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
So there is no religious persecution anywhere in the world today?
Are you getting a little hysterical there?! Where did I say that there is no religious persecution in the world today? I would ask you So there is no propaganda anywhere in the world today?
But, of course, I know there is religious persecution, I see it every day. Religious persecution is almost a staple in Mexico . It is just that this particular story sounds like a tabloid version and it just sounds too hokey.
I tell you what, I have to go to Adoration and I probably won't be home 'til afternoon. That will give you plenty of time to find me one or two other versions of this story and maybe a follow-up.
This story just doesn't pass the smell test but I'm not from the group who believes everything just because it fits my agenda.
Was Jesus a statue?
Are people expecting the statue to answer their prayers?
Some people get all excited about statues bleeding.
If a statue can bleed, then why can't it answer your prayers?
If you pray to a wafer of bread can the wafer of bread answer your prayers?
Some people get all excited about statues bleeding.
If a statue can bleed, then why can't it answer your prayers?
If you pray to a wafer of bread can the wafer of bread answer your prayers?
Again, you are confusing the physical with the spiritual. If an evangelist is watching TV and the preacher says pray with me, is he then praying to the TV?
Of course not.
It is just as silly to say these people are praying to a wafer. Ridiculous!
I have been told that the wafer is literally God. That it is an object of worship.
Have I been misinformed?
No, I mean the blending of catholicism and animism that is being ignored by some catholic apologists in their blind rush to defend what they perceive to be an attack on the catholic church. Although the ability to utilize the powers of the state to punish someone for changing their religious affiliation is also a huge problem...no wonder so many want to leave Mexico and become illegal immigrants to the US given religious persecution and government corruption in Mexico.
I have been told that the wafer is literally God. That it is an object of worship.
Have I been misinformed?
You are purposely misinterpreting the meaning.
Slander is a crime, is it not? Defense from slander is typically, an apology, a retraction, cease and desist orders, fines, etc, -- and if the offender does not comply, the state uses force. It is not commonly called violence though.
But I am not condoning a hotheaded reaction, merely pointing out that one does not slander a whole village of people as idolaters, then runs under a skirt of some missionaries to complain.
What do you know about credits to Catohlicism? You are what, Unitarian?
Heresy is indeed worse than physical death, and is comparable to forgery. It would not be unreasonable to demand that the punishment be the same, especially in a confessional state that St. Thomas was commenting about.
Have I been misinformed?
"literally"? That word was used? That's certainly interesting and you were possibly misinformed. If the word "really" or "sacramentally" wa used, then there is something to discuss. But "literally", which is overused anyway, is A word I wouldn't want casually to apply to the presence of Christ in the sacrament.
On the other hand,
If a statue can bleed, then why can't it answer your prayers? I can bleed, and the number of prayers I can answer is limited, and most Prot.s wouldn't consider them prayers.
Can you bleed? Can you answer prayers? What connection is there between a rarer than Prots like admit attribution of a miraculous phenomenon to a statue and a statue's being able to answer prayer?
If the point is to ventilate anger and suspicion about Catholics, maybe there could be a convention whereby this could be signified. Some of us Catholics would take it upon ourselves to read the angry posts and to pray for the poster.
But if the point is serious enquiry or even serious discussion about what Catholic teaching is, then I have to say it is an incredible non sequitur to suggest that a statue's bleeding would imply its ability to answer prayers.
Do I know this heretic personally? Does he or she post on Free Republic? Is it good weather for an outdoor fire?
My guess is that thoughtful people interested more in conversation than contention understand that 600 or so years ago the very idea of religious pluralism and of the toleration of wide range of beliefs was as uncommon as thinking that slavery was in almost every case evil.
Now, as then we find treachery and spying for the enemy horribly vicious and harmful to the general welfare, so those who want to understand those with whom they disagree can see how reasonable people of good will could have thought what Aquinas thought.
My alleged or attempted point is this: There is a noted relationship between soi-disant charismatics and psychosis. Eusebius wittily referrred to this a LONG long time ago. There are some good and pious people who fall into this category. Cantalamessa and the Late Cardinal Suenens (at least I think he's late - he was old 30+ years ago) are two Catholics of whom I know, and I know of some Protestants also.
I think at least as good an argument can be made that charismania is necessarily linked to psychosis, personality disorder, and other bad stuff as the arqument that conventional Catholic cultic behavior can lead to polytheism and idolatry.
Since it seems to be a solemn purpose of my friend Quix to take that potshot at my religion whenever the opportunity presents itself, and since I have made many appeals to reason and gentleness in an effort to get him to cut it out, I have decided that every time I catch him slamming us RCs for encouraging idolatry and polytheism, I am going to slam him for encouraging psychosis, incest, and the like.
Let's try to remember that Catholic martyrs were made in Mexico. What we got there is a messed up state.
I can't comment on the other RC posters on this thread. Clearly the story is of an outrage. 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.
I think at least as good an argument can be made that charismania is necessarily linked to psychosis, personality disorder, and other bad stuff as the arqument that conventional Catholic cultic behavior can lead to polytheism and idolatry.
