Pact May Help Christians Threatened and persecuted by Catholics in Mexico

Pact may help Christians Threatened and persecuted by Catholics in Mexico

Jeff M. Sellers
But 'traditionalist Catholics' may not sign it; evangelicals vow they won’t be expelled.

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – On Monday April 23, town political bosses near this city in Chiapas state were set to meet with representatives of 65 Christians they have threatened to expel in a showdown that could influence religious rights throughout the region.

The town rulers decided to drive 13 Christian families from their homes last December for refusing to help pay for “traditionalist Catholic” festivals in Los Pozos, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from San Cristobal. State and federal officials intervened, and on February 28 the town bosses verbally agreed to a pact pledging they wouldn’t expel the evangelicals, whose water lines and electricity they have cut since January.

But Christian leaders told Compass the rulers have signaled that either they will not sign the accord, or will exact fines before signing, or will sign it with plans to renege on it.

Leaders of both the evangelicals and the traditionalist Catholics, who practice a blend of Roman Catholicism and Tzotzil Maya customs, view the showdown as their Waterloo. For evangelicals, the outcome of the political maneuvering is expected to influence whether other Protestants in the region continue to be bullied into paying for alcohol-drenched Catholic festivals or gain a toe-hold on religious rights. (Snip, complete article at link)

UPDATE

Pact Spares Evangelicals in Chiapas, Mexico from ExpulsionCrosswalk ^ April 24, 2007 Jeff M. Sellers


SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – Local political bosses who had voted to expel 65 Christians from a small town near here grudgingly signed an agreement yesterday to let the evangelicals stay in their homes.

Evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez told Compass the town bosses (caciques) of Los Pozos, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from San Cristobal, showed up here for the formal signing of the accord armed with demands that put extra conditions on the terms they verbally agreed to on February 28.

Alonso said the proposal of the caciques and other “traditionalist Catholics,” who practice a mixture of indigenous ritual and Roman Catholicism, called for the Christians to pay for religious festivals plus fines for refusing to contribute in the past. The evangelicals’ refusal to help pay for and participate in the festivals, which include drunken revelry and what they regard as idolatrous adoration of saints, was the reason the town officials voted to expel them last Dec. 23...

The signing of the agreement by the caciques and Los Pozos Catholic leaders, bosses from the municipality of Huistan (to which the Los Pozos community belongs), evangelicals and state officials at 1 p.m. came nine days after traditionalist Catholics and civil authorities destroyed a Pentecostal church building in Ollas, a community of nearby San Juan Chamula municipality, on April 14...

It remains to be seen, he added, whether the Los Pozos town bosses will follow through on the accord’s stipulation that they restore water lines and electricity cut off from some evangelical families since January 30.

The agreement also calls for local authorities to restore firewood-gathering rights and resume distributing federal food aid and fertilizers they have diverted from the Tzotzil Maya Christians...

Los Pozos and other town officials throughout Mexico force evangelicals to help pay for and participate in the traditionalist Catholic processions and revelry based on a legal argument drawn from the Mexican constitution’s protection of indigenous “uses and customs...”

Gomez Ton and his sister, Mercedes Gomez Ton, said their mother died in part from the strain of the suffering and threats the local authorities and traditionalist Catholics have meted out to the tiny minority Christian community.

“They threaten us with rape, and they threaten that they want to kill us,” Mercedes Gomez Ton told Compass. “They ridiculed and humiliated my mother, to the point of threatening that they wanted to kill her.”

Gomez Ton said her mother was among 19 people jailed for 24 hours after the traditionalist Catholics and authorities tore down their church in 2003...