Pope to Confront Mexican Santa Meurte Death Cult

[Cheerful Charlie]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/pop...worshipping-blasphemous-skeletal-death-saint/

...
When Pope Francis arrives in Mexico for a five-day visit on Friday, he will find a country where devotion to Santa Muerte is growing fast despite the Vatican’s rejection of the figure as blasphemous.
...

“Santa Muerte is an absurdity,” Cardinal Norberto Rivera, Mexico’s archbishop, told AFP. “Every Christian should be in favor of life, not death.”
But the Church is losing the battle against the Death Saint, which is famous for being worshipped by drug cartels but is followed by a wider sector of Mexican society, from the poor to blue-collar workers, police, doctors and teachers.

....

“This is the fastest-growing new religious movement not only in Mexico, but in the entire Americas,” Chesnut, author of “Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint,” told AFP.
Historians trace Santa Muerte to the late 18th century, when indigenous populations turned Spanish images of the Grim Reaper into an icon, prompting the Church to destroy chapels devoted to the folk saint.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's about time. I find it wholely inappropriate for a religion centered around an image of a guy nailed to a cross to be focusing on death cults.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Apparently Scientology is not the fastest growing religion in the world.

 

[couch_sloth]

One thing I find interesting is that the growth of this Santa Meurte devotion has happened organically. That is, it has happened without any centralized leadership. Nor is there even regional leadership for the most part.
Apparently many desperate and poor people feel like they've gotten something out of this particular 'devotion'.

 

[couch_sloth]

Apparently Scientology is not the fastest growing religion in the world.

Heh.. I was thinking the same thing. . From what I've read, there maybe more followers of Santa Muerte in the U.S. than there are practicing Scientologist.

Now awaiting comment from our resident Scientologist

 

[skepticalbip]

One thing I find interesting is that the growth of this Santa Meurte devotion has happened organically. That is, it has happened without any centralized leadership. Nor is there even regional leadership for the most part.
Apparently many desperate and poor people feel like they've gotten something out of this particular 'devotion'.

It isn't particular to "desperate and poor people". Many people of Mexico hold other beliefs than those approved by the Catholic church. Belief in witchcraft (brujas) and curanderos is fairly common. The Santa Muerte worship ties in nicely with a Mexican holiday that almost everyone gets involved in, The Day of the Dead, where everyone goes out the the cemetery to clean up the family plots and candies are made to resemble skulls, bones, etc.

 

[couch_sloth]

One thing I find interesting is that the growth of this Santa Meurte devotion has happened organically. That is, it has happened without any centralized leadership. Nor is there even regional leadership for the most part.
Apparently many desperate and poor people feel like they've gotten something out of this particular 'devotion'.

It isn't particular to "desperate and poor people". Many people of Mexico hold other beliefs than those approved by the Catholic church. Belief in witchcraft (brujas) and curanderos is fairly common. The Santa Muerte worship ties in nicely with a Mexican holiday that almost everyone gets involved in, The Day of the Dead, where everyone goes out the the cemetery to clean up the family plots and candies are made to resemble skulls, bones, etc.

I didn't mean to imply that this devotion was focused on the those in poverty and the desperate.
I had just read the wiki page on Santa Muerte... the Sociology section.

... The cult of Santa Muerte is present throughout the strata of Mexican society, although the majority of devotees are from the urban working class....A large following developed among Mexicans who are disillusioned with the dominant, institutional Catholic Church and, in particular, with the inability of established Catholic saints to deliver them from poverty.... Some of her most devoted followers are those individuals associated with petty economic crimes, committed often out of desperation; such as prostitutes, pickpockets and thieves. ...While worship is largely based in poor neighborhoods, Santa Muerte is also venerated in affluent areas such as Mexico City's Condesa and Coyoacán districts....

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's about time. I find it wholely inappropriate for a religion centered around an image of a guy nailed to a cross to be focusing on death cults.

LOL. So true. That's why there are no irony meters in churches.