= = =
As my dissertation literature review and data demonstrated, the above statement is simply wholesale untrue, false, erroneous, wrong, etc. Knowingly perpetuating such a falsehood is not particularly impressive.
There is no signifcant correlation and certainly no causal relationship above national norms for Charismatics and Pentecostals as a group vis a vis psychosis or any other mental illness. All contentions otherwise are false at best or deliberate lies.
I have persistently noted that ALL CHRISTIAN GROUPS have idolatry and a list of other human sins and spiritual, perversions etc. to some degree. This appears to have escaped your notice multiple times that I’ve persistently asserted this.
I tend to be somewhat ready to quick to articulate gross problems with RC groups for at least a couple of reasons.
1. They seem to have a very deeply entrenched and broad blindness to their own flaws. The Scripture exhorts us to warn our brothers. I prefer to follow Scripture instead of Mad Dawg’s preferences.
2. The lurkers deserve to have the other side of the coin; the alternate perspective presented just as forcefully as the RC position is presented.
3. I have hesitated somewhat to get into the post beginning this thread very forthrightly. You have convinced me, I must do so.
4. I have historically since at least 1966ish, if not before, been relatively quick to call spiritual groups and leaders to the Biblical standard whenever, wherever, however they seemed to be violating them grossly, wholesale, horrifically. I don’t anticipate stopping being responsive to the press in my spirit and heart in such matters. I have done and do this first and foremost in my own particular current group at the time. However, when pressed strongly in my spirit, I can rise to the occasion and challenge to articulate hogwash and gross hypocrisy wherever and let the chips fall where they may.
5. I have endeavored since your kind solicitations to be as charitable in tone and wording as I can be. You have largely accomplished that. I suppose it is your perogative to throw all that in the trash but it seems rather silly to do so.
6. My increased earnestness toward charity in tone and wording has not necessarily been matched or met by folks on the other side of many issues. I don’t observe your ire as publically toward them nor as quickly, if at all. Is the double standard alive and well at your house?
7. The article at the beginning of this thread is a challenging one. But sweeping it under the rug is neither honest nor Christian. We must deal with it. Hopefully, we can deal with it charitably and honestly. But it is cowardly not to deal with it. And Scripture is clear that cowards will join homosexuals and other gross sinners in hell.
8. From my perspective, the RC brothers and sisters come to virtually any thread which touches on their ‘sacred’ group with a pile of chips on their shoulders daring anyone to say anything that will in the slightest offend them. Then, they are quick to squeal to high heaven as though their porker was stuck to the quick, the heart. Of course, other Christian groups seem not to be considered worthy of screaming or protesting much at all when RC’s rail at them most self-righteously, haughtily and intensely and even harshly. That kind of double standard is not impressive nor something I care to copy nor kowtow to.
9. It seems to me that we have a very interesting challenge here on the FR religion forum. It is a challenge that God has placed before the Christian Church as a whole. Will we demonstrate in our relationships with one another that we are Christians by our Love, or will we not.
10. As is known, I’m convinced these are the END TIMES. Further, I’m convinced that where Christian groups will cooperate UNDER THE LEADERSHIP AND GUIDANCE OF HOLY SPIRIT—not in some mindless globalist false ecumunicism—but where HOLY SPIRIT TRULY LEADS AND ALL THE CHRISTIANS OF ALL STRIPES IN THE AREA FOLLOW IN EARNEST IN HOLY SPIRIT—THEN, GOD WILL UNCOMMONLY PROTECT, PROVIDE, LEAD, BLESS.
11. Otherwise, famines, pestilance, floods, drought, quakes and many other calamities will befall those geographic areas wherein Christians refuse to cooperate and show love to one another. Of course, such lack of cooperation and love is ALWAYS blamed on THEIR false doctrines etc. I don’t think God is going to be moved by such claims. He has set the standard and He has delcared it’s priority above other far lesser priorities. We have yet to obey very consistently, much less wholesale.
12. TRUTH IN LOVE is the standard. I don’t expect to homoginize FR’s Christians and would consider it a tragedy if that resulted. Distinctives serve some purpose that’s somewhat mysterious. Often it seems such distinctives are only used by satan for division and heartache and rebellion against God’s priorities. And, I’m sure that’s often God’s feelings about it, too. But, He COULD have cleaned this mess up a long time ago IF He chose. He has not. So He must have another plan. We shall see.
13. I think in part the diverse groups afford us some supreme tests about obeying His priority to love one another before a hurting world regardless. Few seem to be passing that test.
14. I say again, it is false to accuse me of saying anything very generally about RC’s that I have not said about Pentecostals, Charismatics, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Methodists etc. Pretending otherwise is utterly false.
15. Yes, I think the RC’s have some chronic and very serious blind spots which I persistently articulate. They do the same about what they consider my chronic blind spots. I don’t hear you railing at them for doing so.
16. I have seen better of you. I shall continue to expect better of you.
Blessings,
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