WI widespread religion fanatism in Latin America?

Latin America is, on averege, far more religious than Europe and, depending on the country, as, less or more religious than the US.

However, unlike the US, Latin America has had, for more of its history (300 years) only ONE accepted religion: Roman Catholicism. During the late XVI and early early XVII, century, Protestantism was not only banned: the few Protestants who came to this shores where force to reject their faith or be put to trial under and Inquisition Tribunal (most of them were sailors, and accepted this, but occasionaly a reverend might have the misfortune of being caught up here and would refuse to reject his beliefs, and suffer accordingly).

The inquisition tribunal would put people under trial for things going from heresy to failure to respect "public moral". Crypto Jews from Protuguese Brazil, foreign Protestants and Catholics whose actions were against the public morality might be put under trial (these tribunals were instead far less severe with native surviving "superstitions"). In some case the Inquisition might condemn "immoral" priest or people who had married twice (though their punishment was less severe than those of heretics). Only on very few cases most cases, the punishment wouldn't involve death, but the risk existed.

Of course, the Inquisition's reach wasn't powerfull everywhere. There were tribunals in Lima, Cartagena de Indias and Mexico. The farther away you were from there, the fewer the risks. In Buenos Aires, if soomebody was accused, he had to be sent to Lima to be trial. That took so long and was so expensive that it was only done only the more serious cases. Up to a third of the population of Buenos Aires was Portuguese at some point in the XVI century, probably a few of them were Crypto-Jewish, and yet no one was sent to Lima, for example. This shows the inquisition wasn't particularly strong. This was even more so in isolated places like Paraguay, for instance.

In any case, the severity of the Inquisition didn't last that long. By 1800, for example, foreigners who weren't Catholic weren't viewed as in the past: English prisoners taken to the interior of *Argentina after the 1806 failed invasion of Buenos Aires were well treated and were accomodated with local families, for example.

Yet the idea that there should be only one religion lasted throughout all the Colonial period.

After independence, both the liberal ideas of elites and the need to trade with Britain led to religious tolerance. At first, however, it was mostly applied to foreigners: they could keep their religion, but shouldn't try to convert locals. This wasn't necessary a legal provision, but that was the idea. First came the English (traders, soldiers, bankers, railway engenieers), then other protestant immigrants and then, in the late XIX century, the Jews ant the Lebanese (some of whom were muslims). But locals remained Catholic.

During the late XIX ort the early XX Century, dependeing of the country, secular elites took power, and try to separete the Church from the State. This process was more or less traumatic according to the country. It was something that went almost unnoticed in Uruguay, for example, and that wasn't a big deal in 1880s Argentina; but it was a traumatic event in Mexico, for example. Yet this attitude, taken by the elites in power, didn't undermine the religious make up of the population: the vast majority of the non-immigrant populatin remained Catholic.

It was only in the XX century that protestantism began to make converts among locals. At first they were "pagan" Amerincian tribes in the isolated jungles. But then, well advanced the century, evangelical protestantism began to look atractive to the poor masses in urban cities.

Yet even with this history we don't see in Latin America the kind of things we see, for example, in Middle Easter countries. That is, there are no attemps, for example, to impose the morality of the most followed religion to everyone. Meat is not banned during the 40 days that preceed Easter, for example, nor are people attacked for working on Sunday. Sometimes you see thinks like having religious symbols on public buildings, which causes some uproar, but that's just about it. Also, there aren't big groups trying to impose their moral on others by means of cohertion. And there's no religious terrorism.

Could it have been different? Could Latin Americans, in an ALT, see themselves as the true defenders of the Faith?Could there be a Latin American Saudi Arabia, for example, were non-Catholics aren't allowed to enyoy the same freedons as others? How could that be?
 
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kind of difficult
could religion be used to get together or Latin American or in the best case, Southamerican nations?
... kind of difficult
 
Latin America is, on averege, far more religious than Europe and, depending on the country, as, less or more religious than the US.

