Archbishop Warns of 'Spiritually Dangerous' Folk Saint
A New Mexico Archbishop urged Catholic faithful once again to stop venerating a “spiritually dangerous” folk saint of death called La Santa Muerte.
John Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, said worship of La Santa Muerte, or Our Lady of Holy Death, contradicts church teaching because it glorifies death — a characteristic associated with Satan, who the Christian scriptures say “comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.”
Wester believes that people may be seduced into worshiping La Santa Muerte either because they mistakenly believe that it is a church-sanctioned saint, or because they are simply searching for answers.
“It’s really wrong. I think in part, it’s (because) people are looking and searching. It’s a symptom of a search looking for answers,” Wester told The Associated Press.
“Our devotion is to the God of life,” he added.
La Santa Muerte, often depicted as a robed skeleton carrying a scythe in one hand and a globe or scales in the other, is an occult saint popular in Mexico with adherents also in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, California, and elsewhere in Latino communities in the U.S.
While some depict the folk saint as a benign if bizarre figure to whom the poor direct prayers and offerings of candles, fruits, and sweets in exchange for provision and fortune, there is a very real dark side to the worship of the folk saint.
The FBI reports that members of Mexican drug cartels often pray to the figure, asking it to bring harm to law enforcement and rivals.
In some cases, cartel and gang members have murdered people in ritualistic killings as offerings to La Santa Muerte.
“For U.S. law enforcement agencies, the rise of a criminalized and dark variant of Santa Muerte worship holds many negative implications,” said Dr. Robert J. Bunker, PhD in an FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
“Of greatest concern, the inspired and ritualistic killings associated with this cult could cross the border and take place in the United States.”
“Over half of the prayers directed at her include petitions to harm other people via curses and death magic,” Bunker added.
While Wester and a few other Catholic bishops in the U.S. have openly denounced La Santa Muerte, Bishop Walter F. Sullivan and Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, said no other high ranking Catholic clerics in the U.S. have done so.
Chestnut believes they have avoided denouncing the demonic figure because it might contradict their messaging about migrants.
“In Latin America, church officials rebuke Santa Muerte almost weekly,” Chestnut told AP.
For more U.S. bishops to attack worship of La Santa Muerte, he said, would risk portraying Mexican migrants as “dangerous and all connected to drug trafficking.”
Wester, however, remains resolute in his stand against La Santa Muerte, whom he said is “spiritually dangerous.”
“It should be completely avoided,” Wester said. “It is a perversion of devotion to the saints.”
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