"Know that this is divine justice."

Emily Clark



La Familia Michoacana – religiously-inspired drug-traffickers of the Mexican-American borderlands – are back, sort of. La Familia dramatically appeared on the media’s radar in 2006 when they rolled the severed heads of five criminals onto the floor of a discoteca with the note: “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.” Over on ReligionDispatches, Luis Leon has an article on the re-emergence of La Familia Michoacana, who is now the Knights Templar of Michoacan. I was intrigued to see Leon’s take on the “new” cartel society because this is a regional ethos that Leon knows. I recently flipped back through his book La Llorona’s Children: Religion, Life, and Death in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands for my upcoming comprehensive exams, and I continue to be struck and intrigued by the narrative Leon tells. Religion in the borderlands, Leon tells us, is “creative and often effective means to manage the crisis of everyday life.” His narrative includes the literature of popular chicana author Sandra Cisneros, Catholicism, the healing traditions of curanderismo, folk traditions of espiritualismo, and born-again evangelicos.

In his essay over on Dispatches, Leon explains how the more Protestant worldview of La Familia has developed into the more Catholic-looking Knights Templar of Michoacan (KTM). Leon takes you through parts of the El Codigo de los Caballeros Templarios de Michocan, or The Code of KTM. Last December, I posted here on La Familia, reflecting both on the then-recent death of leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez (or El Más Loco) and the integration of his remembrance in celebrations of the feast day of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Just a few days after Moreno’s death, San Antonio law officers attended a workshop exploring “the saints that narcos pray to,” including Santa Muerte, San Simón, and other borderlands icons. When explaining to the local San Antonio paper why the workshop was important, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas John Murphy said “It might seem laughable that someone would have these idols. It's remarkable, but true. There's always an advantage about knowing about this.” I don’t think “laughable” is a good description for this aspect of borderlands religion, but at least law officers are getting interested in learning about it.

What Catholic Reform Looks Like

Paul Harvey

Recently we put up a guest post from Julie Ingersoll reviewing Colleen McDannell's new work The Spirit of Vatican II: A History of Catholic Reform in America. This work, part family memoir and part religious history, was recently published by Basic Books.

There's a nice interview with Colleen about the book, up now here. Below, a little excerpt, which I hope will interest you in reading the rest:

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was perhaps the most important event in twentieth-century religious history. While there are many fine books about Vatican II, they focus either on the session debates or on the ideas contained in the Council documents. What I wondered about was how Vatican II influenced the lives of average American Catholics. What was parish life like before and after the Council? Did Vatican II really change anything?

It really is impossible to speak of “the American Catholic,” because of the ethnic, class, and regional differences. So, I decided to use my mother as the narrative thread to look at how certain Catholics negotiated the changes of the past century. I wanted to shift the discussion to girls, women, nuns, and parish life because the sex abuse scandals had yet again reduced Catholicism to a story of boys, men, priests, and bishops. I also thought that it was about time that religious historians take seriously mobile, middle-class life in the suburbs, especially in the western United States.

Jewish World in Transformation: An Interview with Dana Evan Kaplan

Paul Harvey

A while back, we posted an extensive interview with Dana Evan Kaplan, author of what was then the brand new book Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal. In the interview, he said that

Individualized spirituality threatens institutional religion because if people can find spiritual meaning on their own, then they don't need organized religion. American Judaism is particularly vulnerable because Judaism is so interconnected with Jewish peoplehood and also because Judaism is such a small religious group in terms of numbers. If every American Jew went on their spiritual search without regard to ancestral tradition or community influence, that would mark the end of organized Jewish religion in the United States. But that has not happened.

Just a quick update: Religion Dispatches has a new interview just up with the author, whose book has just been released in paperback, reflecting again on the book: see "Tattoos, Cremation, Personal Spirituality: The Jewish World In Transformation." A brief excerpt:

I am trying to write a reasonably comprehensive current history of contemporary Judaism. But there are so many things happening so it is clearly impossible to cover everything. I am also making a series of arguments, particularly relating to the impact that the concept of personal spirituality has had on organized American Judaism. Americans today feel much freer to explore ceremonial and ritual practices that intrigue them regardless of what their community thinks of those particular ideas. This has allowed Jews to move in a number of different directions, including seemingly contradictory ones.

I found some of these contradictory impulses fascinating. For example, there have been a lot more young Jewish people getting tattoos, including many who choose Jewish symbols or Hebrew letters. Now of course the halacha prohibits getting a tattoo, and in earlier generations, a Jew who got a tattoo was in open rebellion against the tradition. That is not so obviously the case anymore.

Another such example that I write about in my book was of a woman in northern California who asks to be cremated after her body is ritually purified and most of the traditional Hebrew prayers have been recited. Again, this is behavior that would have been inexplicable to a traditional Jew from a previous generation. I am hoping that my readers will find these internal contradictions as fascinating as I did and want to explore the changing contours of American Judaism through my book. I do like to be controversial, as long as my criticisms are based on a solid footing.

Pasquier on the Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Randall Stephens

Mike Pasquier has been a busy guy. In addition to writing his rich study of Jesuits in late 18th and 19th century America, our fellow RiAH blogger has been collaborating with other LSU researchers who are studying the impact of the Deepwater Hoirzon oil spill. Ashley Berthelot at LSU Gold reports:

Michael Pasquier, assistant professor of religious studies and historian at LSU, has developed "Standard Lives: Visualizing the Culture of Oil in Louisiana." The goal of this project is to complement scientific investigations of the Deepwater Horizon disaster by documenting the cultural impact of environmental stressors on Louisiana's coastal communities.

