A Catholic exorcist is warning about a satanic cult burgeoning in Mexico and other countries that he said is linked to recent increased demonic activity and possession.
Father Andrés Esteban López Ruiz wrote about the cult in an article published Dec. 12 for the International Association of Exorcists titled, “On the Cult of the Santa Muerte.”
Ruiz is a member of the College of Exorcists of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico, according to the Catholic News Agency.
“The proliferation of this cult has led to a notable increase in the extraordinary action of the devil, both among the people who worship this idol, and among its ministers, as well as among those who are victims of curses, spells and magic performed with the same rituals of the Santa Muerte,” Ruiz wrote in the Spanish-language piece, according to a Google translation.
Members of the cult often make deals with the devil.
“There are also formal pacts with which the devil, through the idol of the ‘Santa Muerte,’ grants his followers, through preternatural intervention, gifts and riches,” Ruiz said.
Santa Muerte, which Ruiz wrote started in 1961 but has aspects dating back to the 18th century, was born as an occult practice that was always linked to crime.
“In particular the crimes of robbery, smuggling, fraud, murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking and human trafficking. This criminal detail has led the Mexican government to consider it a national security problem,” Ruiz wrote.
Ruiz also wrote about the ongoing struggle to denounce Santa Muerte as a legitimate religion, since its practices are at odds with human rights and public order.
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Its affront to the good of society is no more evident than in Mexico’s prisons, which Ruiz said are hotbeds for the cult.
“This relationship between the cult of ‘Santa Muerte’ and crime has consequently permeated most of Mexico’s criminal environments,” Ruiz wrote. “Prisons, in particular, have become privileged places for this cult and there does not appear to be a single prison in Mexico where it is not practiced.”
Santa Muerte uses many elements of Catholicism, albeit for radically different reasons.
“Thus we find rosaries, novenas, scapulars, altars, images, consecrations to death, processions, songs and the like: all elements typical of Catholicism, but used with different meanings,” Ruiz wrote.
Ruiz wrote of the sinful and blasphemous rituals and practices inherent to the cult.
“‘Santa Muerte’ directly implies the commission of the sins of idolatry, magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, divination and necromancy,” Ruiz wrote.
“In some cases it includes satanic practices that materially and formally constitute apostasy, blasphemy and sacrilege.”
Ruiz wrote that the Catholic church’s response has been to denounce the cult and preserve God’s people from its evils.
“However, in many cases, major exorcism is necessary to assist all those people who have suffered the cruel wounds of Satan through the cult they paid to the ‘Santa Muerte,’” Ruiz wrote.
But evil isn’t confined to the south of the Rio Grande.
The cult has a presence in the United States as well.
Francisco Oropesa, the repeatedly deported illegal alien who massacred five of his neighbors in Texas in May 2023, had a Santa Muerte shrine in his master bedroom, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank.
“The narcos and the gangs all believe in the power of prayer,” Robert Almonte, a Texas-based security consultant told the New York Post. Almonte is the former deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department.
“They believe that the saints will protect them no matter what they do — and that’s dangerous because it emboldens the traffickers who truly believe they can get away with murder and still go to heaven.”
Almonte added that U.S. law enforcement is encountering idols like Santa Muerte and others more often in U.S. border communities.
