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
That there are people in Latin America, Haiti, and other places who have only a thin veneer of Catholicism covering pagan beliefs?
I think that's common knowledge.
We have a suggestion in the article, that must have originated somewhere, that the Catholic community is idolatrous, worships Apostles as gods, and would not allow the Gospel in. Tell me to my face, and (women and children excepted) you will not have a face.
God consists of the Holy Trinity as one God, ergo you can pray to God, Jesus, or the Spirit to get results. Praying to Mary, Peter, Moses, Mother Teresa, statues, pictures, etc, is blasphemy. The commandments are most clear on who God is, and not to worship idols. Praying to statues, pictures, bones, hair, or whatever is forbidden, period! Ask a Jew what they think of praying to idols. The Law hasn't changed.
It's 2 am so I have to go by memory, but didn't Jesus forbid them building shrines to Moses and Elijah? Anyway, you pray how you want, I'll stick with Jesus. God is described as a jealous God. He called the Jews "an adulterous nation" because they sought after other gods. If Jesus is the source of all things, how is a person going to conjure up anything, dead or alive?
Another question, if God is our judge, how do you know you are even praying to someone in heaven and not hell? I don't believe a bunch of men in Rome can decide who went to heaven. The guy on your necklace my not have made it.
The Bible is clear that Jesus is God, and I will pray to Him.
I stopped reading right there. This article is ludicrous. What a bunch of B.S.
Right. It was a very poorly written article, and is most likely more about santeria than faith.
Somewhere on FR right now there is a thread about the Westboro Baptist Church founded by Fred Phelps and spurred on by his daughter Shirley-Phelps Roper. They are a disgrace to genuine Baptists. Do I think that all Baptists are like the WBC? No. In the same way, the representation of Catholicism in this piece is not true of genuine Catholicism.
Was Jesus a statue?
From the US State Department's website on religious freedoms 2006 The Federal Government generally respects religious freedom in practice; however, poor enforcement mechanisms allowed local authorities in Chiapas and several other states to discriminate against persons based on their religious beliefs. Federal and local governments often failed to punish those responsible for acts of religiously motivated violence.
In parts of Chiapas, leaders of indigenous communities sometimes regarded evangelical groups and Catholic lay catechists as unwelcome outside influences and as potential economic and political threats. As a result, these leaders sometimes acquiesced in or ordered the harassment or expulsion of individuals belonging chiefly to Protestant evangelical groups. The DAR estimated that 15 percent of reported religious conflicts--115 since the beginning of the Fox administration in 2000--were abuses by local authorities. Often these authorities were unpaid officials of small, rural municipalities.
Religious differences frequently were the cited feature of such incidents; however, the disputes frequently involved several underlying factors, including ethnic differences, land disputes, and struggles over local political and economic power. In past years, expulsions involved burning of homes and crops, beatings, and, occasionally, killings. During the period covered by this report, there were no known deaths in incidents that had a religious dimension. These incidents usually occurred in predominantly Catholic-Mayan communities, and they mostly involved Catholics harassing or abusing evangelicals or other Protestants.
On several occasions, village officials imposed sanctions on evangelicals for resisting participation in community festivals or refusing to work on Saturdays. The Chiapas-based Evangelical Commission for the Defense of Human Rights (CEDEH) claimed that municipal authorities have expelled 30,000 persons from their communities in the last thirty years. Some of these persons were displaced at least partly on religious grounds.
A representative from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) reported that there were no official statistics on the displaced. However, the Diagnostic on Human Rights in Mexico, published in 2003 by the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, cited religious conflict as one of the principal reasons for internal displacement in Chiapas.
In August 2005 members of the Huichol ethnic group belonging to the Seventh‑day Adventist, Baptist, and Apostolic Churches were driven from their homes in the community of Agua Fria, Mezquitic Municipality, Jalisco. Village leaders charged that evangelicals did not follow community by-laws, which require partaking in native religious practices, including the use of liquor and peyote. Most Huichol practiced these native customs alongside Catholicism. According to press reports, at least 120 persons fled their homes and sought refuge in the neighboring state of Nayarit.
