Chiapas: Expelled Christians Living in Barn

Voice of the Martyrs ^ | February 2013 page 9 | Voice of the Martyrs

[daniel1212]

Chiapas: Expelled Christians Living in Barn
February 2013 issue, page 9

“We aren’t delinquents; we’re people who love God and respect society.”

A leader of a Christian group of 27 families in Altamirano, Chiapas, Mexico were expelled from their community “just for being evangelicals,” according to a recent report in a Chiapas newspaper. And now the families, which include about 40 children, are living in a cattle barn because they have nowhere else to go.

VOM has been providing basic needs to expelled Christians like these through a dedicated pastor who volunteers his time to help. Last year, we provided the Christians living in the cattle barn with mattresses and food. Although the 27 families are sleeping on mattresses on the ground and storing their belongings in a cattle trough, they have an eternal perspective. They chose to give up their temporal homes rather than compromise their faith in the God who will shelter them in his heavenly home for all eternity.

[BlueDragon]

forgive them, they know not what they do.

[johngrace]

So “Rome “ is declaring that Daniel1212 is going to hell specifically? Now where will you read that it is declaring you specifically. Nor would you read that Billy Graham declares a single individual in name is going to hell. They speak in general. You are the one claiming it is for you from a church? They all know the mercy of God is always at God’s control. Divine Mercy is always his ultimate mercy.

[johngrace]

By the way I give to the Voice of Martyrs. Which was helped in its very beginning by Mother Teresa and other Christians to bring awareness. So there is a village that is against others yet I do not see a leading person from the church mentioned involved. Not that that could be impossible. So we use this one part to go on this rant of yours against a whole church? Huh! Hello!!! You profess too much nonsense. You decorate your words like a lawyer which is without a doubt. You build this writing up by hurting your eyes looking for things to prop up your position. Nowhere is voice of the martyrs going against the church but looking to help but Dan the man will go were angels fear to go. Truth justice and the Dan way.

[johngrace]

Did you also know that a man was once consider for formal "sainthood" He was a wonderful person. But except for him declaring a a criminal in damnation he was never considered again. We are not allowed to judge specifically. You bring up generalizations that are declared not specifics. Do you really think you understand what your reading. Amazing. Yet you go on and on. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

A humble and contrite heart he will not ignore. We each need to understand these words with our Lord.

[Hacksaw]

Catholics in the US fail to understand how pagan many Catholics are in these third world countries. We have had articles of Catholics incorporating Hindu and Buddhist practices within their mass, all with the tacit approval of Rome. Please note the article above from Catholic Online. It is very proud of these Catholics who practice a blend of religious beliefs. And yet our Catholic friends would like us to belief that this is quite alright.

The problem is that if the Pope or local Bishops started to "do something" about it, you people would be complaining about that next, comparing them to the Spanish Conquistadors wiping out the peaceful and benevolent Aztecs and Mayans. It's the same shuck and jive we are used to hearing.

[Mrs. Don-o]

HarleyD, I've no doubt whatever that there are serious religious syncretism problems in Latin America, having seen some of it myself which was most disturbing. I once saw a little bundle of chicken bones placed beneath a cross in a side chapel at a rural Catholic church that had a lot of ethnic Tzeltals. The pastor, evidently angry, grabbed it and threw it in the trash container in the parish kitchen.

However, that's what was (approvingly) referred to in the Catholic Online article you cited. It said,

"...the Dominican brethrens [missionaries]instructed [them] in Christian doctrine in their own tongue, as well as in many religious practices and customs which they have preserved to the present day."

Employing my old Homeschool Mom Sentence Diagramming skills, I get:

"instructed [them]in... Christian doctrine (and)

"instructed [them] in... many religious practices and customs"

In other words, there's nothng in this sentence about pagan customs. The article is referring to Christian missionaries teaching them both Christian doctrines and Christian customs. (Which stands to reason: Dominican monks don't "teach" people ancestral, native pagan practices; in fact, the Dominicans are more often condemned as "religious imeperialists' for vigorously suppressing native practices such as animal and --- formerly --- even human sacrifice. Tzeltals pass on their own customs via their caciques and other elders.

