Underworld Saint Gets Following In U.S.

*Source: USA Today

The skeleton saint known as La Santa Muerte is most recently associated with the illicit drug trade in Mexico.

A statue of La Sante Muerte, an underworld saint most recently associated with the violent drug trade in Mexico, now is spreading throughout the U.S. among a new group of followers ranging from immigrant small-business owners to artists and gay activists.(Photo: Russell Contreras, AP)

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A follower in New Orleans built a public shrine in her honor. An actor in Albuquerque credits her with helping him land a role on the TV show "Breaking Bad." She turns up routinely along the U.S.-Mexico border at safe houses, and is sighted on dashboards of cars used to smuggle methamphetamine through the southwest desert.

Popular in Mexico, and sometimes linked to the illicit drug trade, the skeleton saint known as La Santa Muerte in recent years has found a robust and diverse following north of the border: immigrant small-business owners, artists, gay activists and the poor, among others — many of them non-Latinos and not all involved with organized religion.

Clad in a black nun's robe and holding a scythe in one hand, Santa Muerte appeals to people seeking all manner of otherworldly help: from fending off wrongdoing and carrying out vengeance to stopping lovers from cheating and landing better jobs. And others seek her protection for their drug shipments and to ward off law enforcement.

"Her growth in the United States has been extraordinary," said Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint and the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Because you can ask her for anything, she has mass appeal and is now gaining a diverse group of followers throughout the country. She's the ultimate multitasker."

Exact numbers of her followers are impossible to determine, but they are clearly growing, Chesnut said.
The saint is especially popular among Mexican-American Catholics, rivaling that of St. Jude and La Virgen de Guadalupe as a favorite for miracle requests, even as the Catholic Church in Mexico denounces Santa Muerte as satanic, experts say.

Her image has been used on prayers cards citing vengeance and protection, which are sometimes found at scenes of massacred bodies and on shipments of drugs.

U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte in West Texas said he has testified about La Santa Muerte in at least five drug trafficking cases where her image aided prosecutors with convictions. Last year, Almonte testified that a Santa Muerte statue prayer card, found with a kilogram of methamphetamine in a couple's car in New Mexico, were "tools of the trade" for drug traffickers to protect them from law enforcement. The testimony was used to help convict the couple of drug trafficking.

Almonte has visited shrines throughout Mexico, and given workshops to law enforcement agencies on the cult of the saint.

"Criminals pray to La Santa Muerte to protect them from law enforcement," Almonte said. "But there are good people who pray to her who aren't involved in any criminal activity so we have to be careful."

Devotees say La Santa Muerte has helped them find love, find better jobs and launch careers.
Gregory Beasley Jr., 35, believes he landed acting roles on "Breaking Bad" and the 2008 movie "Linewatch" after a traditional Mexican-American healer introduced him to La Santa Muerte.

"All my success ... I owe to her," he said. "She cleansed me and showed me the way."

Some devotees pray to the saint by building altars and offering votive candles, fruits, tequila, cigarettes — even lines of cocaine in some cases — in exchange for wishes, Chesnut said. A red La Santa Muerte, her best-selling image, helps in matters of love. Gold ones aid with employment and white ones give protection. Meanwhile, a black Santa Muerte can provide vengeance.

"She's my queen," said Arely Vazquez Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant and transgender woman who oversees a large altar inside her Queens, New York apartment. Against one wall of her bedroom altar is a tall, sitting Santa Muerte statue in a black dress surrounded by offerings of tequila.

Gonzalez, who sports a tattoo of La Santa Muerte on her back, holds an annual event in August in the saint's honor, with mariachis and a feast.

"All I have to do I ask for her guidance and she provides me with what I need," she said.

The origins of La Santa Muerte are unclear. Some followers say she is an incarnation of an Aztec goddess of death who ruled the underworld. Some scholars say she originated in medieval Spain through the image of La Parca, a female Grim Reaper, who was used by friars for the later evangelization of indigenous populations in the Americas.

For decades, though, La Santa Muerte remained an underground figure in isolated regions of Mexico and served largely as an unofficial Catholic saint that women called upon to help with cheating spouses, Chesnut said.

It wasn't until 2001 when a devotee unveiled a public La Santa Muerte shrine in Mexico City that followers in greater numbers began to display their devotion for helping them with relationships and loved ones in prison. Economic uncertainty and a violent drug war against cartels that has claimed an estimated 40,000 lives also are credited for La Santa Muerte's growth.

Oscar Hagelsieb, assistant special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso, said agents have found that most members of the Gulf and Zeta Cartels mainly pray to Santa Muerte while those from the Sinaloa and Sonora Cartels honor folk saint Jesus Malverde.

"Altars are very intricate. We have found some with food and others with blood from animals," Hagelsieb said.