However, unlike the US, Latin America has had, for more of its history (300 years) only ONE accepted religion: Roman Catholicism. During the late XVI and early early XVII, century, Protestantism was not only banned: the few Protestants who came to this shores where force to reject their faith or be put to trial under and Inquisition Tribunal (most of them were sailors, and accepted this, but occasionaly a reverend might have the misfortune of being caught up here and would refuse to reject his beliefs, and suffer accordingly).

The inquisition tribunal would put people under trial for things going from heresy to failure to respect "public moral". Crypto Jews from Protuguese Brazil, foreign Protestants and Catholics whose actions were against the public morality might be put under trial (these tribunals were instead far less severe with native surviving "superstitions"). In some case the Inquisition might condemn "immoral" priest or people who had married twice (though their punishment was less severe than those of heretics). Only on very few cases most cases, the punishment wouldn't involve death, but the risk existed.

Of course, the Inquisition's reach wasn't powerfull everywhere. There were tribunals in Lima, Cartagena de Indias and Mexico. The farther away you were from there, the fewer the risks. In Buenos Aires, if soomebody was accused, he had to be sent to Lima to be trial. That took so long and was so expensive that it was only done only the more serious cases. Up to a third of the population of Buenos Aires was Portuguese at some point in the XVI century, probably a few of them were Crypto-Jewish, and yet no one was sent to Lima, for example. This shows the inquisition wasn't particularly strong. This was even more so in isolated places like Paraguay, for instance.

In any case, the severity of the Inquisition didn't last that long. By 1800, for example, foreigners who weren't Catholic weren't viewed as in the past: English prisoners taken to the interior of *Argentina after the 1806 failed invasion of Buenos Aires were well treated and were accomodated with local families, for example.

Yet the idea that there should be only one religion lasted throughout all the Colonial period.

After independence, both the liberal ideas of elites and the need to trade with Britain led to religious tolerance. At first, however, it was mostly applied to foreigners: they could keep their religion, but shouldn't try to convert locals. This wasn't necessary a legal provision, but that was the idea. First came the English (traders, soldiers, bankers, railway engenieers), then other protestant immigrants and then, in the late XIX century, the Jews ant the Lebanese (some of whom were muslims). But locals remained Catholic.

During the late XIX ort the early XX Century, dependeing of the country, secular elites took power, and try to separete the Church from the State. This process was more or less traumatic according to the country. It was something that went almost unnoticed in Uruguay, for example, and that wasn't a big deal in 1880s Argentina; but it was a traumatic event in Mexico, for example. Yet this attitude, taken by the elites in power, didn't undermine the religious make up of the population: the vast majority of the non-immigrant populatin remained Catholic.

It was only in the XX century that protestantism began to make converts among locals. At first they were "pagan" Amerincian tribes in the isolated jungles. But then, well advanced the century, evangelical protestantism began to look atractive to the poor masses in urban cities.

Yet even with this history we don't see in Latin America the kind of things we see, for example, in Middle Easter countries. That is, there are no attemps, for example, to impose the morality of the most followed religion to everyone. Meat is not banned during the 40 days that preceed Easter, for example, nor are people attacked for working on Sunday. Sometimes you see thinks like having religious symbols on public buildings, which causes some uproar, but that's just about it. Also, there aren't big groups trying to impose their moral on others by means of cohertion. And there's no religious terrorism.

Could it have been different? Could Latin Americans, in an ALT, see themselves as the true defenders of the Faith?Could there be a Latin American Saudi Arabia, for example, were non-Catholics aren't allowed to enyoy the same freedons as others? How could that be?

Well, if the British rule one colony for about a century or so,it could happen. Lets say, the British take Argentina and leave in the 20th century. There could be a civil war between the pro- British Protestant government and the Catholic majority. Protestantism could spread into other parts of Latin America and there would be more unrest. Argentina could turn ultra- Catholic if the Catholics win. Objective fulfilled.
 