I think part of the confusion here is the specialized use of the word "traditonalist." In Chiapas, "traditionalist" means native, aboriginal, pagan beliefs. It doesn't mean "traditional Catholicism," it means "traditional pagan."

The Catholic who oppose the chaciques (chicken-sacrificers) call themselves "Word of God Catholics."

Both the Evangelicals and the "Word of God" Catholics who have gone against the caciques, have been attacked and expelled, while receiving no protection from either the State of Chiaas nor from the Mexican government. I strongly suspect that the government is using the caciques ("traditionals") for political purposes, as did the Marxist ("liberation theology") faction, whose practices have long been condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). In fact, these abuses are part of what then-Cardinal Ratzinger was trying to combat when he headed the CDF.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify this.

[daniel1212]

So “Rome “ is declaring that Daniel1212 is going to hell specifically? Now where will you read that it is declaring you specifically.

So where did i state that? You do not even both to include whatever it is that brings you make that leaping conclusion. I affirmed that these animistic traditionalists RCs are not going by Rome's modern teaching, while showing where what type of teaching fosters that animosity, thus some traditional types still advocate coercive punishment.

[daniel1212]

So there is a village that is against others yet I do not see a leading person from the church mentioned involved. Not that that could be impossible. So we use this one part to go on this rant of yours against a whole church?

Your response is all too typical knee-jerk reaction by RCs when they see things which even mildly impugn Rome. .

I carefully stated this reaction by not in accordance with modern RC teaching, and even violates the protocol of the past, while showing that is a reality, even if (in subsequent posts), radicalism is "not the norm by any means,' and that Protestantism also has blood on it hands, and accommodating the world, while giving my opinion that the modern RC teaching is mainly due to changed circumstances, and substantiating how in the past the church much became like empire in which it was found and used its coercive means. And any apology by the pope for what popes sanctioned was for some of brethren and children.

And rather than a rational response, this reality is responded by attempts at psychoanalysis and attacking it as lawyering, which only reinforces the portrayal of RCAs as having an irrational cultic devotion, and the flak that is thrown up in response to even mild exposes of what RC effects indicates we must be over a target.

[daniel1212]

Did you also know that a man was once consider for formal "sainthood" He was a wonderful person. But except for him declaring a a criminal in damnation he was never considered again. We are not allowed to judge specifically. We are not allowed to judge specifically. You bring up generalizations that are declared not specifics. Do you really think you understand what your reading. Amazing. Yet you go on and on. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

What in the world in post 19 or whatever in this thread are you referring to? Talk about not understand what your reading and going on and on. Try referencing what you are (over) reacting to and understanding what is being said.

[daniel1212]

The overreaction of certain RCs to anything that impugns Rome, while promotion of her takes place as the the supreme judge, can be the literary equivalent to throwing stones in reaction those who oppose Rome at street level.

[CynicalBear]

>>So there is a village that is against others yet I do not see a leading person from the church mentioned involved.<<

“A leading person”? As in a man?

1 Corinthians 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?<<

>>Truth justice and the Dan way.<<

Getting a little snarky? Making it a little personal?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oh, geez, typo. The opening sentence of the second paragraph was supposed to say:

However, that's NOT what was (approvingly) referred to in the Catholic Online article you cited.

The point being that "Catholics Online" are not voicing their approval of pagan customs.

I hope that was clear from context.

Despite my asdfgh typos. :o/

[daniel1212]

The opening sentence of the second paragraph was supposed to say: This is adding to the confusion, as your response was post 26 to HarleyD in post 5 , not me in post 27 to which your post in linked to.

However, be assured that i am able to make typos better than you, as well as to not write a word which makes it different from what i meant to say.

[daniel1212]

The opening sentence of the second paragraph was supposed to say: This is adding to the confusion, as your response was post 26 to HarleyD in post 5 , not me in post 27

However, be assured that i am able to make typos better than you, as well as to not write a word which makes it different from what i meant to say.

[johngrace]

Always a Lawyer. Amazing. The article was just a showpiece. Who are you kidding?

