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{"id":3701,"date":"2024-04-23T15:03:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T19:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theglobalcatholicreview\/?p=3701"},"modified":"2024-04-24T19:07:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T23:07:30","slug":"mexican-president-amlo-defends-santa-muerte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theglobalcatholicreview\/2024\/04\/mexican-president-amlo-defends-santa-muerte\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican President AMLO Defends Santa Muerte"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

The Mexican president stated in his morning address to the nation that the Santa Muerte tee shirt controversy is about \u2018religious freedom\u2019 and urged citizens to \u2018be respectful of believers and non-believers\u2019. <\/span>AMLO declared that Mexican citizens are free to use images of Santa Muerte to support him. \u201cI am very respectful of what citizens do, they have the right,\u201d he declared this Tuesday during his morning press conference at the National Palace.<\/span><\/p>\n

AMLO\u2019s remarks were in response to photographs of tee shirts that bear the image of Santa Muerte along with the text \u201ca real man never speaks badly of Lopez Obrador,\u201d which went viral on social networks. The photograph was even shared by the official X account of his ruling Morena political party.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amidst the controversy the president argued that the issue \u201chas to do with religious freedom\u201d and urged citizens to \u201cbe respectful of believers and non-believers.\u201d <\/span>\u201cIn this country we are free to have the religion that most closely adheres to our faith and we are also free to not have religion and we must be respectful of believers and non-believers,\u201d he expressed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mexican president attributed the controversy that arose after his party shared the image to the current election season. \u201cDue to the season, now everything becomes newsworthy,\u201d he said. <\/span>After the image was released, opponents criticized it being used to support the president, while supporters argued that it is just a meme.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mexican head of state was referring to the controversy that erupted last Saturday, when his party, Morena, posted the tee shirt with Santa Muerte on its official X account. <\/span>The publication aroused criticism from opposition presidential candidate X\u00f3chitl G\u00e1lvez, who questioned the dissemination of the figure of Santa Muerte<\/a>, a skeletal folk saint not recognized by the Catholic Church who is at the center of the fastest growing New Religious Movement on the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

The defense of Santa Muerte in the name of freedom of worship by the Mexican president was politically strategic in the sense that there are millions of devotees and sympathizers and the great majority are working class, who form the core of support of both the Mexican president and his Morena party whose presidential candidate, Claudia Shienbaum leads her rival, X\u00f3chitl G\u00e1lvez, by at least 20 points in current polls.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning Mexican president Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador (AMLO) became the first Mexican president to speak positively of Santa Muerte, the New Religious Movement which went public in Mexico City in 2001. Previous presidents had either ignored the skeletal folk saint or in the case of Felipe Calderon actually declared war on her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3408,"featured_media":3704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[380],"tags":[620,80,9,233,27,45],"class_list":["post-3701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-santa-muerte","tag-amlo","tag-andrew-chesnut","tag-catholic-church","tag-folk-saint","tag-mexico","tag-santa-muerte"],"yoast_head":"\nMexican President AMLO Defends Santa Muerte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mexican president Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador (AMLO) became the first Mexican president to speak positively of Santa Muerte, the New Religious Movement which went public in Mexico City in 2001.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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