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"She has taught me to value and understand human beings. Many other religions don't teach that," said Profesora Cielo. "They teach you to discriminate and devalue people. Most teach you that if you are gay, we just pretend you don't exist or we reject you. That if you are a prostitute, you are living in sin and crime. With her, you are free."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/our- ... vement-456



There seems to be a lot in the papers recently about this non-judgemental Catholic offshoot religion.



Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester, El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz and San Angelo Bishop Michael Sis in Texas joined their counterparts in Mexico last week in urging Catholics to avoid honoring the folk saint and called her “antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.

“She’s not a saint. There is nothing good that can come out of praying to her, Wester said. “We have a lot of saints who represent the teaching of Jesus Christ. This is an aberration.

U.S. Bishops join Mexico peers, denounce ‘Santa Muerte’ figure



I think that fails to grasp the nature of Sainthood actually - the Roman Catholics have a lot of saints who totally fail to represent the teaching of Jesus Christ in the slightest. I'd be happy to list a few if challenged.

I'm wondering how close, or how differentiated, the practice of Santa Muerte is compared with Voodoo. Have we any exponents of either form here? Anyone fancy giving one or the other a go and reporting back?

The origins seem to come from the Aztecs, long before the Catholic missions arrived.

The origin of Muerte herself, yes - the first article mentions Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec queen of the underworld. I was more interested in the practices associated by believers in invoking aid - "Santa Muerte worship contains many of the same rituals used at the Vatican, while the connection to indigenous beliefs seems tenuous—any number of cultures worship the personification of death in some form". The majority of South and Central Americans were raised in a Roman Catholic environment, as were the majority of Haitians. Hence the question of comparative practices.

She's not actually a roman catholioc saint anyway is she? It's just a revival of an old aztec religion influenced by the catholic church's rituals. Any good protestant will tell you why the worship of saints in the catholic church is unchristian. Non believers will chuckle sadly at the spectacle of the leaders of one made up religion getting upset that another made up religion seems to be stealing their thunder.