Death Cult: Santa Muerte

There's a really significant essay over at Catholic Exchange this morning about something that I seldom hear Catholics talk about. the cult of Santa Muerte, or Holy Death, in Mexico. Santa Muerte is definitely not the "Sister Death" that St. Francis wrote about. (For a chilling experience, do a Google image search for Santa Muerte and spend a few moments contemplating the results. One look and I knew that I would not be posting an image here on this blog!)

As author Carrie O'Connell writes:

"The cult figure of Santa Muerte has found a home among those who traffic narcotics through the country, with prayers offered to her for safe passage during drug runs and other illegal activities. They call upon Santa Muerte for help in deeds that they feel other saints would turn from, such as prayers of vengeance or sexual desires. As Catholics, and faithful participants in the communion of saints, this should be an insult to our sensibilities. To attach the title of “saint” to something that is so vividly in contrast to God’s teaching is an attack on the very nature of the Catholic faith. The Church, in particular the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico City, has not minced words in decrying the worship of Santa Muerte as being in direct opposition to the teachings of the Church and proper worship — but this has not put an end to the craze.

Even though the cult of Santa Muerte is primarily contained in Mexico, it has implications for the worldwide Church. This cult of superstition darkens the image of the Church in Mexico and across the globe. Because so many of the followers of Santa Muerte have intermingled their dark beliefs with that of the culture of the Roman Catholic Church, it poses a threat to the integrity of the church as viewed from outside. It gives ammunition to anti-Catholic biases that often misconstrue traditions as superstitions and veneration of saints as idol worship. The Catholic veneer that has been thinly painted over it is precisely what makes this pagan tradition so dangerous. Many followers are tricked into assuming it holds a legitimate place in their worship, because it so closely mimics the visual representations of the Catholic Church."

For a very different source, consider this report by the US Department of Defense: The Death Cult of the Drug Lords Mexico’s Patron Saint of Crime, Criminals, and the Dispossessed

I can confirm Carrie O'Connell's observations. The evangelical missionary strategists that I studied under had already spent 20 years in Central and Latin America and were acutely aware of the Latin tendency toward what they called "Christo-paganism" of which Santa Muerte is such a dramatic example. It was profoundly shocking to them and made it very, very easy to dismiss a Church that seemed to tolerate it.

And it was the experience of such Christo-paganism that informed and fueled the deep anti-Catholicism that infests significant parts of Independent Christianity. Many of the global leaders of early Independent Christianity were seasoned Latin American hands or heavily influenced by those who were. When I would tell them that Catholicism does not believe, teach, or approve such things, they would always say "You don't understand. North American Catholicism is a very different animal from Latin Catholicism."

Of course that is true. And often it is very good news for US Catholics because we need the prophetic witness of the great values that Latin Catholics bring us: a strong sense of family solidarity, hospitality, community, warmth, and often - a stronger awareness of the poor. But just as parts of our culture needs judging and transformation by the power of Christ, so do critical part of every human culture on the planet.

As I wrote on Amy's blog three years ago in a discussion of religious syncretism three years ago:

"Serious sycretism had been wide-spread in Latin American Catholicism for centuries before Protestants arrived. Latin American Catholicism has always, especially at the popular level, incorporated tons of stuff from various indigenous cultures, and various occult practices. As one Puerto Rican woman, who was struggling with the consequences of heavy family involvement in the occult, put it to me : "We're 100% Catholic and 99% spiritist."

The resulting Christ-paganism has always deeply shocked Protestants in Latin America and merges in their mind with Marian devotion, etc. It is ahistorical to regard this as a recent, post-Vatican II, post-Protestant onslaught development.

But here's the deal: The only alternative to running the risk of syncretism is not evangelize at all. It has been a constant theme of discussion and tension throughout the entire history of Christian missions. Where does Christ call us to judge the culture and change our ways and where does the faith affirm our culture and bring it to fruition? What is non-negotiable and what is not?

Every culture in history has to be judged and transformed by the Gospel and every culture has resisted and responded in different ways. Every culture in history - whether Irish, German, Tamil, Igbo, or Guarani, that has deeply encountered the Gospel, has gone through an intense and continuous struggle to meld the faith and deeply entrenched cultural practices.

Those of us who are the heirs of 10 - 20 centuries of such struggle by our European forefather and mothers take many of the results for granted. It is part of the warp and woof of our being.

And yet despite many centuries of Christianity and many great saints and apostles, Europe still spawned movements like Nazism and Stalinism that were virolently anti-Christian and destroyed the lives and happiness of so many millions. You should read Deitrich von Hildebrand's description of his astonishment at seeing the cream of highly cultured and deeply Catholic Munich support Hitler. Heads of great religious orders and theologians buying in. Centuries of Christian history and decades of theological formation did not protect them. It is always difficult and none of us is immune.

We find it shocking to witness first and second generations of converts in profoundly alien cultures wrestling with issues that seem obvious and settled to us - and they, of course, are similarly scandalized by the ways in which we "historic Christian peoples" betray and distort parts of the Gospel that seem glaringly obvious to them.

Of course, there are deep problems with syncretism in Africa. Are there seriously heretical movements present? Sure. They are no different from us or from the early Church in this respect.

The struggles in Nigeria and Nepal will be different from ours - and the resulting Catholicism will inevitably look different but it will not invalidate their faith and what God has done in their midst any more than the long history of superstition and corruption and the wide differences in European Christanity and practice invalidates our faith."

I'm delighted that Catholic Exchange published O'Connell's article. Because this sort of thing is much more than merely the cultural expression of a particular nation.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ judges all of us as individuals and all our cultures and calls us all to repentence and transformation. None of us will ever get to the end of it in this life.