From Xico

A Little Bit More about La Luz del Mundo (Light of the World)...but just a bit

2012-06-03T18:10:43-05:00

I mentioned the sect known as La Luz del Mundo a few posts ago. Here is a link to the group's home page.

I also mentioned that at the top of what seems to be the equivalent of the steeple in our area (Xalapa, Coatepec and Xico all have temples) there appears to be a kind of abstracted symbol of a flame. Below is the top of the temple in Xalapa:

The central temple, the headquarters, is in Guadajara. It is indeed an incredible building:

I had assumed that there would be uniformity among the various temples, but there really isn't. You can look through the website and find a huge variety of styles.

I still remain baffled at its attraction for people with its rigidity about women, its insistence they not wear pants, that they wear headcovers, that they be denied access to high church offices and the fairly public charges against more than one church leader of sexual abuse, not to say rape. Why not just stay Catholic? Seems easier.

Anyway, I will move onto Guanajuato quite soon. I found myself with an octupus on my hands, given the amount of information, opinion, creativity, etc. etc. surrounding and included in both the city itself and in Fuentes's novel, Las Buenas Conciencias.

The Pope vs. Light of the World (Luz del Mundo): A Diversion

2012-05-25T22:08:22-05:00

The Pope's visit not just to Mexico but most to the most traditionally and densely Catholic part of Mexico and one of the most conservative (in a kind of middle-class way) is something I was going to note in my blog awhile ago, but my life got in the way a little bit.

So the press paid a lot of attention to the political implications: was the Pope trying to boost the appeal of the PAN party, that kind of thing. President Felipe Calderón and former president Vicente Fox (both PAN) obviously turned up (PAN has pretty strong Catholic roots). The three current candidates for president also turned up, and so did Carlos Slim. Vendors sold Pope Benedict T-shirts, flags and rosaries. A little attention was paid to the fact that people outside the very densely Catholic part of Mexico didn't show all that much interest. And there was a puff of smoke over the fact that La Luz del Mundo had scheduled a giant conference on evangelization for the very same weekend in the very same town (Silao) as the pope's mass. La Luz people said their event was planned long in advance although some media reported that La Luz had done it on purpose to interfere. Harrumph. Luz has also been associated with the PRI party in that area. I would say that both Luz and the Catholic hierarchy under Benedict have some pretty shady history and have done some sleazy things, to put it mildly. Hoping for a hearing with the pope during his visit, a group of people reported to be victims of child abuse by Catholic priests in Mexico asked to meet with him and were ignored, for instance. Just today, there is a big story in the NY Times about ties between the Vatican, big banking and the media. Luz parishioners didn't seem to do anything like that over the weekend or ever, but it has has very peculiar rules regarding women, some of its leaders have been charged with sexual abuse and rape, and the Mexican government has considered it possibly susceptible to mass suicide. Just telling you.

Anyway, the Catholicism I will be talking about in my next post and maybe a few more existed and still exists in this area of Mexico.

More on Mexican Religion: On the Varieties and Numbers of

2012-05-25T13:39:25-05:00

[Note: I've been creeping up to and running from the topic of Catholicism and religion in Mexico for quite some time, trying to get it right and, probably, in the process, digging myself into a hole. I finally decided that I would start with some very basic facts (see below) and then move on to look R Catholicism in the lives of the characters in Carlos Fuentes's book, Las Buenas Conciencias. And then on May 15th, ten days ago, Carlos Fuentes, died. He wasn't young, and I didn't know him personally, but it seemed like a personal loss. I was introduced to Fuentes's work in maybe 2000 during literature classes at UNAM-San Antonio. His cosmopolitanism, which included much familiarity with the US probably had something to do with his accessibility for all of us there. He also came to speak at the University of Texas-San Antonio and talked about his education as a youngster in Washington, DC in a school where children of diplomats from many countries were students. He talked about how one teacher made a point of having the students talk about their various countries and traditions. He felt this had a good effect on all of them. Mexican he was, but also a citizen of the world who could lead his readers across boundaries of culture and belief and could reveal the souls, the animas of all kinds of human beings. He wrote not simply with passion, but could convey in a few words a panoply of color and emotion: could, sentence after sentence, build complex images and stories that wove together the love and cruelty, the pain and selfishness and bravery of human beings. He was a truly great writer.

And I want to add that my very good friend Carole Stivers took that course with me. I miss her a very great deal. She died last spring.

**********

Not too long ago I wrote about everyday Mexican Catholicism as I saw it here where we live. Even though we have good Mexican friends and have shared much with a few of them, there are many Mexicos, and of course, many ways of being Mexican. And each Mexican, as is each human being, is a world unto himself.