"To do this, it's necessary to look at oil from 'the ground up,' so to speak," said Pasquier. "I knew we needed to take a long and unbiased look at Louisiana's relationship with the oil industry, and by extension, its effects on the everyday lives of refinery and offshore workers, as well as the businessmen, teachers, farmers, fishermen, mariners, homemakers and others with direct and indirect ties to petroleum-based services."

Pasquier started his project by delving into a photo collection at the University of Louisville that showcased in detail how the industry fundamentally transformed the social and environmental landscape of Louisiana at mid-century. . . .

"As a native of Louisiana, I grew up in a family and in communities with deep stakes in the oil industry, so I already had my finger on the pulse of a people economically and culturally invested in oil. Now, what I wanted to do was to find a way to look behind the typical photos of a literally oiled landscape to see the faces of people who are directly impacted by even the most subtle of economic and environmental changes," said Pasquier. "When we look at the photos of oily pelicans or an oiled coastline, we should also be trying to understand the backstory that was there long before the oil spill. We should also be looking for the everyday human story that isn't drenched in oil." . . .

"This isn't about justifying our use of oil, or being pro-oil or pro-environment," Pasquier said. "It's about assessing the terrible consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster by taking the time to focus on and understand the big picture, the realities that exist in everyday life for many Louisianans. This is about our history and our culture – this is about us and our future." read on >>>

Many of us heard Mike's preview of this tremendous work at the 2010 AAR. Can't wait to see the eight short documentaries that will result!

A Mexican Drug Cartel and Self-Proclaimed Messiah

Emily Clark

I grew up in San Antonio, and it is never dull here in the borderlands. I went to high school with kids who parents were in the US “illegally,” and I played select soccer with a girl from the valley who regularly saw people passing through her backyard on their way north from Mexico. Though in this past week, immigration has taken a back seat to drug trafficking. The recent death last Thursday of La Familia leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, or El Chayo or El Más Loco, put the Mexican drug war back to the front pages of newspapers and the top of search engines. After a two day shootout between the cartel and Mexican Federal Police officers, El Chayo was found dead. Coming just days before the feast of La Virgen de Guadalupe, Moreno was shot in an atmosphere charged with religious, social, and political significance.

Politics, violence, power, and religion combined in a visible and tragic manner with La Familia Michoacana, commonly referred to as La Familia – an organized crime syndicate and drug cartel. La Familia drew attention to themselves in 2006 when they rolled the heads of five petty criminals on the floor of a Mexican discoteca accompanied by a note: The family does not kill for pay, it does not kill women or innocents. Only those who deserve to die will die. Everybody understand: this is divine justice (note originally in Spanish). With this act, La Familia introduced themselves as the new moral compass for Mexican and borderland life. Under their leader Moreno the group took on religious overtones, as he called himself “the savior of the people,” and a “messiah” for the Mexican poor. Each member received a copy of La Familia’s “bible,” written by Moreno which explained the group’s philosophy and justified the mandate of “divine justice” to new recruits. Here is an often cited quotation from his book, titled Pensamientos (Thoughts): Today, we need to prepare to defend our ideals so that our struggle will bear fruit (and) organize so as to go down the best path, perhaps not the easiest, but the one that can offer the best results. In July of 2010, a list of the group’s mandatory reading surfaced in the media, which included evangelical author John Eldredge's popular Wild At Heart: Discovering the Secrets of a Man’s Soul. Eldredge’s book is a kind of new take on “muscular Christianity,” and as described by the author, “a call for men to engage as husbands, fathers, members of their community. So there is this call to be a hero, to live a life that matters, to make a difference.” Eldredge’s moral and masculine appeal for action found a welcome home in Moreno’s philosophy, which views the protection of life, land, and integrity at stake.

La Familia’s headquarters remained in Mexico, but they also operated in multiple areas of the US – primarily Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California. It is well known for its violent tactics to punish those in their way, both ideologically and in their lucrative drug business. Dumping the murdered bodies of Mexican Federal Police officers in the summer of 2009 solidified stopping La Familia a prime objective of the Mexican government and of the US. Though, this would not be easy. Not only are drug cartels hard to catch (watch Harrison Ford in Clear and Present Danger if you don’t believe me), but La Familia gained the loyalty and love of many locals. The group gave money and food to the poor and donated to schools and charities. In his official profile, the Mexican government wrote that Moreno “erected himself as ‘the Messiah,’ using the Bible to preach to the poor and obtaining from them unconditional support.” In western Mexico, a parade this past Sunday combined a peace march in honor of Moreno with images of another divine protectress, La Virgen de Guadalupe. Young girls carrying an image of La Virgen de Guadalupe walked just ahead of an onslaught of La Familia sympathizers outfitted with signs for their beloved, slain “messiah.” One marcher carried a sign for Moreno reading: Nazario Siempre Vivira en Nuestro Corazón (Nazario will always live in our hearts). A boy in the parade bore a sign stating: Sr. Nazario Para Los Estudiantes Tus Ideales Siguen Vivos (Mr. Nazario, for the students your ideals remain alive).

Despite what one may think of La Familia’s religious philosophy, they represent a role religion plays which is not to be taken lightly. Organizing, mobilizing, and inspiring members of La Familia, El Chayo proved the force religion has in political and social affairs. Though vastly different in many ways from the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, religion worked in comparable ways for both La Familia’s leaders and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth. In A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, David Chappell deems the Civil Rights Movement the Third Great Awakening in American history elucidating the way Christianity united and propelled the movement. Moreno may not have taken a page from King’s “turn the other cheek” way of thinking, but religion mustered La Familia’s members and appears in mourners’ lament for their fallen leader.