Easter processions and defending the faith

We spent much of Holy Week in Zamora, which provides an opportunity to describe some of the local celebrations, and then to take a broader look at the place of the Catholic church in Mexico.

Easter (Pascua) is a week-long affair, with masses and events every day. On Holy Saturday (Sábado Santo), the Procession in Silence takes place. The first procession, the idea of a local priest and the Caballeros of Don Bosco (The Knights of Don Bosco, an Italian priest who devoted his life to educating street children), took place in 1959. At 10am men (no women allowed) gather outside the church of Los Dolores (The Sorrows) and walk in silence for five hours, dressed in a white t-shirt and blue trousers, in penance for Christ’s crucifixion. The only sound comes from a megaphone on a pick-up truck, as the names of deceased members are read out. Some men carry a crucified Christ, some wear a crown of thorns, many just walk, many fathers with young sons. The organizers this year anticipated an attendance of 30,000. We saw only the end of the procession, and in any case, could not possibly count that number.

 

The Procesión en silencio, Zamora

Our local church (Espíritu Santo, Holy Spirit) is not on the route, but has its own tradition: a via crucis around the plaza. The action begins outside the church: we witnessed the whipping of Christ, Pontius Pilate washing his hands, and then we all set off following Christ who carried a large and heavy cross, accompanied by the two thieves who bear solid-looking wooden logs across their shoulders. The Roman soldiers languidly whipped Christ in between each of the stations.

Station VIII

The stations were set up outside local homes, each with its crucifix and other adornments according to taste: one had an image of the Virgin identified as Reina del Mundo (Queen of the World). At each station we were given readings from a pick-up truck with a megaphone. The assembled faithful then said the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary faster than Jan and I have heard it anywhere else (bear in mind that they have to say both twelve times). In between stations, a voice from the pick-up truck led us in a heartfelt chant: Señor ten piedad de nosotros. Perdónanos señor (Lord have pity on us. Forgive us Lord).

Each station had its protagonist. Barabbas briefly helped Christ carry his cross. By far the most dramatic was the lamentation of Mary, an impressive performance that moved even reserved Brits close to tears.

The procession eventually reached the concrete platform at the far end of the plaza, by the town cultural centre. Here Christ was fixed to the cross, which was then raised by the young Roman soldiers, and tentatively slotted into a hole in the concrete. At this point an older man stepped forward to supervise the wedging of the cross to ensure that it was stable. The young man playing Christ spent quite some time on the cross while passages from the Bible were read and a song was played. The soldiers gave him “vinegar” to drink on a long pole and prodded him with a “spear”, at which point he was very carefully lowered from his precarious perch to be laid in the arms of the grieving Mary. Christ’s inert body was then transferred to a tomb of black cloth, and, after a pause for a costume change, he emerged to applause.

 

The cast takes its bow after Christ's resurrection

Zamora is, you will gather, a very Catholic town, and Mexico is, nominally at least, a Catholic country. The Virgin of Guadalupe is the national saint. The greatest heroes of Independence, Hidalgo and Morelos, were priests. However, the relationship between church and state has been very complicated and conflictive. We were reminded of this at a fish lunch with our friends Verónica and Sergio, the day of their wedding anniversary. In Mexico, church marriages have had no legal status for a century and a half. The legally recognised ceremony is civil, and its form was specified by

Ocampo's heart. The sign says "Do not touch"

President Benito Juárez in 1869. The law obliged the presiding official to read to the couple the “epistle of Ocampo”. Melchor Ocampo was a Liberal politician, a native of Michoacán (whose full name is Michoacán de Ocampo). He drafted the Reform Laws, which abolished many church privileges and confiscated much church property. His Conservative opponents executed him in 1861. After his execution, his daughter had his heart removed to preserve it and took it to the Colegio de San Nicolás in Morelia, now the University of Michoacán. It is displayed there with Ocampo’s books, his telescope, the clothes he wore when shot, and other mementos.
There is a statue of Melchor Ocampo in the main square in Morelia. It bears one of his sayings: “We will understand one another by talking, not by killing one another.”

 

Ocampo's statue in Morelia

Relations with the church worsened after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The church generally

Cristeros in Sahuayo, Michoacán

supported the opponents of the Revolution and the wealthy landowners. The Catholic hierarchy instinctively opposed elements of socialism in the revolutionary programme, especially the new “socialist education”, often delivered by anticlerical teachers. The new revolutionary regime placed many restrictions on the church. For example, it determined how many priests would be allowed in Mexico, prohibited wearing priestly garb in public, and expropriated more church property: the public library of Morelia is housed in a former Jesuit building. Eventually, the church announced that it would carry out no burials, marriages or confessions. In the late 1920s the faithful rebelled in parts of the country, and a bloody civil war ensued. Catholic rebels killed schoolteachers and other representatives of the government. The Government in turn executed priests and rebels. The faithful of the Zamora region actively supported the rebellion. Federal troops occupied the Sanctuary of Guadalupe and held executions to one side of the altar, where the impact of bullets can still be seen.

For decades, no Mexican President or ambitious politician could admit to being Catholic. Nor could he allow any member of his family to attend church, still less be married in church. Things began to change in the late 1980s and 1990s, when the Mexican government re-established relations with the Vatican. Politicians, even Presidents, could now declare “I am a Catholic”.

For those of you curious about the epistle of Ocampo, the following is my translation:

This is the only moral foundation of the family, of the preservation of the species, and to overcome the imperfections of the individual who cannot achieve the perfection of humankind alone. Perfection does not exist in a single person, but rather in the duality of marriage. Married couples should consecrate themselves to one another, even more than they do as individuals. The man, whose sexual gifts are principally valour and strength, should give, and will give, to the woman, protection, food and instruction, always treating her as the most delicate, sensitive and best part of himself, and with the magnanimity and benevolence that the strong owes to the weak, especially when the weak gives herself to him, and when society has entrusted her to him. The woman, whose principal gifts are self-denial, beauty, compassion, sensitivity and tenderness, should give, and will give, to her husband obedience, pleasure, assistance, comfort and advice, always treating him with the veneration which is due to the person who supports and defends us, and with the delicacy of she who avoids provoking his brusque, irritable and hard side. Both owe and should show respect, deference, fidelity, trust and tenderness, and both will try that the hopes each had when they married should be preserved in their union. Both should be prudent and should moderate their faults. They should never insult one another, because insults between husband and wife dishonour the one who insults the other, and demonstrate a lack of judgement or self-control, still less will they ill-treat their partner, because it is base and cowardly to mis-use strength. Both should prepare, by recognizing and by accepting loving and mutual correction of their faults, for the supreme responsibility of being parents, so that, when they become parents, their children will find in them a good example and conduct worthy of being their model. The beliefs that inspire these tender and loving bonds of affection will make them happy in prosperity and adversity; and the happiness or misfortune of their children will be the reward or the punishment, the happiness or the misfortune of the parents. Society will bless, esteem and praise good parents, for the great good that they do by giving us good and dutiful citizens; and society will censure and despise, with good cause, those who, through neglect, misguided affection, or bad example, betray the sacred trust that nature conferred on them by giving them children. And, finally, when society sees that such people do not merit the dignified position of parents, but rather should live under supervision, as ones incapable of dignified conduct, then society regrets having sanctified the union of a man and a woman who were incapable of being free and to conduct themselves well.