I have mentioned before that when I was in my Master's Degree program in social work, our final and best course in family therapy (in anything at the school, really) was given by Arthur Mandelbaum, a visiting professor from the Menninger Clinic. Instead of urging more academic tomes on us, he urged us to read novels. GOOD novels by authors who were captivated by and could portray the intricacies and intimacies and depth of human beings and their relationships. He said that none of us could learn well the variety of people and cultures we would come in contact with from either personal experience or from research findings. We could come much closer through novels.

So here I will give you some statistics on Mexican religion, and then I will go on to the main topic to prove Mandelbaum's point at the same time I want to give you a flavor of a Catholicism that existed in one time and place. Most of this comes from a Wikipedia article, but there are many, many resources available, should you wish to pursue them.

You may be surprised to learn that Mexico does not have an official religion -- no, Catholicism is not an official religion. The Constitution of 1917, adopted during the Mexican Revolution, was the strong start of the separation of church and state. While Christmas and Easter and Good Friday are national holidays and schools take vacations for them, that's about it for government participation. In 1992, religions were offered more freedom to do certain things: own some property, have more priests, let priests have the right to vote. My first awareness of the sanctity of Semana Santa, or Holy Week, came while we lived in San Antonio. Rich Mexicans arrived in droves to shop in the fancy malls. After moving here to Mexico, we realized that for many, Semana Santa could loosely be translated as "time to head for the beach".

Statistics.

82.7% of Mexicans claim to be Roman Catholics. This is down from 96% in 1970.

About 9% of the population is Protestant. Major sects include Jehovah´s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Church of Latter Day Saints. The largest group are Pentecostals and Charismatics (Neo-Pentecostals). There are also Anglicans (of which I am sort of one -- a kind of half-hearted US Episcopalian).

Then there is La Luz del Mundo -- The Light of the World, a Mexican-born Charismatic Christian movement. There are churches here in Xalapa, Coatepec and Xico. They are recognizable by the sort of flamelike symbol atop the steeple. I find it interesting that women are definitely not equal to men in the heirarchy or roles of the church. Furthermore, they are not permitted to wear pants or makeup Men and women are separated during services, etc. It has a strict, not to say rigid, moral order on the one hand, and has been accused of exploiting and violating women on the other. It is apparently growing rapidly and claims more than a million members in Mexico. It is growing not only southward in Latin America, but also northward, with a large number of participants in Houston. http://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/la-luz.pdf gives a good description of the church in general and in Houston in particular. La Luz del Mundo claims more members than any church in Mexico outside the Catholic Church.

There are also Jews (since 1521), Muslims, Buddhists, and members of the Bahá'i faith.

As I've suggested before, Catholicism is woven in many ways into much of the culture and history of Mexico. However, according to the Wikipedia article, the number of irreligious and atheist citizens is growing faster than the number of Catholics: 5.2% a year vs. 1.7% a year. Many irreligious citizens are still counted as Catholic, and many still maintain ties of a cultural and spiritual sort with the faith, but church attendance is definitely down. Where attending daily mass used to be the norm, at least in some parts of Mexico, it is now down to about 3% (Wikipedia again) and only 44% attend church weekly, or claim to. Churches especially in cities can appear largely empty on ordinary Sundays, but huge numbers of people still participate in days like Los Dias de los Muertos and other religious festivals.

It appears that the spectrum of religious practice is broadening, with the extremes of protestant pentacostalism and atheism stretching it out. But it is extremely important to remember that there are always, always, elements of syncretism, especially in poorer and more rural areas. In fact, there are still areas where fairly pure indigenous religions are followed.

Next post, I will give a bit of background on Guanajuato, the city, and after that move into Las Buenas Consciencias.

Is world [INCLUDING MEXICO] outpacing U.S. on health care? - The Washington Post

2012-05-14T17:56:48-05:00

While it would be a mistake to glamorize Mexico's health coverage for the poor through Seguros Populares, it is not a mistake to say that here where I live, it does a significantly better job than Medicaid, at least as I have known it. I don't think it's improved. In our Colonia, lots of people have used it to have babies and to treat serious diseases including cancer and diabetes heart disease and mental illness. It does not always adequately cover the cost of medicines, but it always is available in emergencies. I can only claim personal acquaintanceship with one dr, the pediatrician Dra. Jania, who is incredible. The right to universal health care is written into the Mexican Constitution, so failure to provide it is considered a grave flaw.

So add this bit of information to your armament of defenses against those who would trash Mexico.

Fables of Wealth - NYTimes.com

2012-05-13T14:08:51-05:00

This New York Times article points out that the wages of unbridled capitalism, or the unbridled, self-justified search for endless wealth, corrupts ALL the participants, not just the participants of a particular country.

