At Religion Dispatches, Joseph Laycock explains how the Mexican drug war has caused a holy war over Santa Muerte, and why it may be making her even more popular:
Devotion to Santa Muerte, also known as La Flaca (the skinny one) and La Nina Blanca (the white girl), began as a popular movement within Mexican Catholicism and is now developing into an autonomous religious institution. Depicted as a skeletal woman wearing a white cloak, or sometimes a wedding dress, Santa Muerte is called upon for healing, prosperity, protection, and revenge. Her devotees are primarily the poor, but they also include agents of Mexico’s drug cartels known as narcos. Since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006, some 9,000 people have been killed in an escalating war between Mexican troops and the cartels. In March, the government expanded its war on drugs by demolishing shrines of Santa Muerte.
Continue reading at Religion Dispatches.