.