theunfairfolk:rsbenedict: From Wikipedia: Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish for Ou
theunfairfolk:rsbenedict: From Wikipedia: Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death), often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a female deity or folk saint in Mexican and Mexican-American folk Catholicism. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, her cult has become increasingly prominent since the 2000s. The worship of Santa Muerte is condemned by the Catholic Church in Mexico as invalid, but it is increasingly firmly entrenched in Mexican culture. Santa Muerte is also seen as a protector of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender communities in Mexico, since many are considered to be outcast from society. Many LGBT people ask her for protection from violence, hatred, disease, and to help them in their search for love. Her intercession is commonly invoked in same-sex marriage ceremonies performed in Mexico. The Iglesia Católica Tradicional México-Estados Unidos, also known as the Church of Santa Muerte, recognizes gay marriage and performs religious wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples. Man how did I not know about this magical gay skeleton queen until today? i’m not mexican or latine so correct me if i’m wrong but i was raised catholic and afaik the saints already existed in the various communities as folklore/deities/myths/local beliefs, so when the catholic colonialists rolled trying to punt over everyone’s family alters bc there’s only One True God, the locals went “ah ok, sooo these aren’t gods/ghost/supernatural beings, they’re saints! Catholic God Approved and everything!” (iirc there was also a fair bit of “ur god sounds cool and all, so we will in fact convert, but we are absolutely going to put our own remix on this bitch” tho who’s to say how willing the conversion actually was).ofc the church has pushed back against this (as mentioned above, since figures like Santa Muerte have never been Church Approved) so it’s not like a bunch of people got together in the 2000s and made up saints wholecloth, it’s just a resurgence of a cultural battle that’s been going on since missionaries showed up in south america and pulled the shit they pulled. -- source link