This piece was supposed to be about the Virgin of Montserrat, the Black Matroness of Catalonia whose majestic shrine I visited last week. But just as Mexican skeleton saint, Santa Muerte, seduced me into contemplating her instead of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the ‘Kiss of Death’ diverted my attention away from the Black Madonna. El Petó de la Mort (Kiss of Death in Catalan) is a stunningly gorgeous marble statue of a winged skeletal Angel of Death embracing and kissing... Read more
By Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of North Carolina, Wilmington The Catholic Church is well known among scholars of religion for its syncretism, that is, its ability to meld indigenous and local religious practices, as well as gods and goddesses, with its own saints and devotions. Intentional or not, this strategy is successful and there are hundreds of cases of indigenous deities that carry on the tradition of pre-Christian religious practices... Read more
Co-authored by Dr. Andrew Chesnut and Dr. Kate Kingsbury* Guatemalan folk saint Rey Pascual’s foundation myth is a fascinating account of Catholic and Mayan syncretism in which the original Spanish saint, Pascual Bailón, morphs into the skeletal folk saint who is venerated today in Olintepeque and also Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state. A canonized saint whose feast day is May 17, Pascual Bailón was a Franciscan friar from Aragón who lived during the second half of... Read more
Surpassed only by Syria in the number of violent deaths in the past decade, Mexico is a country where supernatural protection is in great demand. Now in its second decade the drug war has claimed most of the lives of the more than 200,000 Mexicans who have suffered violent deaths over the past ten years. If leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is nearing a double-digit lead over his rivals it is in part due to rejection of... Read more
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut Recent figures reveal that the Catholic Church is losing followers in Latin America at an accelerated rate. Contrary to pundits’ predictions, Pope Francis rather than proving popular and precipitating a proliferation in numbers of the faithful is losing support. What explains the shrinking Latin American flock? And what can the Catholic Church do to conciliate and captivate their congregants in Latin America anew? Bad Publicity Many assumed that a Latin American... Read more
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut For those of us who’ve been closely following Pope Francis’s spirited papacy, his latest endorsement of exorcism as a powerful spiritual tool for combating the Devil and his minions comes as no surprise. Just a few months into his pioneering pontificate, in 2013, the Argentine pope performed an informal exorcism, known as a prayer of deliverance from evil, on a young man in a wheel chair. The Mexican priest who brought the... Read more
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut One of the major novelties at the 13th annual course for exorcists taking place this week at Regina Apostolorum University in Rome is a section on witchcraft in Africa. Witchcraft is so pervasive in parts of Africa that in 2006 the Catholic bishops of Southern Africa, comprising Bostwana, Swaziland, and South Africa, issued a pastoral letter prohibiting their priests from moonlighting as soothsayers and witch doctors! With the future of... Read more
A new poll by Gallup reveals that it is not only the pope’s native Latin America that has not experienced a “Francis effect” but also the U.S., home to the world’s fourth largest Catholic population. During the first couple years of his controversial papacy there were many anecdotal reports of his charisma and popularity leading to greater mass attendance in parishes across the globe, especially in the Americas. However the new Gallup survey shows that if there is any Francis... Read more
During the 19th century in the mountain towns of New Mexico and southern Colorado, Mexican-American Catholics personified death as a female figure known as Doña Sebastiana. Holy Week processions organized by the Penitentes, Catholic brotherhoods originating in Spain and known for their public displays of penance, included death carts with life-size effigies of the skeletal Doña Sebastiana. Along with acts of self-flagellation on the part of the Penitentes, the Grim Reapress symbolized not only the agony and death suffered by... Read more
One of the main reasons for which a Latin American was elected the first pope from the New World five years ago is the long-term decline of the flock in the most Catholic region on earth. Only five decades ago, in 1970, Latin America was 92% Catholic. Argentines, Mexicans, Brazilians, for example, were born into the Church and lived out their lives as Catholics, although only a small percentage were regular churchgoers. However, after five decades of sharp decline throughout... Read more
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