[daniel1212]

Thank you for adding some depth to the knowledge on this, unlike other RC respondents. I had stated that these animistic, cultural Catholics are not acting in accord with modern RC teaching on freedom of religion, or the protocol of the past. According to Rome, a Catholic is supposed to obey what his church teaches at the present time, even if in time past some things were different, though there is some allowance for private dissent in non-infallible teaching. And I did substantiate what some of the past teaching and practice was, and how “normal” traditionalists can see such as sanctioning persecution today of groups that are contrary to Rome, and i also have personal experience in forceful rejection by those in strong Catholic culture, but your comments and what follows make it clearer that this brand of traditionalists are a different class of of “old-school” Catholics, and i apologize if my comments inferred any more of a correlation than is warranted.

Both the Evangelicals and the "Word of God" Catholics who have gone against the caciques, have been attacked and expelled, while receiving no protection from either the State of Chiaas nor from the Mexican government.

Pages 9-10 in Mayan Voices For Human Rights: Displaced Catholics In Highland Chiapas, give an overview of the situation and which confirms that both the Evangelicals and the "Word of God" Catholics have been attacked and expelled by them, and to which the below information is added:

The Christian Science Monitor / June 26, 1996: San Juan Chamula has been synonymous with intolerance, religious persecution, and the dictatorial rule of caciques, or powerful local bosses, ever since more than 30,000 mostly Evangelical Chamulans were expelled beginning in 1974 from their lands and homes by the caciques and the Chamulans supporting them.

In what was a form of ethnic cleansing before the term was coined, the expelled Chamulans fled primarily to nearby San Cristbal. They were not just Evangelicals, however, but also Catholics who rejected the hybrid mix of traditional Catholicism, Indian religion, and local custom practiced in Chamula's church.

Both groups had incurred the wrath of the local bosses by rejecting the town's peculiar mix of economics and culture that requires families to pay large portions of their generally modest income for the candles, liquor - either commercial or locally prepared posh, or distilled corn - and other elements of Chamula's strictly enforced festivals and traditions. In most cases the caciques were, and continue to be, the distributors of the candles residents are required to burn and the liquor and soft drinks they are required to drink.

Yet despite the deep wounds of lost homes, split families, and even deaths, today there are growing signs that Chamulans are prepared to live together in peace, and that a case that has stood out as one of the worst examples of human rights violation in Mexico can be resolved. If it can be, then some Chiapans insist that Chamula could actually end up an example to other communities in the state of Chiapas, where intolerance and a tendency to resolve disputes with violence remain the rule.- http://www.csmonitor.com/1996/0626/062696.intl.intl.4.html

4/24/07 Mexico (Compass Direct News) – Local political bosses who had voted to expel 65 Christians from a small town near here grudgingly signed an agreement yesterday to let the evangelicals stay in their homes. Evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez told Compass the town bosses (caciques) of Los Pozos, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from San Cristobal, showed up here for the formal signing of the accord armed with demands that put extra conditions on terms they verbally agreed to on February 28.

Alonso said the proposal of the caciques and other “traditionalist Catholics,” who practice a mixture of indigenous ritual and Roman Catholicism, called for the Christians to pay for religious festivals plus fines for refusing to contribute in the past. The evangelicals’ refusal to help pay for and participate in the festivals, which include drunken revelry and what they regard as idolatrous adoration of saints, was the reason the town officials voted to expel them last Dec. 23.

“The caciques’ attitude was that they wanted the brothers to sign another document obligating them to contribute funds for past festivals, and for the next festival on May 3, and pay fines they had supposedly accumulated,” Alonso said. “But the state government did not allow it.”

The signing of the agreement by the caciques and Los Pozos Catholic leaders, bosses from the municipality of Huistan (to which the Los Pozos community belongs), evangelicals and state officials at 1 p.m. came nine days after traditionalist Catholics and civil authorities destroyed a Pentecostal church building in Ollas, a community of nearby San Juan Chamula municipality, on April 14.

“They destroyed the temple in Chamula, and the government feels very obligated to maintain calm,” Alonso said. “The state government is very committed now, because it’s not in their interest that the problem expand further. They left it clear that there would be full religious freedom....”

