Posted on 04/17/2007 8:44:15 PM PDT by Terriergal
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – Juan Mendez Mendez became a Christian in a village outside of this city in Chiapas state on April 7, and two days later local authorities put him in jail – for leaving their religious blend of Roman Catholicism and native custom.
A catechist or doctrinal instructor in the “traditionalist Catholic” church in the village of Pasté (pahs-TEH), the 25-year-old Mendez was released on Tuesday (April 10) after spending the night in jail. The previous Easter Sunday, political bosses in the Tzotzil Maya village noticed him missing from a church festival involving what Mendez considered to be idolatrous rites; they summoned him that evening.
“They said, ‘What do you mean that you’ve accepted Christ – you mean you don’t believe in our gods [Catholic saints]?’” Mendez told Compass. “And I said, ‘Well, those were just apostles, and now I belong to Christ.’”
The town leaders threatened to jail Mendez, and the following day they summoned him again after consulting with villagers, including other catechists. Mendez verified to them that he had heard the gospel in another community and now wanted to become part of an Alas de Aguila (Eagle’s Wings) church in Pasté, he said.
The officials threatened to strip him and throw cold water on him in jail, Mendez said. “You know what else we’re going to do?” one of them told the father of three pre-school children. “We’re going to beat you. We’re going to hit you.”
Mendez said he replied, “‘You know, if you’re going to beat me, then here I am. Here I am, if you’re going to beat me.’ But another said, ‘No, we’re not going to beat him.’”
After questioning Pasté Alas de Aguila pastor Jose Gomez Hernandez – confirming that Mendez planned to attend his church, though he had not yet had the opportunity to do so – village officials decided to jail the new Christian last Monday night (April 9).
Members of the Alas de Aguila church were allowed to visit him. He said he told one of them, “If I have to be a prisoner, I have no other alternative but to continue pressing forward.” He added that his wife, who put her trust in Christ along with Mendez, “despite this situation has been very happy, and in her faith she wants to press forward also.”
Mendez was not hurt while in jail from 5 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. and was released without further threats, he said, though another Alas de Aguila pastor, Antonio Vasquez, said “there is certainly a threat.”
“What is further painful to me,” Pastor Vasquez told Compass, “is that the brethren in our church continue to contribute to and participate in the pagan festivals, because if they don’t the local authorities will take all these people to jail.”
Compass declined to contact Pasté village head Mariano Lopez Gomez, as an international news agency questioning him or other village officials about the jailing of Mendez could result in further abuse of the fledgling Christian. Pastor Vasquez said that in the municipality of Zinacatan, to which Pasté belongs, local traditionalist Catholic officials in some of the area’s 46 communities prohibit any form of evangelization.
“There are still areas where they do not permit the gospel,” he said. “They don’t want it, and they reject it to the point that there are some brothers who have been prisoners in other communities.”
Home Burned, Family Tortured
Vasquez, whose church has grown to 60 to 80 mainly Tzotzil- or Tzeltal-speaking people since he began it in 1996, is no stranger to area persecution from traditionalist Catholics.
In 1998, local political bosses (caciques) put him in jail for 24 hours without food. In 2000, he was released from jail only after the intervention of Chiapas Religious Affairs officials – who promptly demanded that he contribute to and participate in the traditionalist Catholic religious festivals, which the pastor said amounted to a denial of his faith.
“An attorney from the government told me, ‘You know what? I’m a Christian, but you have to do what we say,’” Pastor Vasquez recalled. “And I told her, ‘As an authority you cannot obligate me to deny my faith, because, as you know very well, that goes against the constitution. Secondly, as a Christian, you cannot obligate me to deny my faith and all the things that my faith requires.’ So she was left something ashamed.”
The state religious affairs ministry had more success forcing his congregation to commit to participating in the traditionalist Catholic rites, which bring caciques not only festival fees but alcohol sales income. The congregation subsequently abandoned him, Pastor Vasquez said.
“They said to me, ‘You like to get into trouble, and we don’t want trouble, so we’ve signed the agreement with the government,’” Pastor Vasquez said. He was going to leave the area, but he said God told him two things: “Cowards flee,” and “Cowards have no part in me.”
Hence he signed the government agreement, which allowed him to continue preaching as long as he contributed to and participated in the traditionalist Catholic festivals – something “very painful,” he said. The church grew so much, however, that by August 20, 2000, the caciques again jailed him, his father and his two brothers – and burned down his house.
“The next day, when they took me out of jail and to the municipal manager, he told me, ‘Hey, Antonio, how was it that you came to burn down your house?’” Pastor Vasquez said. “I said, ‘How am I, a prisoner, going to burn down my house?’ He said, ‘Go see your mother,’ because my mother and my two younger sisters had remained at home.”
Pastor Vasquez found that his family members were able to flee the house, which was reduced to ashes.
He managed to build a house from donated wood and sheets of laminate for a roof, but local authorities cut his water line and electricity. He has lived by candle light, cistern capture and water sold from vendors for the past six years.
Chiapas state officials had secured an agreement from local chieftains to restore the pastor’s water and electricity, but secretly they conspired to let leave him without the services, he said. The last statement on the matter that Pastor Vasquez heard from a state official was, “Forget about it – nothing can be done.”
No longer contributing funds or participating in the alcohol-drenched festivals that pay homage to Catholic saints, in 2004 Pastor Vasquez found his father and brothers jailed while he was preaching in another city. The caciques stripped them and threw cold water on them, he said, as well as stung them with chile juices and a sprayed chemical compound that burns the skin.
They were freed only after intervention from state officials.
Because of the complicity of government agencies, “It’s easy for these kinds of abuses to be carried out with impunity,” said Esdras Alonso Gutierrez, head of San Cristobal’s ministry of religious affairs and founder of the Alas de Aguila movement.