According to the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, many of those who fled settled in Nayarit permanently, while others intended to return to their village in Jalisco. Local authorities in Jalisco denied charges of religious intolerance and referred to the conflict as a land dispute. In October 2005 an estimated forty families (approximately 150 persons) were threatened with expulsion from the village of San Nicolas, Ixmiquilpan Municipality, in the state of Hidalgo, allegedly for defying the "customs of th[e] town." According to press reports, during an August 28 town assembly it was decided not to permit evangelicals in the town.
In November the governor of Hidalgo and officials from the Secretariat of Government met with representatives of the evangelical families and publicly reassured them of their safety and right to remain. Although a formal resolution had not been reached by the end of the period covered by this report, tension in the community had decreased, and newly elected local officials were reportedly more accommodating of religious differences. While a dispute concerning official permission for the construction of an evangelical church had not been resolved, construction materials were reportedly located at the building site.
According to a Chiapas newspaper, Cuarto Poder, in November 2005 an evangelical leader in Santa Rita, La Trinitaria Municipality, denounced a series of attacks on local evangelicals, including assaults, vandalism, and land seizures. A representative of Jehovah's Witnesses reported that one of its members in Santa Rita had been incarcerated on several occasions for not participating in Catholic feast days. Local authorities seized his farmland, distributed it to other villagers, and threatened to evict him from the community.
The State Directorate for Religious Affairs in Chiapas, however, categorized this situation as a land dispute, and legal proceedings were underway to resolve the problem. By the end of the period covered by this report, the Tojolabal Christian families who fled their homes in 2004 after being attacked by a mob including local officials linked to the Democratic Revolution Party had not returned. The families joined approximately 300 to 400 Tojolabal Christians expelled from their farms in Las Margaritas Township in the previous ten months.
Reading the above it appears that corrupt officials and their cronies are using the excuse of religion to unlawfully seize land and redistribute it as they wish.
Nowhere in the article does it say that these abuses of human and property rights are sanctioned by the Church. This region has been torn by conflict between Government and rebel forces which no doubt increased the divide between the residents.
It is also interesting to note that those who expelled Protestants claim to have done so in accordance with town law. It is not religion that they use to defend themselves but the secular law. No doubt they see religious festivals as a cash cow and resent the loss to the town's coffers when not everyone participates. But again no where is this sanctioned or approved by the Church.
The non Catholics in Mexico should have complete freedom to worship as they please. Without fearing physical abuse or loss of property.
“We have a suggestion in the article, that must have originated somewhere, that the Catholic community is idolatrous, worships Apostles as gods, and would not allow the Gospel in. Tell me to my face, and (women and children excepted) you will not have a face.”
Fine. And you would be willing to accept criminal prosecution for doing this? Do you believe the government should jail someone for making this statement? If so, you are not a conservative at all, you are an imperialist who believes in enforcing your religion through government edict.
Let’s establish some points. Some who claim to be Protestants have variants that are extreme and distasteful to almost all Christians. Some who claim to be Catholics have variants that are extreme and distasteful to almost all Christians.
Can we agree that we prefer a government not jail people simply for not accepting the official religion of that area? Does it matter if that official religion is same as ours, or if it is Protestant, Christian, Islam or anything else?
At a basic level I would think we could all agree on these points set aside some of the arguments about who worships what.
One of the things not mentioned in most of the articles is that Chiapas, of course, was the main center of “Comandante Marcos” and his roving guerrilla band. The place is extremely left-wing, and the Catholic bishop at the time was very lefty himself and did nothing to improve Catholic religious practice, encourage the Catholic faith, or work on the real problems of the people of the area. He was too busy sucking up to Comandante Marcos.
However, he was removed and replaced a couple of years ago, so there is a new bishop working on things and I’m sure changes are taking place.
