I've always been interested in faith. Not just as a spiritual force, but as a cultural and ethnic influence as well. I went to a Catholic high school, and even though I was raised Protestant, I felt a sense of connection with the Catholic community there. Later, in college I spent some time trying to decide if I was Buddhist, Baha'i, or Muslim. When I moved back to Chicago in my mid-twenties, I decided I was Methodist. Although I was confirmed Lutheran at twelve, I'm not sure that's a decision you can make when you are that young. At the time I thought that I understood what I was committing to. Looking back, of course I didn't.
So when I opened the newspaper last Sunday, the first article I read was about the Mexican skeletal icon Santa Muerte. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't recognize the icon, and regards her as "satanic". For Mexicans that are connected to the spiritual movement behind Santa Muerte, however, she has emerged as a representation of a darker path that ultimately leads back to God.
This has become problematic to the church.
"I'm concerned about it because it's an aberration. It's a misunderstanding of faith. It's taking a Catholic concept of the holy death of Christ and personifying it with this skeletal figure," Rev. Esequiel Sanchez, pastor of Mary, Queen of Heaven in Cicero told the Tribune. "At the same time, I can understand why it's growing. Many people, especially Mexican immigrants, are feeling that institutions are abandoning them and are grasping for spiritual help wherever they can. When they come to me with Santa Muerte, I'm not interested in why they worship her. I'm more interested in how they got to that point."
Mexican novelist and poet Homero Aridjis, who wrote a book about the movement, and counts narcotraffickers, corrupt cops and politicians among Santa Muerte’s followers, traces the devotion to Santa Muerte to pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures. The Aztecs had a death goddess named Mictlantecuhtli, for example, and there is some speculation among historians that the Virgin of Guadalupe is a syncretic representation of both the Christian Virgin Mary and the indigenous Mexican goddess Tonantzin. A merger of the Christian death of Christ and indigenous polytheistic gods isn't that far-fetched, then.
In the US it seems that Santa Muerte came to cities like Chicago with immigration, crossing borders with laborers seeking another life. With that migration, churches in Chicago have had to confront devotion to the icon, and what she represents.
While Santa Muerte may be difficult for the Church to reconcile, it isn't difficult on the streets of Chicago. At the Botanica de Michoacan on Milwaukee, the owner of the shop has made his peace with Santa Muerte. "I don't worship her," he tells me. "I just sell her." In a city full of people that probably feel alone and disconnected from the culture, tradition and history of their land, such familiar icons bring comfort, even if there is a spiritual price to pay. And I think Father Sanchez gets that, too.
Image via hey_mando
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