Los Pozos and other town officials throughout Mexico force evangelicals to help pay for and participate in the traditionalist Catholic processions and revelry based on a legal argument drawn from the Mexican constitution’s protection of indigenous “uses and customs.The constitutional article is meant to protect indigenous customs from government obliteration, said Victor Raul Flota, president of the Chiapas Bar of Christian Attorneys. “The native traditionalist Catholics speak of ‘uses and customs,’ but in a completely different sense,” Flota told Compass. “It is supposed to refer to their language not being lost, or that the government not attack their cultural traditions – the work that they do, the way they do it. But when these caciques speak of ‘uses and customs,’ they’re thinking, ‘Here it’s custom to beat and fight, to rape and to jail people different from us...

“They don’t want to lose the funds from the traditional customs, and this is what they want, that everyone have a single faith,” Gomez Ton told Compass. “But if we’ve accepted Christ, we have to continue in that faith. If they love and follow another god, then let them love him, but let’s be free. Let there be love, let there be respect between both faiths.” ’” ” — http://www.persecution.org/?p=6907&upm_export=print

Mexico: 'Traditionalist Catholics' Demolish Another Church, Monday, July 30, 2007 (12:00 am):

LOS ANGELES, July 26 (Compass Direct News) — Chiapas state officials arrested 14 traditionalist Catholics following the destruction on Sunday (July 22) of an evangelical church in a community of San Juan Chamula, near San Cristobal de las Casas, in Mexico's Chiapas state.
State Public Security officers arrested several of the traditionalist Catholics, who practice a blend of traditional Mayan religion and Roman Catholicism, for tearing down Prince of Peace Pentecostal Church in Nishnamtic, evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez told Compass.
In retaliation, Nishnamtic village bosses or caciques on Sunday jailed five evangelicals; those officials in turn were arrested early Monday morning and the Christians freed, according to the state attorney genera office.

Undaunted, according to the attorney generals office, Nishnamtic traditionalist Catholics on Monday (July 23) then illegally locked up seven evangelical women, including one carrying her 9-month-old baby, in the municipal jail of San Juan Chamula. Authorities in turn rescued the women and infant, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
The seven women were detained on Monday morning by traditionalist Catholics in response to the rescue operation of the five evangelicals in Nishnamtic,” according to the attorney generals office. For this reason, it added, the state government arrested the additional village officials.
In all, according to the state attorney general office, Public Security officers arrested 14 traditionalist Catholics, including seven Nishnamtic officials. — http://www.worthynews.com/1430-mexico-traditionalist-catholics-demolish-another-church

More background info: Spanish Conquest 1492-1580: http://www.san.beck.org/11-2-SpanishConquest.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Roman_Catholicism_in_Hispano-America

http://www.answers.com/topic/spanish-america

[daniel1212]

The problem is that if the Pope or local Bishops started to "do something" about it, you people would be complaining about that next, comparing them to the Spanish Conquistadors wiping out the peaceful and benevolent Aztecs and Mayans.

Or the universally "peaceful native Americans." But that imagination is not close to being an argument here (though things like the Requerimiento were not exactly passive greetings), but it manifests about the broad nature of Catholicism, and relates to its present and past ethos, and that RCs are to obey its current teaching, though the reality is that those at issue here as well as multitudes more do not, often in two extreme directions, though Rome typically treats them both as members in life and in death.

[Mrs. Don-o]

daniel1212 and HarleyD, thank you for trying to get past the typos and ferret out what I was tryng to say :o/

Preciate it.

Meanwhile, I hope the Chiapas RC bishop, Mon. Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, will continue working with brother and sister Evangelicals and in fact all Christians in combatting the level of violence is this very poor and conflicted Mexican state.

There's a rising level of violence coming from armed Marxist Zapatista groups, narcotraficantes, straight-out armed robberies, abductions and terrorism, as well as aggression by "traditional" caciques and now, even Muslims (this is terrifying) coming in and trying to stir up even more serious social conflict and attract the indigenous people to Islam.

I couldn't find the partricular article I was looking for, but some of that is outlined here:

Pilgrims pray for an end to violence and government corruption

Just a horrifying situation.

[daniel1212]

When you want to actually defend Rome against whatever you may feel is misrepresented here, and the issues that involves, rather than objecting to a post that is contrary to the constant promotion of it (which involves aspects this post deals with), then maybe you will actually have something of substance to add.

[daniel1212]

forgive them, they know not what they do.

That has become increasingly evident. But sometimes i don't exactly either.