Assignment: Master Thesis Name: Laura Hurkxkens Date: 19-12-2016 Wordcount: 28.239 (excluding footnotes and bibliography) Supervisor: Prof. dr. Gerard Wiegers Second reader: Dr. Ulrike Popp-Baier 2 Content Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 4 The cult of Santa Muerte ....................................................................................................... 5 Academic context and research question ............................................................................. 8 1. Popular and public religion ......................................................................................... 11 1.1 Popular religion .............................................................................................................. 11 1.2 Public religion ................................................................................................................. 15 2. The cult of Santa Muerte .................................................................................................... 20 2.1 Death and its centrality in Mexican culture ................................................................... 20 2.2 La Santa Muerte ............................................................................................................. 21 2.3 History and origins ......................................................................................................... 23 2.4 Santa Muerte today ....................................................................................................... 26 2.5 Beliefs and practices ...................................................................................................... 29 2.6 Key figures ...................................................................................................................... 33 3. Struggles and Conflict surrounding Santa Muerte ........................................................ 36 3.1 Santa Muerte and the Mexican Roman Catholic Church .............................................. 36 3.2 Santa Muerte and the government of Felipe Calderón ................................................. 40 4. Santa Muerte in Mexican newspapers ........................................................................ 47 4.1 El Universal ..................................................................................................................... 49 4.2 Reforma .......................................................................................................................... 52 4.3 La Jornada ...................................................................................................................... 56 5. Analysis and discussion ............................................................................................... 60 5.1 Public religions in public debate .................................................................................... 60 5.2 Symbolical resistance: But to what? .............................................................................. 65 5.3 The status of Santa Muerte and her cult ....................................................................... 74 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 77 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 81 3 Introduction In 2007, the Mexican Roman Catholic Church published a special edition of its magazine “Desde la Fe” (“From the Faith”), devoted to a rather extraordinary Mexican saint: La Santa Muerte. The edition of the magazine was titled Santa Muerte: Ignorancía, Confusión e Idolatría (Santa Muerte: Ignorance, Confusion, and Idolatry), and one of the articles described the veneration of Santa Muerte as “the cancer that has infected most of the neighborhoods.”1 The main article of the edition was dedicated to convincing believers that they had to renounce Santa Muerte and “return to Christ,” by going to Church, kneeling at Jesus’ feet and, claiming to “renounce Satan” and “all amulets and paranormal objects that lead me to stray.”2 Santa Muerte (which can best be translated as “Saint Death”) is a popular saint with Mexican roots, who functions as the protectora of the outcast and marginalized. Her presence is strongest in Mexico, but she is gaining an ever-increasing following in the United States as well.3 Santa Muerte is the personification of death, and is usually embodied by a skeleton wearing either a bridal gown or a habit, combined with colourful jewellery. Her followers are mainly people from the brims of society – such as the extremely poor, prostitutes, transgender people, homosexuals and criminals – who do not feel that the Roman Catholic Church can offer them all that they need, or who feel that their lifestyle is being condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.4 Also, in contrast to traditional Roman Catholicism, the veneration of Santa Muerte is highly egalitarian: everybody is welcome and treated equally, regardless of race, sexual orientation, or additional religious affiliation, and there are no official hierarchies, theology or teachings.5 In addition, Santa Muerte is perceived as a saint that is ‘like’ her followers, and one that does not judge them, and does not expect them to be perfect all the time. Most of Santa Muerte’s followers do, however, identify themselves as both as Roman Catholics and followers of Santa Muerte.6 1 Translation from Pamela Bastante and Brenton Dickieson, “Nuestra Señora de las Sombras: The Enigmatic Identity of Santa Muerte,” Journal of the Southwest 55:4 (2013), 452. Original online accessible at: http://www.churchforum.org/santa-muerte-ignorancia-confusion-eidolatria.htm 2 Ibid. 3 Carmen Sesin, “Growing Devotion to Santa Muerte in U.S. and Abroad,” NBC News, December 29, 2014, accessed Februari 18, 2016, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/growing-devotion-santa-muerte-u-s- abroad-n275856. 4 Ibid. 5 Laura Roush, “Santa Muerte, Protection, and Desamparo: A View from a Mexico City Altar,” Latin American Research Review 49 (2014), 137. 6 R. Andrew Chesnut, Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 115. 4 The cult of Santa Muerte In this thesis, the movement surrounding Santa Muerte will be labelled ‘the cult of Santa Muerte’. The Brill Dictionary of Religion defines “cult” as “a religious group or organization that has beliefs differing from conventional religious organizations and is considered deviant.”7 In addition, the dictionary notes that “the term ‘sect’ is sometimes used in relation to ‘cult.’ The difference is the novelty of the belief systems of cults, as compared to sects, who are best characterized as deviant organizations within traditional beliefs.”8 Finally, the dictionary also notes that the term ‘cult’ may “be used to denote a set of beliefs and rituals surrounding a certain object of worship […] like the cult of Virgin Mary”9 (or like the cult of Santa Muerte). The American sociologists Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge define the three primary terms used to ‘label’ a religious movement – church, sect, and cult – in a similar fashion: A church is a conventional religious organization. A sect movement is a deviant religious organization with traditional beliefs and practices. A cult movement is a deviant religious organization with novel beliefs and practices.10 ‘Deviance’, then, is defined by Stark and Bainbridge as “departure from the norms of a culture in such a way as to incur the imposition of extraordinary costs from those who maintain the culture.”11 These costs, then, fall into two categories: Either exchanges with other parties may become more costly, or the ‘deviant’ may be punished in one way or another. Firstly, exchanges with other parties (aligning more with the dominant culture), may become more costly because the ‘deviant’ and the other party no longer fully adhere to the same norms, and thus their interaction will generally be characterised by more uncertainty and mistrust than interaction between two people who adhere to roughly the same norms will be, according to Stark and Bainbridge. Secondly, the ‘deviant’ may be punished for his/her deviance in one way or another: This will not always mean the ‘deviant’ is punished through law or by the state, but it may also refer to ‘smaller’ punishments such as other 7 Titus Hjelm, “Cult” in The Brill Dictionary of Religion, ed. Kocku von Stuckrad (published online in 2006), accessed December 4, 2016, http://dx.doi.org.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2048/10.1163/1872-5287_bdr_SIM_00015. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 124. 11 Ibid., 124. 5 parties who do not adhere to the deviant organisation choosing not to interact with the ‘deviant’ anymore.12 Thus, as stated in the Brill Dictionary of Religions, Stark and Bainbridge “designate those groups as ‘sects’ that have split off from existing religious communities: groups that ‘import’ concepts, or that adhere to new images, are ‘cults’.”13 Both these types are seen as ‘deviant’ forms of religion. The movement surrounding Santa Muerte can indeed be seen as deviant: Even though most Santa Muertistas do consider themselves to be Roman Catholics as well as Santa Muertistas, there is an obvious deviance when one chooses to worship a Saint that is not recognised by the Mexican Roman