"She is not a recognized saint by the Roman Catholic Church, in fact the Vatican officially condemned her in 2013," a Texas American pastor hastened to warn his Latin faithful in 2017.
"They call her Santa Muerte, Saint of Death, but she is not a saint," he insisted. And he was indeed right.
Because she is not a saint, but a skeletal figure who has seen her cult grow exponentially in Mexico and spread to Latin America and the USA. But do not be fooled by the name that refers to a saint of Catholicism or the characteristic veil of the Virgin Mary that she wears, Santa Muerte now has a lot to testify to her, even ritual killings in her name.
"It is not every day that a popular saint is condemned by the highest echelons of the Vatican," confesses Santa Muerte cult expert Andrew Chesnut, who has written the only notable (university) book on the subject. .
Despite the holy war between the Vatican and the official Mexican state, however, the skeletal saint remains alarmingly popular on the margins of society, ranging from impoverished and poor devils to prisoners, criminals and drug lords. Even God-fearing Catholics worship her, despite her condemnation by the Church. "She is like the girl in the poster for narco-satanic spirituality," Bishop Chesnut tells us.
In fact, according to his study group, the cult of Santa Muerte is the fastest growing religious movement in the world right now, as everything has happened in the last 10-15 years. In fact, a 2001 survey showed that 99% of Mexicans were completely unaware of it.
Now the situation is completely different, with around 10-12 million believers drinking water in its name. But how did this happen and a pagan deity dressed in Christianity gained such an audience?
But why do those who reject religion and God-fearing Christians prefer it?
Despite the fact that both Mexico and the rest of America would not learn it until the last decade, the Saint of Death (as Santa Muerte translates) has been with us for centuries. And certainly from the time Spanish colonialism landed in the New World.
The years when the Conquistadores tried to convert the Maya and Aztecs to Christianity and presented them with the western representations of Charos. The only problem; How these civilizations already had their own deities of death.
Before the arrival of the white Spaniard, the Aztecs living in present-day central Mexico worshiped the terrifying Mictecacihuatl, the "Lady of Death." This pre-Columbian deity who ruled the Underworld was usually portrayed as a skeletal female figure. Sometimes with a normal body and a skull for the head, in ways similar to the iconography of Santa Muerte.
And of course it is no coincidence that the "Skeleton Lady", as Santa Muerte is called by her devoted followers, usually holds a scythe, like these black-clad figures of Grace that the Catholic missionaries carried in their suitcases. And so the Saint of Death is probably a graft of the pre-Columbian deities of the Underworld (such as Mictecacihuatl) and Charo.
And as the spread of Christianity did not completely eradicate the traditional pagan beliefs of the world, the new religion of Rome married local customs and traditions, giving way to paradoxes like Santa Muerte. A figure that even the Inquisition tried to uproot, destroying every statue it found, even the temples of Mictecacihuatl in Central Mexico.
And the truth is that they have succeeded for several centuries. Santa Muerte literally disappeared from history until a good part of the 20th century. Then, between 1940-1980, some references to it appear sporadically, for good reason in public discourse, but it would not enter until the first cartel wars broke out!
But again, Mexico would have to wait until 2001 to host the first temple dedicated to it, in the Tepito district of Mexico City. How from there her cult reached 10-12 million believers in a few years, this is now the subject of theological and sociological research…
As Santa Muerte's research suggests, it's no coincidence that its growing popularity has coincided with the rising blood tax that Mexico has been paying since the cartel war over the past 15 years.
As a Mexican city pastor explained a few years ago: "Many believers who feel that death awaits them in the corner, may be boats, may be working on the street, may be guards waiting to be gassed, turn to Santa Muerte for protection ".
The top officials of the Mexican Catholic hierarchy have called her a "narco-saint" since the beginning, as drug barons and members of their cartels were sworn in her name. These, the worst elements of Mexico's criminal underworld, were among the hardest core of its followers, apparently wanting to reconcile their fringe life with Christian morality. And Santa Muerte was more than ideal here!
