Saint or Sinner? Mexico Debates A Cult's Status

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NPR-On a dangerous curve in the highway just outside the Mexican border city of Reynosa, two shrines stand behind a battered guardrail.
One is an airy, glass structure holding a statue of the Virgin Mary. Fresh flowers have been laid at her feet.
The other is a dark, shacklike building filled with skeletal figurines of the folk saint known as Santa Muerte — the Saint of Death. Inside the shrine, a life-size skeleton clutching a scythe leans menacingly forward from a black altar. At its feet candles flicker amid offerings of whiskey, cigarettes and candy bars.
Along the border the Mexican army has been bulldozing altars to Santa Muerte, saying the sect caters to narcotics traffickers.
Devotees of the saint deny that they are part of the drug trade. They say Santa Muerte is a positive force who offers them protection and ways to cope with daily life, even though the saint is usually depicted as a robe-draped skeleton that looks like the Grim Reaper.

Mexico's 'Saint Death' cult says is drug war victim

By Mica Rosenberg
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Followers of Mexico's "Saint Death" cult figure, revered by thieves and drug runners but also law-abiding housewives, say their faith is being persecuted by the government's war against drug cartels.
Dozens of worshipers marched through Mexico City on Good Friday, many barefoot and showing off tattoos of the macabre cult figure, in the latest of a series of protests after soldiers and police bulldozed elaborate roadside shrines to the saint near the northern border with Texas.
Known as "Santa Muerte" in Spanish, the saint is often depicted as a skeletal "grim reaper" draped in white satin robes, beaded necklaces and carrying a scythe. Followers leave offerings of tequila, rum, beer, cigarettes, cash, flowers and candy at altars adorned with rosaries and candles.
Mexican authorities destroyed more than 30 such shrines erected near the city of Nuevo Laredo last month on the grounds they were built without the proper licenses. Some shrines were also knocked down in Tijuana, triggering protests there.
"We just want people to respect our faith like we respect other religions," said Pablo, a 28-year-old at the protest who says he once avoided a jail sentence by praying to Saint Death.
The Catholic Church frowns on the cult, whose origins may trace back to Aztec and Mayan death-gods or to ancient European traditions, but many devotees call themselves Catholics.
The lure of the death saint is that she is said to honor requests without judging them.
Her followers number up to 5 million, according to the cult's high priest David Romo, ranging from police and politicians to kidnappers and gangsters who are said to ask her for protection before setting out on hits
Romo says his church condemns violence and has no links to drug traffickers, but he leaves the door open to everyone.
"Christ went to see prostitutes, thieves, all marginalized people," Romo said in his cramped office in the saint's largest sanctuary in Mexico City, a run-down storefront around the corner from a street lined with prostitutes.
SHRINE-SIDE ASSASSINATIONS
President Felipe Calderon has launched an army assault on Mexico's drug gangs, but the increased firepower has failed to contain the violence. Some 6,300 people were killed last year.
In 2007, gunmen from the powerful Gulf Cartel handcuffed three men and shot them dead at a Santa Muerte altar in Nuevo Laredo, leaving lit candles, flowers and a taunting message for rivals.
At the shrine in Tepito -- a rough part of the capital with a market that reputedly sells contraband and drugs -- chicken coops line the walls near the pews facing two life-sized skeleton statues wearing glittering dresses and crowns.
Friday's marchers walked in silence from the shrine to Mexico City's historic center, carrying Saint Death statues and flaming torches. One held a skull on a stick sporting wispy black hair.
Santa Muerte offers a refuge to people who can be shunned by traditional Catholic hierarchies. "If a narco opens the doors of his heart and comes to us asking for spiritual assistance wanting to convert, we say welcome," Romo said.
Followers say their death saint is being unfairly targeted, since criminals profess all kinds of religions.
"They link her with criminals because many of the people they arrest bear her image. But there are a lot of hard-working people behind her," said protester Ernesto Hernandez, 40, who said he owns a furniture shop on the edge of the capital.