theology Archives - understand-culture

Bishops and Armed Groups

On February 14, 2024, in Chilpancingo, the Catholic bishops of Guerrero said that they had met with leaders of criminal groups to seek peace. They were the bishops of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, Ciudad Altamirano, Tlapa and Acapulco. The bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa said of the effort: “no se logró” (it did not succeed).

The next day, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador backed the talks. “Lo veo muy bien” (I think it is very good), he said. “Nada más que nada de acuerdos que signifiquen conceder impunidad, privilegios, licencias para robar” (Only no agreements that mean granting impunity, privileges, licenses to steal).

In the same days, a priest, José Filiberto Velázquez, mediated a truce between two armed groups fighting over Chilpancingo, Los Tlacos and Los Ardillos.

The Policy of Conciliation

Under Porfirio Díaz, the government’s approach to the Catholic Church became known as a política de conciliación, a policy of conciliation. A study by the historian David Carbajal López, published by UNAM, says that it “dejó sin vigencia efectiva las leyes de Reforma” (left the Reform Laws without effective force).

If God Wills

Dios mediante, “God willing.” Si Dios quiere, “if God wants.” In 2020, the political scientist D. E. Vilchis Carrillo published a study in the journal Política y Cultura titled “Participaré… si Dios quiere” (I will take part… if God wants). He describes the two phrases as popular expressions of Mexican Catholic culture, which “se usaban cada vez que se expresaba algún deseo futuro” (were used whenever a wish for the future was expressed).

Tatic

Samuel Ruiz arrived in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, as its bishop in 1959. Many Indigenous people called him Tatic, “father” in the Tzotzil language.

After the Zapatista uprising of 1994, he was the central mediator in the dialogue between the government and the EZLN. He died in January 2011. Five years later, during his visit to Chiapas, Pope Francis went to his tomb.

Sister Filotea

At the end of 1690, Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, bishop of Puebla, printed a critique by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz under the title Carta atenagórica. He added a letter of his own that urged her to concentrate on divine studies and reduce the human ones.

He signed the letter “Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” a nun’s name. According to the edition published by the government of the State of Mexico, “Fernández de Santa Cruz no quiso que la admonición se interpretara como surgida de su potestad episcopal” (did not want the warning to be read as coming from his authority as bishop).

Sor Juana answered on March 1, 1691, with the Respuesta a sor Filotea de la Cruz, addressed to the pseudonym.

The Children of Tepeaca

In the first decades after the Conquest, some Indigenous families in the new Christian communities kept images of their old gods at home. In Tepeaca, Puebla, the friar Bernardino Minaya used boys who had been raised as Christians to find them. The chronicler Motolinía wrote that he “envió a aquellos niños a que buscasen por todas las casas […] los ídolos” (sent those boys to search all the houses for the idols).

According to México Desconocido, the boys searched for several days, entered the homes and took the images away.

Don Goyo

The people of Santiago Xalitzintla, San Pedro Benito Juárez and Tochimilco call the Popocatépetl volcano Don Goyo. Every March 12 they celebrate what AFP calls his birthday.

Antonio Analco, the tiempero of Xalitzintla, told N+: “estamos acostumbrados a vivir con él de años, de tiempo” (we have been used to living with him for years, for a long time).

A resident, Juana Pérez, said: “Estamos en las manos del Señor, si nos va a llevar, nos va a llevar, y si no, pues qué vamos a hacer” (We are in the Lord’s hands. If he is going to take us, he will take us, and if not, well, what are we going to do).

Ex-Votos

Exvotos are “pequeñas pinturas, hechas sobre láminas de metal o madera” (small paintings, made on sheets of metal or wood), in the words of Chilango. They are “pinturas de pequeño formato en las que se registra el favor recibido de Dios, la virgen o algún santo” (small paintings that record the favor received from God, the Virgin or a saint).

Am I Not Here

In 1649, Luis Lasso de la Vega published in Nahuatl the account of the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. In the Spanish translation by Primo Feliciano Velázquez, published in 1926, the Virgin asks Juan Diego: “¿No estoy yo aquí, que soy tu madre?” (Am I not here, I who am your mother?)

The Church on the Pyramid

The Great Pyramid of Cholula, in Puebla, is called Tlachihualtépetl, “hill made by hand.” According to an INAH researcher quoted by N+, it is the “basamento piramidal más grande del mundo” (the largest pyramid base in the world), with more than 450 meters per side.

Much of it remains buried. On top stands the sanctuary of the Virgen de los Remedios.