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
It is a fine line, isn’t it, between translating and rewriting?
Augustine said he wouldn't believe diddle ding dong until it could be proved from Scripture. Really.
I believe you. Define "prove from Scripture" Enjoy.
We do distinguish between error and, ah,combustible perversity. Even Thomas didn't get it ALL right.
Can you understand why I might say that on this forum Catholics have good reason to know what you mean? There is a disagreement her about how God reaches out to us. "Religion" may not be the goal, but that doesn't mean it's not on the way. If it's darkness, it my be so only by comparison. But there are plenty of darker things than a child putting a flower in a crown on a statue of Mary. If the child never gets further than that, then, yes, that itself would be dark.
I knew a guy who said, "Why try to help alcoholics into AA? Most of them are going to hell anyway...." Quitting drinking is not the same thing as giving yourself to Christ. But it beats the heck out of continuing to drink alcoholically/ And one way ti does so is that if you're not smashed out of your gourd you have a chance of looking around yourself, seeing the mess you are, and handing yourself over, crying for help; - the cry that seems never to be ignored.
So is AA darkness or light? This year Bible study may be dry and arid. But next year the aridity itself may throw you to your knees. I would not say this year's study was darkness.
I am not bound by the authority of this epistle for I do not hold the writings of Cyprian as canonical, but I consider them according to the canonical, and I accept whatever in them agrees with the authority of the divine Scriptures with his approval, but what does not agree I reject with his permission." (Contra Cresconium, Book 2, Chapter 32, cited in Examen I, p. 174)
I'm starting to like Augustine more, and that makes me happy. I don't like disliking the saints of old. His reputation is so built up that I was bound to find reading him a let down, but I'm getting past that.
At this point, Dear Brother, I’d love to say nothing more than let us hold respect for one another and as much as possible for our respective perspectives.
I have no need to say much else to you on the above junky stuff. I’m greatly and deeply grieved that you are so distressed. I never expected it. You always seemed to have such a lofty philosophical perspective on everything with a wonderful detachment yet personable persona which gave me the freedom to be myself with you. But I’d certainly not expected being myself even on this thread with all the satire to cause you near this much distress. I’m sorry for wounding you so much.
I’m happy to wound what I perceive as nonsense or worse but not to wound a brother or sister.
The rub comes when we hold a list of things so dear to us that no one can comment on them in less than an ideal way without us being deeply wounded. I’d not expected that of you given our past dialogues. I shall keep that better in mind. Therefore what, I don’t know but I shall keep it better in mind.
I do NOT know HOW to dialogue about super critical issues in a way that matches the intensity of the issues and the intensity of the RC folks’ presentations of their perspectives other than I have. I’m willing to learn other ways that would better fit your sensitilities and limits.
I am grieved, also that many of my conciliatory sentences did not seem to register with you. I don’t wish to rehash them. But it saddens me. Not that you would disagree—I’d expect that on at least a portion—but that they just didn’t seem to register as true in my reality or as even stated. They just didn’t seem to register on your consciousness at all. I never expected that. That grieves me for both of us.
I also must comment . . . Friendship, and more so Christian brotherhood, to me, is an exceedingly tough, strong, durable, resiliant reality. If it’s not, then it’s not worthy the labels.
Dr Murray Banks used to say in one of his talks
“How do couples stay happy forever?
The guy meets the gal. They both say—PROMISE ME, YOU’LL LOVE ME.
How long?
FOREVER!
How many of you would get a tree and say—
Even though I nip you in the bud, promise me you’ll grow forever?
I understand there are limits. Certainly there are human limits.
But I think Christ sets an awesome standard. Dying for one’s ENEMIES. sometimes it seems harder to love one’s friends and brothers and sisters than to die for one’s enemies.
Anyway—iron sharpening iron was never construed as a cold, calm, cool, collected, wimpy enterprise.
Heading for the shower. Haven’t had my afternoon nap yet and the afternoon’s gone! LOL
LUB,
As has been noted, it's a secretive, cloistered religion and its adherents seem to like it that way.
lol. Nobody’s perfect. 8~)
I think alot of people lost you when you said you could answer prayers.
Wow!
Thanks for posting! That’s a long one. I skimmed and it looked pretty good. I’ll have to go back and read more thoroughly later. :-)
This story was meant to do just what it has done, sow strife and you all have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Ten points for Satan, his trap worked. The "holier than thou" brigade grabbed it and ran, the trouble is they were running towards the wrong goalposts.
What agenda would that be? I don't see either of the 'sides' of this article as being pets of the MSM or anything.
I had no intention to be catholic-bashing on this thread -- but just that it seems religious intolerance is right next door (of course, we know it's literally in our own country already but not yet to that extent). And I actually was more interested in how it reflects on the immigration problem, as well as the governmental and cultural corruption of Mexico.
Ah so if you’re conciliatory, you don’t get jail, but if you aren’t you do? Is that how it goes?
Pity, but not compassion? Interesting.
Holy Inquisiton? I always thought it was just the Spanish Inquisition. So killing all those innocent people was Holy?
Yeah and they blathered about building tents/tabernacles and were corrected by a voice from heaven saying "THIS IS MY BELOVED SON. LISTEN TO HIM."
(forgot) “IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED”
And that makes it ok huh? Be a jerk and you will get jailed and deserve it? I'm trying to understand what kind of lines you draw on justice/mercy/morality/freedom etc.
Which evangelical hatemongers would those be? The only one I see spewing hate is ... well, you. "the jerk got what he deserved" etc.
Well that particular group is corrupt. I think there are plenty of other weird things going on (e.g. the shuffling around of predator priests etc as well as other large events of oppression down through history). Maybe I missed it but I didn't catch Quix arguing the way you say he was.
And please don't get the idea that I'm making apology for charismaticism because I think that is loaded with its own problems too.
But I do appreciate Quix's stance on this issue today. (as I mentioned -- I haven't had time to read through everything)
Not sure.
I doubt it. A lot of people don't even know what they believe themselves, let alone knowing what Christian sects/cults exist in latin america.
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