Violence erupts after Mexican army kills cartel boss ‘El Mencho’
Americans were told to evacuate to designated areas after Mexican troops killed cartel leader El Mencho, sparking violence in several Mexican states.
Did he mutter a desperate prayer to St. Jude for help in his final moments as bullets flew in the fateful shootout that left the Mexican drug lord known as El Mencho fatally wounded?
Nemesio Oseguera, co-founder and head of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most wanted fugitives until he was killed in a Mexican military raid in February, was spending his final days in a luxury villa in Jalisco that featured a makeshift shrine featuring Catholic saints and a handwritten copy of the Bible’s 91st Psalm.
This brutal cartel is the nation’s most prolific trafficker of cocaine, heroin, and meth, and, according to the U.S. Department of State, is also the pipeline for fentanyl into U.S. soil. Still, El Mencho’s handmade altar contained statues symbolizing his typical Catholic upbringing. Statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. Saint Martin Caballero, patron saint of soldiers and travelers. and St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of desperate situations.
“There couldn’t be a more orthodox Catholic,” said Andrew Chesnutt, a professor of Catholic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and an expert on Latin American Catholicism.
How can someone steeped in drug violence reconcile such a life with the devotional practice of Catholicism? Chesnutt said El Mencho, who grew up in the deeply Catholic state of Michoacán in Mexico, is like any other criminal who maintains a balance between villainy and worship, absolving or justifying the act of circumventing traditional religious frameworks to earn a living.
“It’s a complete departure from Christian moral guidelines,” he says. In that sense, he added, El Mencho and other drug traffickers are no different from the Italian mafia, which has relied on Catholic saints to protect, prosper and legitimize its operations.
Along with the saints found on the altar of El Mencho, another saint embraced by drug culture is the Santo Niño of Atocha, said Robert Almonte, a law enforcement trainer and consultant in San Antonio, Texas. It is a childlike statue of Christ, known as the patron saint of prisoners of war and those in danger. Almonte said drug lord Ovidio Guzman, the son of notorious Sinaloa kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, was wearing a pendant with an image of the Holy Infant when he was captured in 2019.
He said the most popular saint among Mexican drug traffickers is St. Jude Thaddeus, who was first embraced by Colombian drug cartels. St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes and difficult situations, and to Catholics, for example, those seeking help for a terminally ill relative, Almonte said, “If you’re driving down the highway in a car loaded with drugs, you’re asking St. Jude to help make sure the drugs get to their destination.”
But experts say drug agents often pray to Mexican folk saints who are not recognized by the Catholic Church, such as Santa Muerte (Holy Death) or Jesus Malverde, whose following extends far beyond the underworld.
That’s one of the benefits of folk saints, Chesnutt said. Since they operate outside of the Catholic framework, one can ask them anything. “They’re not operating within Christian morality, so if you want to ask them to bless a shipment of fentanyl to Atlanta, that’s kosher,” he said.
Folk saints fill a void in a largely Catholic country where many saints with roots in old Europe do not necessarily resonate. Jesús Malverde, for example, was a Robin Hood-like figure modeled on the legendary green-clad Mexican bandit who distributed his plunder to the poor, earning him favor among the feared Sinaloa cartel.
“If you’re dissolving bodies in vats of acid, you can’t go to work every week and attend Sunday Mass,” said Robert Bunker, an international security and counterterrorism consultant who studies cartels. “You are not living a good Christian life. No matter how many Hail Mary you say, you are still not a clean slate.”
As Cultural Geographics once pointed out, the association with Jesús Malverde added powerful symbolism to the drug gangs that financed improvements in areas not supported by the government. One such central figure “built a church, kindergarten, and volleyball court in his hometown of Guam Chilito,” the report states.
As Almonte says, “Mexican cartel members often think they are doing the right thing.”
The Rise of Santa Muerte
Another folk saint associated with Narco culture is Santa Muerte. Due to Shinigami’s appearance and relative obscurity, it is assumed that he has malicious intent. News reports have referred to her as the “patron saint of cartels,” but a news release from the Texas governor’s office noted that a Santa Muerte altar was discovered in a stash raid in 2023, indicating “links to Mexican cartels.”
Chesnutt said the demonization of Santa Muerte began with former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who said a military-led crackdown on cartels that began in 2006 included the destruction of numerous Santa Muerte shrines.
“He listed Santa Muerte as public enemy number one,” said Chesnutt, author of “Dedicated to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint.” “There’s no denying that Santa Muerte has a strong following in the cartel. If you want to bring death to your enemies, or if you’re looking for protection from death, wouldn’t it be better to ask for more hourglasses than death itself?”
