Mexico: 2 kids, woman killed in Saint Death ritual

Associated Press (Miami Herald) ^ | 3/30/12 | Staff

[ruralvoter]

Eight people have been arrested for allegedly killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, prosecutors in northern Mexico said Friday.

Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors, said the victims' blood was poured around an altar to the saint, which is depicted as a skeleton holding a scythe and clothed in flowing robes.

The grisly slayings recalled the notorious "narco-satanicos" killings of the 1980s, when 15 bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were unearthed at a ranch outside the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

While Saint Death has become the focus of a cult among drug traffickers and criminals in Mexico in recent years, there have been no confirmed cases of human sacrifices in Mexico to the scary-looking saint, which is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. Worshippers usually offer candy, cigarettes and incense to the skeleton-statue.

[RegulatorCountry]

Well, maybe the early, Indian evangelizing Protestant churches in North America were just lucky, lol. There don’t appear to be corresponding examples of syncretic belief carrying over there.

Or, could it be that there was no pantheon of saints to swap out on the surface for their old pagan pantheist gods, possibly?

Cherokee beliefs were compatible to a degree that was startling to Moravian missionaries, I’ve read some of their accounts. They were apparently monotheists before ever being evangelized.

[Natural Law]

"There's a woman in our congregation who has a tattoo of Santa Muerte on her arm!"

So, by the logic of some on this thread, your congregation is tangled up with and at least tolerant of pagan death cults. The only way someone can believe stuff like that is if they really, really want to.

[RegulatorCountry]

Well, NL, why would she have such a thing by your “logic?”

Because she just thought it was pretty?

[Natural Law]

"Well, NL, why would she have such a thing by your “logic?”"

I don't know and don't care, but if you are without sin, keep throwing.

[Tax-chick]

It’s probably that among our group of Mexicans, there are some who had drug-cartel involvement. We have people from Sinaloa, the homeland of some of the cartels and of the Santa Muerte cult. Whatever they did in the past, they wouldn’t be attending our church now if they weren’t serious about being Christians.

I’m sure RC can look at the experiences of African Protestants and see that Catholic faith is not the key factor in mixing occult belief with Christianity ... because this is simply a verifiable fact, and we conservatives live with facts, instead of dismissing them like the “progressives” do.

Native Americans are no more monolithic than Europeans, from Ireland to Russia. The religion of Cherokees was cleaner than that of indigenous Mexicans or the tribes of Liberia. Some anthropologists suggest an environmental component - the harder life is, the more demanding the “gods,” in terms of blood and cruelty - but that’s just a theory.

[Cvengr]

Whenever I hear these reports, then consider the academic queries regarding the fate of the Anasazi’s, I’m led to consider that God not only judges individuals but also by group as with Sodom and Gomorrah. There might be very good reasons why some of these groups disappear from human history.