Could this butterfly away (or be butterflied away by) the peculiar evolution of *popular* Catholicism in Latin America toward an unavowed 'soft' polytheism with native (Santa Muerte in Mexico) and African (Santeria) deities assimilated as 'saints' -I'm sure several 'Inca' rituals survive as Christian feast? Not *that* different from the popular cult of Saints in Medieval Europe, thus the Church never tried *really hard* to eradicate it.
 

katchen

Banned
Secret Jews in New Mexico and Texas

Here are a couple articles that document a fact that is becoming better known--that Tejas (Texas) , New Mexico, and Northern Mexico (Tamalipas, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua) were first colonized by marranos--secret Jews avoiding the Inquisition.





DNA Clears the Fog Over Latino Links to Judaism in New Mexico

The Nation


Tests confirm what tradition and whispers have alluded to -- a Sephardic community often unbeknownst to many of its members.


December 05, 2004|David Kelly | Times Staff Writer






ALBUQUERQUE — As a boy, Father William Sanchez sensed he was different. His Catholic family spun tops on Christmas, shunned pork and whispered of a past in medieval Spain. If anyone knew the secret, they weren't telling, and Sanchez stopped asking.
Then three years ago, after watching a program on genealogy, Sanchez sent for a DNA kit that could help track a person's background through genetic footprinting. He soon got a call from Bennett Greenspan, owner of the Houston-based testing company.


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"He said, 'Did you know you were Jewish?' " Sanchez, 53, recalled. "He told me I was a Cohanim, a member of the priestly class descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses."
With the revelation that Sanchez was almost certainly one of New Mexico's hidden or crypto-Jews, his family traditions made sense to him.
He launched a DNA project to test his relatives, along with some of the parishioners at Albuquerque's St. Edwin's Church, where he works. As word got out, others in the community began contacting him. So Sanchez expanded the effort to include Latinos throughout the state.
Of the 78 people tested, 30 are positive for the marker of the Cohanim, whose genetic line remains strong because they rarely married non-Jews throughout a history spanning up to 4,000 years.
Michael Hammer, a research professor at the University of Arizona and an expert on Jewish genetics, said that fewer than 1% of non-Jews possessed this marker. That fact -- along with the traditions in many of these families -- makes it likely that they are Jewish, he said.
"It makes their stories more consistent and believable," Hammer said.
It also explained practices that had baffled many folks here for years: the special knives used to butcher sheep in line with Jewish kosher tradition, the refusal to work on Saturdays to honor the Sabbath, the menorahs that had been hidden away.
In some families, isolated rituals are all that remain of a once-vibrant religious tradition diluted by time and fears of persecution.
Norbert Sanchez, 66, recalled the "service of lights" on Friday nights in his hometown of Jareles, N.M., where some families would dine by candlelight.
"We always thought there was a Jewish background in our family, but we didn't know for sure," he said. "When I found out, it was like coming home for me."
In 1492, Jews in Spain where given the choice of conversion to Catholicism or expulsion. Many fled, but others faked conversions while practicing their faith in secret. These crypto-Jews were hounded throughout the Spanish Inquisition.