When USAers condescendingly (and sometimes viciously condescendingly and destructively condescendingly) accuse Mexico of corruption and then self-righteously put in place policies that hurt ordinary Mexicans (NAFTA, Plan Merida, dumping GM rice, paving the country with Wal-Marts and so on and so on and so on) I sometimes just want to go to Washington or to various corporate headquarters in the US and SCREAM, don't you people EVER look at yourselves, your own activities, your own horribly immoral behavior which pretty much trumps everything in Mexico by virtue of scale if nothing else. I mean for heaven's sake, Mexico didn't make Walmart come down here to corrupt local officials. As some have pointed out the only difference, really, in the corruption in the US and that in Mexico (and a hell of a lot of other countries) is that a lot of AWFUL behavior is LEGAL in the US and not legal in Mexico (and a lot of othe countries).. And somehow everything is more subrosa in the us, quieter. But LOOK at the list of recent public scandals!. People in the US -- ordinary people -- don't assume their corporations and their governments are corrupt. They are citizens of what they still often believe is "the greatest country on earth." But Mexicans for the most part assume governments and corporations are corrupt and they speak about it loudly and clearly. Corruption is not hidden in boardrooms or backrooms where no one can see it. And yes, it extends to your local policeman. But I can give you a half a dozen personal examples of local police corruption from when I lived in the US. And how about payments to housing inspectors and restaurant inspectors, free meals to cops, a few turkeys on thanksgiving to your constituents, etc. etc. etc. Please, people (I love how Gail Collins always says "people") wake up and smell the rot in your own backyards. And HELP Mexico, don't destroy it!

Water Is Where Everything Intersects - Water in the Global Commons

2012-05-12T19:35:12-05:00

I cannot emphasize how very important the issue of water is. This Truthout article does a good job of summarizing the situation in Bolivia. Here where I live you either have to buy bottled water or boil it--which is of course an expense. Areas of Mexico right now are oppressed by drought and grim pictures of dead and dying cattle are scattered through the news. There are many issues involved in water use. For instance, industrial agriculture (including at times organic vegetable agriculture) suck up the water in water tables depriving small farmers of having it available for their often subsistence crops. The water that industrial agriculture returns to the land is often polluted beyond usefulness. It seeps from larger pools into smaller streams and springs.

You should follow some of the links at the end of the article to learn more about this issue and seek to get involved.

About Walmart but not what I intended to write.

2012-05-03T19:34:57-05:00

Well, inspired by Jim Hightower's excellent article on Walmart in Mexico, (orWalmart,Wal-Mart,Wal*Mart depending on the year or whether you're talking Wall Street or down the street or corporate headquarters or Walt-Mart if you're a person in Xico), which you can and should read, I was going to talk a bit about SERIOUS RELATED ISSUES. I was only incidentally going to remind you that in our very own Xico municipality we are awaiting a Walmart offspring flying under the banner??????and I couldn't remember the name, so I looked it up: it's called Aurrerá, Bodega Aurrerá, or maybe Mi Bodega Aurrerá (there are three versions, depending on of course marketing considerations).

The Aurrerás were orignially started as a supermarket chain by two Mexican brothers, but they were swallowed up by Walmart. You can if you want read about them here on Wikipedia. They also have their own website where I discovered that the Aurrerás have a ¡¡¡¡¡SUPERHERO!!!! You can click on the picture to get it not quite super-sized.

Here is the link. If you go to it, you can also ¡¡¡¡get pictures to color and wallpaper for your desktop!!!!!

Anyway, I don't know when our Aurrerá is due to open. As I believe I mentioned earlier, significant progress has been made. HOWEVER the leg of magically bache free, super smoooothe road from San Marcos to Xico is now under construction, so you have to use the rambling side road which is where we were running when the strip from Coatepec to San Marcos was under construction. The dust is of course incredible. INCREDIBLE. The side road is loaded with rocks and baches. We know someone who took TWO HOURS to get from Coatepec to San Marcos (now easy) to Xico (not.) Will this impede plans to open Bodega Aurrerá? I wondered, gleefully,hopefully. How could it not THEN I thought maybe Walmart paid someone off to redo the road just for the store. There will be a double grand-opening with Doña (Mamá) Lucha leading the parade. Of course other moneyed interests may also have had a hand in the construction. Who knows? They tore up a perfectly good black-top road (well, not perfectly, but you know what I mean).The dream of SOMEBODY for a four-land boulevard leading into Xico seems to have died. But you never know. Much of anything, actually.

Bishops Play Church Queens as Pawns - NYTimes.com

2012-04-28T20:56:15-05:00

When I was a student at Barnard College in the 1960s, I was a lost soul until I took medieval history as a junior. The professor, Norman Cantor, brought medieval Europe to life. Not only that, he brought medieval Muslim countries to life, teaching us that without the Muslims, we would indeed have been greatly impoverished. But much as I would like to tell you about those Muslims whom the Christians attacked in the Crusades, here I would like to talk about Catholicism.

