Thicke.org

BAKERSFIELD, California – A bandit out of Mexican folklore has become a patron saint to many drug dealers in this California city, and some even have altars to the Robin Hood-like character in their homes, authorities say.

Jesus Malverde is known as the “narco saint” by many law enforcement officers and drug dealers.

This doesn’t even make sense to me. These people have made a probable fictional character the patron saint of their sinful ways. How whacked out can you get? This is not what the Communion of the Saints is all about.

“It protects the drug dealer and brings good luck to the drug dealer,” Cavazos was quoted as telling the The Bakersfield Californian. “It might sound comical to others, but they take it very, very seriously.”

I take it very seriously too. This is just wrong! It’s not funny, it’s just wrong. These people have taken Catholic teaching and twisted it and perverted it to their own liking.

Mexicans have a way of creating “saints out of figures who give them a glimmer of hope in their everyday lives,” said Richard T. Rodriguez, an English and Latino studies professor at the University of Illinois.

And that’s what the real Saints do too, but in a way that leads you to Christ, not away from him. I’ll say it again, this is just wrong.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Communion of Saints this way:

957 Communion with the saints. “It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the People of God itself”:

Now tell me what that has to do with a criminal who was executed and supposed helps drug runners and thieves? I think we all know which direction that power comes from…..

For other resources, check out the article at New Advent’s Catholic Encyclopedia on The Communion of the Saints. Wikipedia also has a decent article here.

[Drug Dealers See Mexico Folk Hero As Saint - Yahoo! News]