Posted on 02/13/2007 12:00:51 PM PST by Alex Murphy
Evangelical Christians are increasingly attacked by “traditional Catholics” in a southern Mexican state, according to a persecution watchdog group.
In the indigenous region of Chiapas state, traditional Catholics – a blend of Catholicism and native religious practices – are more frequently being accused of various acts of religious intolerance against protestants, such as “threats, intimidation, and robbery or expulsion from their communities, or death,” reported Alfonso Farrera, director of the National Bar of Christian Lawyers, to Compass Direct News.
In total, the bar says it has records of 200 cases of unresolved religious intolerance against evangelical Christians in Chiapas state, while incidents of persecution are “accelerating daily in the indigenous regions.”
Many of the conflicts arise from community leaders demanding evangelicals pay quotas for Catholic festivals, according to Compass. Some Evangelicals have said that though they are willing to cooperate in community projects, they refuse to fund religious festivals involving drunkenness and immoral behavior.
Common complaints by Evangelicals include local leaders cutting off the water supply or being denied benefits from government programs because of their faith.
Evangelical families are also often threatened with expulsion from their properties because they do not share in the faith and lifestyle of the town.
The Roman Catholic bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Felipe Arizmendi, has denied ties with the “traditional Catholics.”
Arizmendi declared that the “so-called traditional Catholics, who do not depend on our diocese, do not take into account the Bible nor the laws of this country, but are governed by their own agreements and traditions,” according to Mexico City’s La Jornada newspaper on Feb. 8.
Protestant Christians in other states besides Chiapas have also reported persecution by indigenous groups and by traditional Catholics. Christians living in indigenous regions in the central state of Hidalgo are among those who have reported harassment because of their faith.
According to the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, persecution of protestant Christian is likely the result of Mexico’s association of Protestantism religion with America. Traditional Mexicans view Protestant Christianity as a threat to their culture, tradition, and Catholic faith, especially given the number of Mexicans in recent decades that have changed to evangelical Christianity after reading the Bible.
Mexico is composed of 89 percent Roman Catholic and only six percent Protestant.
I don't have much sympathy for the prots. Mexico is a Catholic country. Let them go off and evangelize Saudi Arabia!
VIVA CRISTO REY!
VIVA LA VIRGEN DE GUADALUPE!
VIVA SAN JOSE!
Sounds like the prods are pulling a bait & switch. Doesn't sound like it's even the RCC that's doing it, it's SSPX or something of the sort.
Chiapas is a mess. I suspect the various parties have been feuding over one pretext or another for 100 years.
This year, it's "Catholic" vs. "Evangelical." I'll bet the Mexican government and the Chiapas "revolutionaries" love it -- keeps the people distracted from the both sides are bleeding them dry.
If it is 89% roman catholic and 6% protestant it is not really much of a feud. Persecution would be more correct.
So a catholic majority is entitled to persecute a protestant, or any other, minority?
**Evangelical Christians are increasingly attacked by “traditional Catholics” in a southern Mexican state, according to a persecution watchdog group. **
And how many of us Catholics have been harrassed and persecuted, so to say, in the United States? Or even here on FR?
I'm glad that they put "traditional Catholics" in quotation marks. Whatever they are, they are evidently so "traditional" and so "Catholic" that they can't be bothered to be in obedience to the local bishop.
Don't tell me somebody keyed your Lexus again?
I caught that, too. Hopefully that same bishop isn't counting them in his numbers for other purposes, as the article goes on to say that "Mexico is composed of 89% Roman Catholic"....
This has been going on for a long time, here is an excert from an older article.
On 18th October 1997, eleven Presbyterian families from the village of Ejido Saltillo, municipality of Las Margaritas, were threatened with expulsion by the caciques from the same village. The families were warned that they would be stripped of all their possessions and thrown out of their homes. Their crime was membership of the Presbyterian Church. Subsequently on 28th October, the caciques summoned the fathers of these families to the Catholic church and told them that in light of the fact that the community of Saltillo is predominantly Catholic, they would have to make a decision: renounce the gospel or sign a document stating that they would "voluntarily" leave their community and belongings. Whilst the families refused to sign the documents, they did leave the village in fear of violent reprisals by caciques.
My point was that a difference of religion often coincides with other historic differences ... ethnic, linguistic, economic-level, and so on. Therefore, a conflict that seems to be based on religious difference often has many other elements.
Ohhh, poor baby. Did someone ask a probing question on another one of your sacred Catholic Caucus threads???
Oh grow up.
I hope you are embarrassed by that statement.
Waaaaaaay too few, IMHO! What goes around....comes around. Are you old enough to remember the Inquisition?
Ah, the "Inquisition card," played by secular and "Reformed" Christians alike, as often as the race card is used by Jesse Jackson.
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