I was a Latin major at the beginning of Professor Cantor's course, not because I wanted to be but because I had so many credits in Latin I could do it easily. And my mother thought it was thrillling to have a daughter who knew Latin (but that's another story). Halfway through Cantor's course, I switched to being a history major with a concentration in medieval history (I'd already taken medieval Latin) with Professor Cantor as my advisor. What a nerd I sound like! I got one of three As in a class of 150 in both terms.

Why did I love it? Certainly Norman Cantor did not inspire crushes: a large, soft man whose jaw hung. But somehow he saw something in me and encouraged me. Neurotic as I was, at the end of the second semester, I couldn't finish my paper on Peter Abelard. I took an incomplete. I went to Maine to my second summer as a camp counselor and that summer as a unit leader, in charge of a whole age group which meant three cabins under my wing. I brought my term paper in a box. After all the campers had gone to sleep, I'd pour through my notes and drafts. I'd cut and paste and tear apart -- electric typewriters I don't think even existed. It wasn't just that I was neurotic: it was that Abelard was so interesting, and so were his times, and so was the church. In the end, I sort of ordered the stuff in the box and sent it off to Professor Cantor who had become my advisor.

I got an A in the course.

And in my senior year, I found myself in a graduate medieval history seminar. It was a small group and it included three priests. The three priests and I would go to the West End Cafe for beer after class. They were wonderful men, much like the nuns described not just in Maureen Dowd's cited above column but in other places as well. They were committed to social justice as were many nuns and priests of that era. They thought the idea of unmarried priests, among other ideas, was silly, but since they'd sworn to it, they felt they had committed to it.

At the end of the seminar and at the end of my senior year, we had a party at my parents' apartment. During the party, Professor Cantor asked if he could talk to my parents privately, and the three of them retreated to my parents' bedroom (New York apartments could be small). As they told me after everyone left, Professor Cantor (who was Jewish and assumed I was) told my mother (who was Episcopalian) and my father (who indeed was Jewish) that he was afraid I was, because of my love of medieval church history and my friendship with the priests, being tempted to become a Catholic.

Was I? Yes and no. Throughout my life, I have been drawn to the Catholic Church, but every time I step too close, I feel the flames not of hell (well maybe of hell), but certainly of all-too-human rigidity, of anti-womanhood, of the grip of men who are cruel and self-righteous, etc. etc. etc. I remember people like the Sister Annes and those devoted to teaching at places like Our Lady of the Lakes University, the nuns of St. Bridget of Ireland, the priests in Latin America involved in Liberation Theology. But I can't take the step. There are too many Pope Benedicts, too many ambitious men who follow him, too many abusers allowed to go free, TOO MANY MEN PERSECUTING DEVOTED AMERICAN NUNS. (See link to Maureen Dowd's column.)

I cannot believe what Pope Benedict, that old snake, is doing to American nuns. Why? Why? Why? The Catholic Church STILL enfolds so many great human beings. When will it be free?

A Very Pricey Pineapple - NYTimes.com

2012-04-28T09:01:53-05:00

I may be naive (I don't think so), but this absolutely shocked me. I don't know any solution. When there is no sense of community responsibility, when government and private industry are interwoven and corrupt, where do we turn?

Here is the link to the original column by Gail Collins (one of my favorite writers) in the NY Times.

Not about Wal-mart

2012-04-26T21:50:21-05:00

I wasn't really satisfied with my post on Wal-Mart--not in the least. I will try again in the next few days. In the meantime, you can go to the Mex Files here and get a broader perspective. Sr. Grabman was kind enough to cite my blog in a later post, but I don't think I deserved it.

But here I will just recount one tiny incident.

I was just sitting and reading when movement on the floor caught my eye. It was a daddy-long-legs, limbs stretched forward from its tiny body, quivering. I thought it was dying. I watched. Suddenly it drew its legs up so they bent and circled its body. And then it lay still again. The legs stretched and drew together once more. I wa sure it was dying. It was in fact dying. But so very slowly. I watched it repeat its dance and then decided I would move it off to the side so that no one would step on it. I took a napkin and gently slid it towards a corner. Two of its legs came off and it lay still. But just for a few seconds. There it went on its six legs to find its missing limbs. It nestled close to them and seemed to reattach them. And then it sank down again, legs stretched out together.

How could it not be dying? A couple of hours later I went to look. The spider was sitting like a flower, its body in the midst of its eight curled legs. A puff of dust seemed to have trapped it. I reached over and tried to pluck the dust off as gently a I could. The spider fell into pieces: leg joints and body. There was no more recovering for it.