Yesterday I wrote about The cartels and their false gods, and mentioned Santa Muerte, a grim reaper figure which even turned up in Breaking Bad,
Last week the BBC reported on Santa Muerte: The rise of Mexico’s death ‘saint’
With readings, hymns and communion, Daniel Santana’s Sunday service could pass for a traditional Catholic Mass, if it were not for the cloaked skeletons and skulls that surround him.
The ceremony takes place at a modest temple to Santa Muerte, the Mexican folk saint of death, in a rundown area of Guadalajara, the nation’s second biggest city.
Despite a reputation as a death cult for criminals and drug traffickers, Santa Muerte has surged in popularity and taken on an increasingly prominent and polemic role in the Day of the Dead festivities held every 1 and 2 November.
A death cult is a death cult,
“She gives people what they want and when they finish their cycle of life here on earth she comes for their souls,” Mr Santana adds.
. . .
Although many Mexicans see no connection between the two, both are thought to stem from Mictecacihuatl, an Aztec goddess who presided over a festival of death every August.
The Vatican has repeatedly denounced Santa Muerte, but according to the article, this is the fastest growing religion in the Americas. CORRECTION: The information on the cult’s ascendance is from Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, now on its 2d edition.
To quote Mark Steyn, “the decline of virtue is accompanied necessarily by the decline of the concept of evil.”
UPDATE
Santa Muerte as the fastest growing new religious movement in the Americas comes from my 9 years of research in both Mexico and the US https://t.co/73f5zdvnz8
— Andrew Chesnut PhD (@AndrewChesnut1) November 9, 2017