It’s complicated, because in addition to its Catholics, its Evangelicals, its practicers of santería-type syncretist cults, and its raving Marxists, Chaipas has a heavy Islamic influence. There has been a wave of conversions by Evangelicals to Islam, and the Muslims, working through an Islamic organization headed by a Spanish Muslim convert, have been working among the disaffected Protestants of the area. Just recently, in fact, the Mexican government expelled some of the Muslim recruiters, because there was some indication that they were tied in with foreign Islamist powers. And of course the Muslims and the left are hand in glove.
It’s an area to watch, certainly, and it’s very hard to figure out what’s going on there.
Maybe not, but note that I would not be defending myself but rather my Church, from slander. Jesus gave his life for the Church.
Of course. As Catholic I do not obey laws that are injust, expect persecution for my beliefs, and defend the Church from slander regardless of what the authority might do to me.
Do you believe the government should jail someone for making this statement?
Yes, slander is a violation of natural law and therefore the governemnt should punish the slanderers.
I do not condone the specific situation in that parish, especially forced participation in festivals. Cops acting like thugs in Mexico? Stop the presses.
However, the jerk calling people idolaters who reject the gospel is a catechist. First, he should know his own faith better, and if there is an unhealthy slant in these celebrations, he should have alerted his bishop, rather than bolt to a Protestant sect. I do not recommend doing what allegedly someone did to him, -- if they did, -- but I do not see anything admirable in his actions, and so the reaction is predictable.
This had to be written by someone with an agenda, it reads like pure fiction, like someone describing a place he's never been and talking about real people he's never met. This was written to stir passions by someone who knew no-one would be able to check on the veracity of his reporting.
I don't think that very many American Catholics realize hwo far astray from traditional Catholic doctine and ritual some of the Latin American churches have gone. A close friend of mine has been an evangelical Christian missionary in the mountainous backcountry of Guatemala for 30-odd year, and we correspond frequently. He says that the religious rites practiced in many Catholic churches in the backcountry areas of Central America are a blend of traditional Catholicism and pagan tribal religions carried over from the pre-Columbian era, and over the centuries have been incorporated into Catholic celebrations and rituals.
He has witnessed rituals at religious festivals in that region that he says closely mimic the demonic rituals of some ancient pagan religions in other continents besides the western hemisphere. That has been a favorite tactic of Satan since the 1st century's heretical sects such as the Gnostics and Aryans, if he can't defeat Christ openly he will infiltrate and subvert the church from within. We can see it here in the US in some of the cults which claim to be Christian but hold beliefs that are antithetical to biblical Christianity.
I agree with your post. I would be curious to know the number of Mexican illegals from that area. I imagine because of its instability the number would be high
So there is no religious persecution anywhere in the world today? What planet are you posting from? Christians of many denominations are being persecuted today by fanatics of other religions even as we sit here comfortably at our keyboards denying that persecution exists today.
Perhaps you should learn a little bit from on-scene sources about the quasi-Christian blend of Christianity and paganism that passes for Catholicism in some of the more remote regions of Latin America before you call a report like this one a lie.
Is Jesus a loaf of bread?
I read through the piece again and got a few search leads and plugged in the religious affairs office. I found this on the US State Department website.
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, in certain southern areas, political, cultural, and religious tensions continued to limit the free practice of religion within some communities. Most such incidents occurred in the State of Chiapas, but government officials, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the evangelical and Catholic churches agree the roots of these conflicts sometimes lie in political, ethnic, or land disputes.
Chiapas is known for its political instability and it wasn't hard to see the agenda in this little piece. What struck me is that the priest, if there is one, was never spoken of, just the pastor of the Evangelical church. Even if this is true, it sounds more political rather than religious.
Here is an article from NCR from 1996 but it shows how the political strife has been going on for many years and that the religious do suffer but it is still all about politics and power and not religion.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n33_v32/ai_18447365
I'm not even saying that some version of this story isn't true but the article had AGENDA written all over in IMHO.
No, it appears to be the catholics defending synchrotism in knee jerk fashion thread.
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