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"In the 1530s and 1540s, you began to see converted Jews coming to Mexico City, where some converted back to Judaism," said Moshe Lazar, a professor of comparative literature at USC and an expert on Sephardic Jews, or those from Spain and Portugal. "The women preserved their tradition. They taught their daughters the religion. People began rediscovering their Jewishness, but remained Catholics."
But in 1571, the Inquisition came to Mexico. Authorities were given lists to help identify crypto-Jews, Lazar said. People who didn't eat pork, knelt imperfectly in church, rubbed water quickly off newly baptized babies or didn't work on Saturday were suspect. If arrested, they were sometimes burned at the stake.
Many fled to what is now northern New Mexico, and remained secretive even after the U.S. gained control of the area in 1848.
"Still, no one would come out and say: 'I am a Jew.' That didn't happen until the 1970s," said Stanley Hordes, a professor at the Latin American and Iberian Institute of the University of New Mexico who is writing a book on crypto-Jews. "The first few generations kept the secret because of danger of physical harm, and later they kept it because that was just what they did. The $64,000 question is: Why the secrecy today? Why are people keeping this information from their kids and grandkids?"
Some haven't.
"I found out when I was 13," said Keith Chaves, 47, an engineer in Albuquerque. "My great-grandmother told me that we were Sepharditos."
The family matriarch was a repository of knowledge -- and the keeper of secrets.
"She kept a kosher knife rolled up in a piece of leather that she would only use for killing," Chaves said. "And she would kill the animal by cutting its throat in one motion. She abhorred the ways others killed animals."
Born a Catholic, Chaves now attends an Orthodox synagogue in Albuquerque. He has made four documentaries on crypto-Jews and is working on a movie about his family history.
"When I found out about my roots, I went to the library and my world opened up. I started peeling what turned out to be a 500-year-old onion," he said. "I have reclaimed my life. I live a Jewish life now. I think my great-grandmother told me because she expected me to do something fruitful with the information."
Others have sought the truth on their own.
Elisea Garcia was raised by a strong-willed grandmother with strange habits.We would have a big dinner on Friday night with candles," said Garcia, 66, who is awaiting the results of a DNA test done on her son to see if he has the Cohanim marker, which is found only in the Y chromosome. "She would butcher the animals then examine them inside out for any sign of impurity. On Saturday we weren't even allowed to wash our hair."
When her grandmother died, Garcia found a silver menorah hidden in her room.
"I'm a curious person, but my uncle told me not to dig into things because they weren't important," she said.
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Ads by GoogleGreenspan, whose Family Tree DNA does the testing for Sanchez's project, said there had been a surge of interest in genealogy among Latinos looking for Jewish connections.
"We believe a fairly high percentage of first families [arriving] in New Mexico were nominally Catholic, but their secret religion was Judaism," he said. "We are finding between 10% and 15% of men living in New Mexico or south Texas or northern Mexico have a Y chromosome that tracks back to the Middle East."
They are not all Cohanim, and there's a slight chance some could be of African Muslim descent. But Greenspan said the DNA of the men is typical of Jews from the eastern Mediterranean.
Test participants scrape cells from the inside of their cheeks and mail samples to Greenspan, who has them analyzed by researchers at the University of Arizona. The process takes about a month, with costs ranging from $100 to $350 depending on the detail requested. Women, who do not possess the Y chromosome, must have a male relative take the test in order to participate.
Since discovering his past, Father Sanchez -- who wears a Star of David around his neck -- has traveled throughout the state giving talks on the history and genealogy of New Mexico. He also runs the Nuevo Mexico DNA Project and website that tells how people can take part.
Sanchez describes his Jewish history as "a beautiful thing" complementing, not conflicting with, his priestly life.
"I have always known I was Jewish; I can't explain it, but it was woven into who I was," he said.
After Mass one recent morning, a group of parishioners filed out of St. Edwin's. None had a problem with their priest's dueling religious traditions.
"He has taken us back to our roots," Robert Montoya said.
And Theresa Villagas smiled. "We are all children of God," she said. "I think this just adds richness to our lives."
Ads by GoogleTexas Mexican secret spanish jews today, [SIZE=+0]by Anne deSola Cardoza[/SIZE]