Catholicism is so pervasive in Mexican society that even the most bloodthirsty criminal would not feel comfortable seeking the help of a traditional saint for his illegal activities. As pastor Andres Gutierrez regularly explains to his flock: "If someone is doing something illegal and wants to be protected by the police, it would seem strange to ask God to protect him. And so he promises something to Santa Muerte in exchange for protecting him from the law. "
But it is no longer just the narco-culture that turns to Santa Muerte for help. Her cult has now found fertile ground in the slums of Mexico, the working class, but also single mothers, even in the country's gay community. That is, anyone who lives on the fringes of society and feels that he is being thrown out, forgotten or excluded from the Church. "Unlike the Catholic Church or the Evangelical Church," writes academic Chesnut, "Death does not discriminate. "This [Santa Muerte] can fit them all."
And so millions of pious Mexicans have either severed ties with the Catholic Church and turned to the personification of death or found a way to reconcile the irreconcilable. That is, despite the fact that the country's religious leaders not only succeed against it, but believe that its worship brings even more violence, poisoning the human soul with the satanic element of Santa Muerte.
Despite the fact that the largest percentage of people who pray to the Saint of Death declare themselves Catholics, the cult has against it a powerful opponent: the Vatican! The highest echelons of which have repeatedly denounced Santa Muerte, claiming that the beliefs that motivate its adherents are in direct conflict with the preaching of Christianity.
The blasphemous hierarchs of the Catholic Church have called the worship of the Saint of Death "blasphemous", "satanic" and "degeneration for religion". The coolest, however, call her a "popular saint", responding theologically to the non-saint of her existence: the Church has not sanctified her because she lived a seventh life or because she died for her religious ideals. So she is not a saint.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, an ardent opponent of Santa Muerte, even says that death was the last enemy Jesus defeated, and so praying to the personification of death instead of Christ is a violation, a perversion of the faith and essence of Christianity. .
But there is also the fact that the connection of the underworld with her has led the Mexican government to condemn her. Through the mouth of the former president Felipe Calderon, who had unequivocally described Santa Muerte as "enemy of the Mexican state".
And like the Sacred Examination of the past, he had ordered the army bulldozers to level dozens of temples dedicated to it in 2012. He had vowed to crack down on the country's organized drug crime and that would be another decisive blow to the cartels, depriving them of their patron saint.
However, there are those who believe that the greatest danger represented by the Saint of Death does not concern the theological doctrines of Christianity. To most Mexican priests, Santa Muerte is nothing more than a demon by another name. "And when you worship demons," the priest Gutierrez tells us, "you are in fact a Satanist."
And in this more tangible than spiritual threat, some see the real danger it embodies for society. In 2012, Mexican police arrested the now infamous Silvia Meraz for a series of ritual murders that took place in the state of Sonora over a period of 3 years.
Meraz and her 8 followers had sacrificed an adult woman and two ten-year-old boys on the altar of Santa Muerte. As the prosecutor had revealed in the trial, "the victims had opened, cut their arteries and veins while they were alive and were waiting to die of bleeding, collecting their blood in a container, which they then poured into a statue of the skeletal woman. saint ".
Despite the fact that most worshipers of the Saint of Death do not reach such extremes, the gloomy incident of 2012 sparked new waves of outcry from the Catholic Church about the dangers posed by the belief in death.
But the next milestone in the history of Santa Muerte could not be swallowed by the Vatican at all: a barrage of churches that could well have passed for catholic churches, if it were not for these veiled skeletons and skulls all around! These humble temples that were opened for her worship in degraded neighborhoods of Mexico and Latin America signify her victory, insist the Catholic hierarchs.
But here the faithful, peaceful people of the working class, more than bloodthirsty gangs, say that they adore her because she does not judge them. They love her because they give her things and she protects them.
"It's a widely misunderstood belief, it's not a satanic function," said Daniel Santana, who has officiated at temples dedicated to Santa Muerte in Mexico since 2010. "Gives people what they want and when they complete it their life cycle here on Earth, comes for their souls. He is simply carrying out God's commands "»