Santa Muerte as Emerging Dangerous Religion?

David Bromley

doi:10.3390/rel7060065

Abstract

Santa Muerte is one of the fastest growing folk saint movements in Mexico. She has a core following in Mexico among dispossessed populations, but also devotees from a broader swath of the Mexican population. This article analyzes the development of Santa Muerte veneration in Mexico since 2000. I argue that, from a structural analysis perspective, Santa Muerte veneration is on the threshold of designation and treatment as dangerous religion, although its eventual status remains contingent. The movement’s status will be determined by three interacting factors: (1) a core membership of outsider and dispossessed populations; (2) symbolic and social organization in a form that challenges the legitimacy and authority of the institutions of church and state; and (3) institutional control measures that contest the legitimacy of its symbolic presentation and organizational practices. I suggest several alternative developmental scenarios based on these factors.

Highlights

Santa Muerte is one of the fastest growing folk saint movements in Mexico
A high level of alignment reflects isomorphism with the symbolic and organizational logic of the dominant social institutions [3]. Those religious groups most closely aligned with the dominant institutional order constitute the most legitimate form of religious expression in the host social order
The explosive growth of Santa Muerte veneration offers difficult to refute evidence of the church’s inability to reach and hold the loyalty of large and important rural and underclass urban populations that traditionally have identified as Catholic

Summary

Santa Muerte as Ordinary Folk Saint

The history of Santa Muerte veneration suggests that, until recently, there was little that was surprising or extraordinary in her folk saint career. Santa Muerte veneration remained largely private and covert. Santa Muerte is merely one in a pantheon of folk saints who are widely venerated all across. While she is not the incarnation of an actual person, this is not extraordinary among folk saints. For a nation with such striking disparities between rich and poor, death becomes the great equalizer As they say in Mexico, ‘death is just and even-handed for everyone since we will all die’. Despite the spectacular growth in veneration of Santa Muerte, most ritual activity remains personal and private. The challenge presented to both is attempting to maintain legitimacy in their respective institutional domains amid an inability to respond meaningfully to a large and growing segment of the population that is desperate and disempowered

Social an Economic Dislocation in Mexican Society

The Church

The State

The Social Control Response

Whither Santa Muerte