“The situation in the areas around San Cristobal has calmed in San Juan Chamula, but beginning in 1998-2000, violence in the region outside of San Juan Chamula has been increasing,” Alonso told Compass. “In the last Chiapas administration under Gov. Pablo Salazar, there were no murders in San Juan Chamula, but there has been persecution in other areas: Huistan, Zinacatan, Las Margaritas, San Cristobal de las Casas, Ocosingo and La Trinitaria, among others.”
Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News
Something like that, yes.
Is the wafer God?
I say no. Unequivocally no.
What do you say?
Discuss the issues all you want but do not make it personal.
Undoubtedly, and no argument from me about the state being messed up. That is, in fact, part of my point. Instead of being outraged that someone who wasn't guilty of anything was thrown in jail some are rushing to defend catholicism. Well, if they really want to identify catholicism with what is going on there then that is more telling than the article.
I can't comment on the other RC posters on this thread. Clearly the story is of an outrage.
You sound like a reasonable person with the sort of response one would expect from a rational viewpoint.
Just as clearly there are plenty of people on this thread who are using this occasion for an attack on the RC Church. I don't think the rush is all that blind.
Well, it took all the way to post 2 for a catholic apologist sort to chime in...that would seem pretty quick given there weren't any anti-catholic posts prior to it. I would say that's rushing. That's not to say there weren't subsequent anti-catholic posts after that point. I haven't read all the posts, but the first ones I saw did address what one would expect (and hope) that a catholic would agree is not catholicism.
I've only posted in a handful of religion threads on this board over the several years I've been here because very few seem to be willing to actually think (and by that I mean people of all religious viewpoints)...so it never seems like good stewardship of one's time to become embroiled in endless arguments.
"The political bosses" , no names, "they", no names, "other catechists", no names, "the officials" no names and no means of knowing what they are officials of.... The "victim" and the pastor are named so the names aren't left out to protect. Isn't it kind of usual in a news story to publish more than one viewpoint of a story? Wouldn't some Fr. Whatshisname get interviewed so that he could rail against the new believer?
Then we get, "‘What do you mean that you’ve accepted Christ – you mean you don’t believe in our gods [Catholic saints] ?’” This was written to inflame and cause ill will. I would bet a hundred bucks that the real story (if this isn't completely made up out of whole cloth) is a whole lot different than the reality.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." -- Ecclesiastes 12:13-14"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Bumping you, Brother. Thanks for thinking of me in the ping line!
LOL. And they say Calvin was short-tempered. 8~)
He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" -- Isaiah 44:19-20"And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
Sorry.
Neglected to pay enough attention to “you” slipping in.
WILCO.
I could be wrong, often am, but I don’t think either Quix or I is making it personal. He makes an argument, which I consider bogus, so I make it back to him. That’s not personal, that’s debate. I like Quix.
So the poster was just, IMHO, wryly -- and accurately predicting what would happen to this story and this thread.
Is the wafer God?
I say no. Unequivocally no.
What do you say?
Again, I am not Catholic, so I am not the one to speak for them.But I know enough Catholics to know that they don't think the wafer is God in the way you are suggesting. The 'wafer' is not going to answer their prayers.
What you don't get, though, (HEAVY, LEADEN SARCASM ALERT) is that Roman Catholicism is so intrinsically bad that no mockery or insult is too coarse or gratuitous, no reporting is too shoddy or Dan-Rather-like to apply in the war which must always be fought against us. Understanding what we think is not only necessary it is positively discouraged because it wastes time which might be more profitably be used in condemnation.
So the fact that this article was written as though by a deranged high school student going for his religious bigotry merit badge affects in no way whatsoever it's usefulness in providing a pretext for an attack on whatever Catholic doctrine or practice comes to mind.
If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, "Away with the, uh, Catholics -- to the lion!" What! So many to one poor lion? [apologies to Tertullian]
Then the wafer is not God.
Because some tend to draw verbal swords in defense of another poster, flaming can be an unintended consequence.
Perhaps I did. Misunderstanding is one of the primary currencies on the Internet. Intent and tone are frequently lost. I know I've been misunderstood on more occasions than I could count.
Look at what's happening here. We RCs are being told that we do in fact encourage polytheism and idolatry and the doctrine of the Eucharist is being attacked, with little interest in what that doctrine actually is. And this is entirely normal.
As I'd mentioned, I haven't read all the posts in this thread (in fact a small minority at this point), I'll take your word for it that RC's are accused of those things. Although, it's possible that further misunderstandings may be transpiring as I believe the article suggested that polytheism and idolatry are part of the sychrotism being employed in this particular part of Mexico. I don't believe it is encouraged by Rome, but it is a fact that in some areas the concept of praying to saints can and has led to polytheism and the practice of having statues can and has led to idolatry...that is a perversion of catholicism, not the clean practice, but sadly it is done in some parts of the world. It appears as if central and south America (and perhaps parts of Africa and Asia as well) seem susceptible to such practices and others (such as the self flagellation in Asia, for instance). It does seem to occur more frequently in RC churches, but that may be attributable to the RC being in some areas much longer that protestant churches giving more time for such practices to arise (in particular Central and South America where the RC has been much longer that protestants in general).
So the poster was just, IMHO, wryly -- and accurately predicting what would happen to this story and this thread.
That 2nd post was pretty cynical (perhaps warranted, I have seen a few threads and the direction they go), although one wonders what direction things might have gone if instead the poster had said something along the lines that it's a bad thing that shouldn't have happened to the person in the article and denounced the synchrotism as an ill that should be addressed.
I just had to say something about this article because my 10 yr old grandson could have done a better job. The agenda was obvious from the first sentence and then others wonder why Catholics saw it that way.
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