In recent days, Catholic media outlets in Mexico and Latin America — notably ACI Prensa — have repeated the now-familiar warnings against integrating the integration of Santa Muerte into Day of the Dead commemorations. What is new this year is the particularly severe condemnation of what some have called GuadaMuerte, the fusion of Santa Muerte with the Virgin of Guadalupe. Clergy have described it as “a horrible blasphemy,” “true idolatry,” and even “a satanic cult.”
Yet beyond the strong words and fearful language lies a deeper issue that deserves reflection: Who gets to define the boundaries of faith and culture in Mexico? And what does it say about the Church’s relationship with the people it claims to shepherd?
A People’s Faith, Not a Criminal Cult
It is simply false to reduce devotion to Santa Muerte to “a cult frequented by criminals.” While some members of the underworld may invoke her, millions of ordinary Mexicans — workers, mothers, students, the poor, LGBTQ people, migrants — turn to Santa Muerte in moments of fear, loss, or hope. For them, she is not a goddess of evil, but a protector, a companion in hardship, a mirror of the one reality that unites us all: death as the great equalizer.
What many Church leaders overlook is that this devotion is not confined to the margins. Law enforcement officers, prison staff, soldiers, and even some public officials openly honor the Bony Mother, seeking her protection in dangerous work where life and death coexist daily. Police officers and soldiers have been seen carrying small medallions or tattoos of Santa Muerte under their uniforms — a quiet acknowledgment that death is always near, and that divine protection must sometimes wear a different face.
This diversity of devotees tells us something profound: Santa Muerte is not a symbol of rebellion against morality, but a search for meaning in a world where violence, insecurity, and injustice are ever-present. Her cult is born not of hatred or crime, but of vulnerability — a human plea for safety, fairness, and mercy in a society where institutions, both civil and religious, have often failed to provide them.
For those who live surrounded by risk — police officers entering cartel territory, prison guards navigating moral gray zones, soldiers stationed in conflict regions — Santa Muerte is not the “Lady of Evil,” but the Lady of the Border, standing between life and death, between faith and fear.
To dismiss such faith as satanic is not only unjust; it erases the lived experience of thousands who serve their communities at great personal risk. It also denies a simple truth: that those who seek protection in the face of death are not worshipping death itself, but affirming life.
Syncretism or Survival?
Mexico’s religious culture has always been syncretic — a blending of Indigenous, African, and European symbols. The Virgin of Guadalupe herself is the prime example: a fusion of Marian devotion with the imagery of Tonantzin, the mother goddess of the Nahua people.
When Father Eduardo Chávez calls Guadalupe “the perfectly inculturated model of evangelization,” he admits what critics of Santa Muerte deny — that the Mexican people have always taken Christianity and made it their own. The difference is that Guadalupe was accepted and canonized, while Santa Muerte remains the faith of the poor, the marginalized, and the people without permission.
To condemn “GuadaMuerte” as blasphemy is therefore ironic. It was precisely through syncretism that Catholicism took root in the Americas. If the fusion of Guadalupe and Tonantzin was once seen as heresy but is now the cornerstone of Mexican Catholic identity, who is to say that other spiritual expressions are not simply the next chapter of that same story?
Control and Conscience
The ACI Prensa article also urges Catholics to read only Church-approved devotionals and to avoid “religious literature lacking sound doctrine.” This echoes the old Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of banned books that the Vatican maintained for centuries. Such advice might have seemed reasonable in the 16th century; today, it sounds paternalistic — a reminder that some Church leaders still believe that the faithful must be shielded from thinking for themselves.
But faith that cannot withstand questioning is weak faith. The Church’s role should not be to control belief, but to accompany conscience. To warn people against superstition is one thing; to forbid them from exploring the depths of their spiritual experience is another.
The Church in Mexico would do better to listen to what the devotion to Santa Muerte reveals: a profound hunger for protection, justice, and dignity in a society that too often fails to deliver them.
A Church That Listens
Father Alberto Medel rightly says that the rise of Santa Muerte is “a wake-up call” to the Church — but not for the reasons he imagines. It is not a sign of diabolic infiltration; it is a sign that the people’s spiritual needs are not being met. When the poor, the excluded, and the grieving cannot find compassion or inclusion in the Church, they seek it elsewhere. Santa Muerte, for all her unsettling imagery, offers something very simple: a promise that no one, not even the most forgotten soul, is beyond the reach of divine mercy.
If the Church truly wishes to “free Mary from the mafias,” it should begin by freeing her from the monopolies of doctrine that stifle the living faith of the people. The Virgin of Guadalupe does not belong to theologians or popes; she belongs to Mexico — to all who see in her the face of compassion.
Toward Respect and Dialogue
No one is asking the Catholic Church to canonize Santa Muerte. But to demonize her devotees is to alienate millions of believers and deepen divisions within an already fragmented society. Rather than condemn, why not listen? Why not seek to understand what this devotion reveals about pain, hope, and the human longing for meaning?
If we believe that “God is love,” then we must also believe that love can take many forms — sometimes clothed in light, sometimes cloaked in the mystery of death. And perhaps, in that paradox, there is more truth than blasphemy.
By guest contributor Walter M.C. Walgraeve, who is a devotee of Santa Muerte and a Traditional Catholic Bishop (Emeritus). Follow him on X.
Most Holy Death 