While neither the Catholic Church in the United States nor any individual bishops have taken an official position on Santa Muerte (and three local barrio churches declined to return messages for this article), there's a parish-level drive to stamp her out. Arellano says that in the Greater Los Angeles area, priests frequently hector their flocks from the pulpit and in the weekly bulletins, warning them that Santa Muerte is a false prophet and even holding out the dread prospect of excommunication.
Santa Muerte has positively feasted on the despair of the last decade of Mexican life — the abominable slaughters of the drug trade, the vanishing of tourist pesos in many parts of the country, and the global economic downturn, all coming on top of the eternal economic inequality that has been a hallmark of the country since the time of Cortés. As Arellano says: "People are looking for a new savior."