Santa Muerte, who is often depicted with a crown and sickle, a globe in his hand, and an owl at his feet, is a product of religious overlap dating back to the Spanish conquest. Scholars say Catholic missionaries in the 16th century introduced the European figure of the Grim Reaper to Mexico’s indigenous peoples, believing that the fear of death would instill a desire for salvation and convert them to Christianity.
Rather, Chesnutt said, indigenous peoples associated the figure with the god of death in their own ancient belief system. This fusion eventually produced what would become Santa Muerte, despite the church’s efforts to eliminate her, and by the 1940s she was seen primarily as a love magician, calling on women to take back their wayward partners “under penalty of hitting them with the sickle.”
And in 2001, believers in Mexico City’s Tepito neighborhood installed a life-sized statue of Santa Muerte on the sidewalk outside their home because they had nowhere to put it, inadvertently sparking what Chesnutt calls “the fastest-growing religious movement on earth.” He said the statue is now housed in a glass case attached to a woman’s house, the most famous Santa Muerte shrine in the world.
Chesnutt estimates that Santa Muerte currently has 13 million to 14 million followers worldwide, the majority in Mexico and the American Southwest.
William Calvo-Quiros, a professor at the University of Michigan, said most are practicing and cultural Catholics who look to Mr. Santa Muerte for his reputation as a quick-fix solution. In his book, “Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migratory Piety,” Calvo-Quiros said the cult of Santa Muerte is a form of spiritual pragmatism that is “less concerned with the afterlife than with the sufferings of this life.”
In Mexico, Santa Muerte has found appeal among the poor and marginalized, especially those at risk of drug violence and other dangers, who look to the “ladies with bones” for protection. As the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Humanity Vision reported earlier this year, Mexico’s homicide rate nearly doubled from 2015 to 2019, from 15.1 to 28.2 deaths per 100,000 people, an increase that coincides with the nationwide expansion of El Mencho’s CJNG cartel.
“She’s especially popular with people who may be facing death,” Chesnutt says. “That includes Mexican law enforcement and soldiers. I really call her the patron saint of the drug war.”
Temples dedicated to Santa Muerte have sprung up from Guadalajara and Los Angeles to villages in Michoacán. Believers are sharing offerings and prayers on Reddit, and statues of Santa Muerte, medals and bracelets are common at botanicas in the American Southwest. Dallas’ La Luz Botanical Garden held a “Noche de Santa” celebration of the folk saint in December.
“It’s a faith even for Catholics,” said Xenia Vitella, co-owner of the store. Although he is not a Santa Muerte believer himself, he stocks products for believers. “My tier was a believer.”
The Catholic Church is not happy. When Pope Francis addressed Mexico’s bishops in 2016, he only vaguely mentioned Santa Muerte and her cartel connections, but expressed concern about “the many who are seduced by the vain forces of the world, who glorify illusions, embrace its macabre symbols, and commodify death in exchange for money.”
In a statement issued the following year, the Catholic bishop of San Angelo, Texas, called the cult of Santa Muerte “spiritually dangerous” and a “perversion of devotion to the saint.”
Such declarations mean little to believers like Marta Azcona, owner of Botanica La Fe a la Santissima Muerte in Fort Worth, Texas. The store is filled with statues of Santa Muerte, candles, bracelets, and ornaments. Occasionally, she hosts potluck-style Santa Muerte gatherings under a full moon with a bonfire in the parking lot.
Azcona, 47, said people who visit her botanical garden for blessings and spiritual cleansing feel left out in traditional religious settings because of their sexuality, tattoos or other factors. Some people hide the Santa Muerte altar in their homes from relatives and friends because of its negative connotations.
“They go to church, but they feel like they’re being judged,” said Azcona, who was raised Catholic. “There is no judgment here. People who come to her feel that everyone has turned against them. Where are they going to run away? To others who are feeling the same pain.”
Azcona stretches his forearm, revealing a tattoo of Jesus on one side and Santa Muerte on the other.
“If God and Santa (Muerte) are with us, who can be against us?” she said. “no one.”
People like Bunker said that kind of mentality is a concern, and that the flexibility allowed under Santa Muerte could make such devotion dangerous if she were to be seen less as an intermediary and more as a “goddess in her own sense.”
Almonte, the San Antonio consultant, agreed.
“Cartel members believe that no matter how much criminal activity they are involved in, as long as they pray to Santa Muerte, she will take them to heaven,” Almonte said. “That makes them even more dangerous, because they’re not afraid of dying.”