Jewish food, oral traditions, culture, and secret, religious customs are showing up today in the folklore, habits and practices of the descendants of early settlers in southern Texas and the surrounding areas of Mexico. In northern Mexico and what today is Texas, the Jews of Nuevo Leon and its capital, Monterrey, Mexico, lived without fear of harrassment from the Holy Office of the 1640's and beyond. Many of the leading nonªJewish families today of that area are descended from secret Jewish ancestors, according to scholar, Richard G. Santos. Santos states there are hundreds, if not thousands of descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews living today in San Antonio, Texas, USA and throughout South Texas. Not all are aware of their Jewish heritage. Santos is a renowned San Antonio, Texas scholar in ethnic studies of South Texas secret Spanish Jewry. He presented a paper to the Interfaith Institute at the Chapman Graduate Center of Trinity University on May 23, 1973 on secret Sephardic Jewish customs in today's Texas and nearby Mexican areas.
Here's how we know a lot of Tex-Mex Hispanics today are of Jewish ancestry. It's a well accepted fact that the founding families of Monterrey and the nearby Mexican border area, "Nuevo Reyno de Leon" are of Sephardic Jewish origin. If we go back to The Diccionario Porrua de Historia Geografia y Biografia, it states that Luis de Carvajal y de a Cueva brought a shipload of Jews to
settle his Mexican colony - with some Jews being converts to Catholicism fron Judaism and others "openly addicted to their (Jewish) doctrine".
According to the late Seymour Liebman, a scholar on Mexican colonial secret Jews, in his book "Jews in New Spain", explained why Jews settled in areas far away from Mexico City in order to
escape the long arm of the Inquisition in the sixteenth century. There's an old, universally known anti-Semitic Mexican joke, one-liner that says, "la gente de Monterrey son muy judios ... son muy codo". In English it translates, "The people of Monterrey are very Jewish ... very tightwad".
Secret Jews colonized the states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tamualipas and good old Texas, USA in the 1640's-1680s and thereafter. The majority of Texas's Spanish-speaking immigrants came from Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Coahuila (the old Neuvo Reyno de Leon) beginning in the 1680s.
Seventeenth century secret Jews who settled in what is today southern Texas, particularly around San Antonio took with them their Jewish foods, particularly what they call "Semitic bread" or pan de semita ...