The association with cartels and denunciations by some priests has resulted in some non-devotees destroying makeshift roadside altars. Recently, assailants smashed a life-size statue of La Santa Muerte in a South Texas cemetery. Police in Pasadena, Calif. recently found human bones at a home with a Santa Muerte altar outside. The owners say they bought the bones online.

But the vast majority of devotees aren't crooks.

Kiko Torres, owner of the Masks y Mas art store in Albuquerque, said sales of La Santa Muerte statues, incense, and oils have skyrocketed in recent months.

"Most people who buy the stuff are regular people who just recently found out about her," he said. "Some probably have no idea about her connection to that other world."

One such devotee is Steven Bragg, 36, who said he was introduced to La Santa Muerte in 2001 and began praying to her for a variety of different reasons, including a plea for a life companion. Recently, the New Orleans man built a public chapel to her and holds rosary services that attract around a dozen people.

He also just formed a nonprofit to support the "New Orleans Chapel of the Santisima Muerte," the official name of his public altar.

"It's something I decided to do after all that La Santa Muerte has provided," Bragg said. "She has never failed me."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

These Idiots Think Obama Is Jesus Christ

These Idiots Think Obama Is Jesus Christ, Chris Matthews compared his speech to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Maureen Dowd says Obama has a super brain, Why doesn't Obama balance the damn budget if he is so smart, Dan Pfeiffer says that our political system isn't worthy of Obama.



Get The Newsletter Now! Link Will Not Open In Chrome

http://whateverhappentocommonsense.com/go/common-sense-newsletter/

The Book Whatever-Happen-Common-Sense-On Kindle Now
http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happen-Common-Sense-ebook/dp/B008L8RBLO/ref=sr...
Buy the Book "Whatever Happen To COMMON Sense" @ http://goo.gl/f784E Or
https://www.createspace.com/3686750 - Buy the EBook "Whatever Happen To COMMON Sense"
http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happen-To-Common-Sense/dp/0615546943 (Paperback)
Email: (Realmenwork@gmail.com
Website: http://www.whateverhappentocommonsense.com
Twitter: Commonsense39

This man Travels Across The U.S. With A Piece Of Wood.

*Source: News That Matters

This man brings the “Queen of Heaven” to homes in America, cursing him self and all who accept this kind of idolatry.

This piece of wood can not even save it self if it falls down. The “goddess” needs to be carried.

This is written on the website “America Needs Fatima”:

America Needs Fatima activities include so many facets: anti-blasphemy campaigns, Mary in Every Home programs, petition drives in defense of traditional marriage, distributions of devotional items, and so on.

However, there is one effort that is especially important— the continuous effort of Our Lady’s faithful Fatima Custodians who travel from coast to coast taking her statue and message to thousands of homes every year.

Our Lady’s Custodians encounter all sorts of weather and road conditions as they travel from city to city across America.

This goddess can not even travel through the air. She needs to be transported to her followers by car.

In fact, the difficulties they encounter can only be imagined by 
those who have experienced their life of dedication. Cars breaking down, sickness, uncharitable treatment, financial strain and bad weather are only the beginning.

Source: America Needs Fatima blog.

My comment:

It is not easy to help Roman Catholics. if they have ever read a Bible, they are not willing to believe what they just read. Many of them have never opened a Bible, but trust in what their priests have told them. Both these ways are deadly traps set up by the Devil.

There are hundreds of verses in the Bible that bans worship of pieces of stone and wood. This is one of the best sequences.

Isaiah 44:16-21

From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
 he bows down to it and worships. 
He prays to it and says,


“Save me; you are my god.”

T hey know nothing, they understand nothing;
 their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
 and their minds closed so they cannot understand.


No one stops to think,
 no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals,
 I roasted meat and I ate.


Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?


Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” 


He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him;
 he cannot save himself, or say,
 “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie? ”
“Remember these things, O Jacob,
 for you are my servant, O Israel. 
I have made you, you are my servant; 
O Israel, I will not forget you.

Here are some other verses banning man from bowing down to the work of his own hand:

Isaiah 2:8
Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.

Isaiah 45:20
“Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save.

Psalm 115:4
But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.

Micah 5:13
I will destroy your carved images and your sacred stones from among you; you will no longer bow down to the work of your hands.

To accept the teachings of a Roman Catholic priest, is the worst mistake a man can ever do. Because this son of Hell, will make you a son of hell too.

Please read the Word your self, and believe what you read. And obey. Than you shall escape the fire of Hell. Jesus will come and collect you, and take you into safety in the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is unfortunately bad news for all who have submitted to adoration, kissing and bowing down to idols. The spirit that has taken you captive is not leading you into repentance. When the wrath of God strikes you, you will rather curse God than repent from your idolatry.

Revelation 9:20
The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

I you can read, and if you want eternal life. Burn your idols, and start to follow the living God, Jesus the Messiah.

Written by Ivar