Sephardic Jewish foods in old Texas

Why do Mexican Americans in Texas and in the Mexican province of nearby Monterrey eat "Semitic bread" on Passover/Lent? According to scholar Richard G. Santos, Tex-Mex pastries such as pan dulce, pan de semita, trenzas, cuernos, pan de hero, and pan de los protestantes (Protestant's bread) are similar to familar Jewish pastries eaten by Sephardic Jews today in many other parts of the world. Pan de semita was eaten in pre-inquisition Spain by a Jew or an Arab Moor. Today, its popular in Texas and in that part of Mexico bordering Texas. It translates into English as "Semitic bread". It's a Mexican-American custom in the Texas and Tex-Mex border area today to eat pan de semita during Lent which occurs on or around the Jewish Passover.
You bake pan de semita by combining two cups of flour, one half to two-thirds cup of water, a few tablespoons of butter or olive oil, mix and bake unleavened. Even among the devout Catholic Mexicans pork lard is never used, that's why it's called Semitic
bread. Pan de semita is really the receipe for 17th century secret Jewish Matzoh, and it's eaten by all Mexicans today in the north Mexican/Texas border area, regardless of religion.
Only in Texas and along the Texas-Mexican border is a special type of pan de semita baked, according to Dr. Santos, who himself is descended from secret Spanish Jews of the area who've lieve in that part of Texas and Monterrey since colonial times.
The special Texas pan de semita of the border has special ingredients : only vegetable oil, flour raisins, nuts, and water. The raisins, pecans, and vegetable oil were identified, according to Dr. Santos, as selected ingredients of secret Jews of New Spain.
You take two cups of flour, a cup or less of water, a handful olive oil and mix with a half cup to two thirds cup each of raisins and pecans. Then you knead and bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned and easty to chew.
This pan de semita is only found in the Texas/Mexico border area and in Texas. Pastry bakers from Mexico claim this type of pan de semita is unknown in central Mexico. Other pan de semitas are
found in Guadalahara made from wheat (Semita de trigo) in which milk is substituted for the water. In Texas and also in Guadalahara, one also finds Semita de aniz (anis). However, semita de trigo and semita de aniz never include raisins and pecans, and to use pork lard is forbidden. Only olive oil or butter can be used to make semitic bread.
In addition to the Mexican matzo makers of Texas and Monterrey, Mexico, chicken is slaughtered in a special way. In Nuevo Leon, Tamualipas, Coahuila, and among Mexican Americans in Texas, two
ways of butchering fowl is performed. Chickens can only be slaughtered by either wringing the neck by hand or by taking the head off with only one stroke of a sharp knife, and immediately all blood must be removed from the chicken into a container. The fowl is next plunged into hot water to get rid of any blood.
This method is the same today as the crypto Jews performed in the 17th century in Mexico as described by scholar Seymour Liebman. The secret Jews of Mexico in the 1640s decapitated their chickens and hung them on a clothesline so the blood would drain into a container of water. Then the fowl was soaked in hot water and washed long enough to remove all the blood.
In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, there's a ritual today of using this method of butchering chickens with an added gesture of drawing a cross on the ground and placing the chicken at the center of intersecting lines.
Eating cactus and egg omelets is a custom during the Passover week/Lent of secret Jews of the 17th century and of Mexican Americans from Texas and northern Mexico today. The omelets are
called nopalitos lampreados. It's a custom to eat only this food during Lent. Is this and old Passover rite of secret Jews as well?
No other bread except pan de semita was allowed during Lent, and pan de semita is unleavened and contains the same ingredients as Matzoh.
Rural Mexican Americans in Texas also drink mint tea, fruit juices, or chocolate during Easter week. There's much evidence in the foods that these people were also observing Passover in addition to Lent and Easter, although many didn't know it until it was pointed out that they were eating traditional 16th century Sepahrdic foods, especially the bitter herbs added to the meal.
Mexican Americans in Texas cast the first piece of the 'masa' (dough, sounds like Matzoh) into the fire - before cooking up a batch of corn tortillas or bread. These same people also do not
eat pork on Fridays. Some Mexican Americans don't eat pork after6 p.m. or sundown on Friday.
Another Lenten/Passover food is 'capirotada'. It's wheat bread(pilon-cillo) to which raw sugar, cinnamon, cheese, butter,pecans, peanuts and raisins are added. These are identicalingredients to those used by secret Spanish Jews in the New Spainof 1640 to make their breads and cakes. Even the ingredients and receipes have been recorded by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and saved to this day in the archives.
Mexican Americans from Texas don't practice abstaining from meat on Fridays, long before the Catholic church relaxed the rule of not eating meat on Fridays. Zlso older women cover their hands
while praying in the same manner as Jewish women cover their heads. The Holy Office never extended its long arm to the area known today as Texas. Descendants of Canary Islanders, 16
families who came to Texas in 1731 established the township of San Fernando de Bexar which today is San Antonio. These families intermarried wit the local population of nearby Nuevo Reyno de Leon, many of whom were Spanish and Portuguese secret Jews who moved tot he area specifically because the Holy Office of the Inquisition didn't operate in 18th century 'Texas'. All Mexicans
of the area today are not of Sephardic descent.
However, a large number still use the oral traditions which are eminently of Sephardic origin. Historical exposure to and intermarriage with Sephardic secret Jews has occurred in the parts of Mexico that were "safer havens" for secret Jewish settlement, and those havens happen to be southern Texas and the surrounding Mexican border and adjacent areas. Today, Texans in
the San Antonio area are giving celebration to the secret Jewish origin of some of their foods, culture, and oral traditions.


Anne deSola Cardoza is a fulltime book author specializing in writing psycho-suspense novels involving Sephardic Jewish subjects or characters and is the author of 33 books, both fiction and nonfiction, and filmscripts. She also writes a weekly business opportunities career column for a
national newspaper.
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Could this butterfly away (or be butterflied away by) the peculiar evolution of *popular* Catholicism in Latin America toward an unavowed 'soft' polytheism with native (Santa Muerte in Mexico) and African (Santeria) deities assimilated as 'saints' -I'm sure several 'Inca' rituals survive as Christian feast? Not *that* different from the popular cult of Saints in Medieval Europe, thus the Church never tried *really hard* to eradicate it.

Anyone who's lived in Latin America could tell you how miniscule these sects are relation to Catholicism, and beyond that, nobody really considers them NOT Catholic.

Ecuador had a brief run with theocracy; a more motivated AHer than I could analyze this episode and figure out what worked and what didn't, and how a similar situation either in Ecuador or elsewhere in Hispanophone America could occur and stick.
 
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