Jediism is losing followers in Canada, according to the latest census. Also: the arrival of religious immigrants has worked to offset the country’s growing secular population.
Scientology troubled front group Narconon now has the Oklahoma government looking over its shoulders.
Also: Vactican official says worshipping Santa Maria is blasphemy.
Santa Muerte, followed by millions of Mexicans, is gaining popularity in the US.
Also: A priest in the village of Castelvittorio, Italy, shocked his congregation when he burned a photo emeritus pope Benedict XVI during Sunday mass.
And Hillsong bumps Nick Cave.
A woman has been jailed for up to 30 years for her part in the murders of two people — one a woman who wanted to leave the cult; the other a 4-year old boy shot by the cult’s leader.
The wife of a cult leader in the Mexican ‘slavery cult’ raided last week has told reporters followers were treated with cruelty, including humiliation and psychological torture.
Cult leader Tony Alamo has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in the hope it will overturn a ruling in a civil lawsuit against him.
And the Moonies, whose failed ‘Messiah’ recently died, have put on another mass wedding.
As Mexican immigrants journey north, devotion to Santa Muerte has grown immensely in Chicago, Los Angeles, Tucson, Ariz., and other urban areas..br “The fact that Santa Muerte is here in Richmond, Virginia, where the Latino population doesn’t exceed six percent, is really significant,” said Andrew Chesnut, an expert on the Santa Muerte movement.
Eight people have been arrested in Mexico for the killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death.
Until now there have been no confirmed cases of human sacrifices in Mexico to the saint.
“David Romo is not the Santa Muerte, and not the whole church, and if he made a mistake he should pay for it.”
David Romo, considered the high priest of a cult with millions of followers across the Americas, is accused of kidnapping and posing as a member of the feared Zetas drug cartel.
The “Santa Muerte” cult has become popular among drug traffickers in Mexico, in part because followers believe the skeletal figure of the female “saint” may protect them from death or arrest.
Mexican federal authorities used bulldozers to bring down more than 30 chapels devoted to “Saint Death” – a figure that is worshipped by drug traffickers – in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo, the daily Reforma reported Wednesday.
Although the figure is venerated by people from many walks of life, the saint — Santa Muerte — has been adopted by drug gangs.
The heads of 11 decapitated bodies discovered in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula last week may have been burned in a ritual, investigators said.
Police said they found an altar to the skeletal figure of the “Santa Muerte,” an unofficial patron saint of death, in the home of two men arrested in connection with the slayings, while several scorched spots were discovered in a nearby clearing.
Eduardo Ornelas, a spiritual adviser and owner of the Botanica San Miguel Arcangel, said he tells customers the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize Santa Muerte. Even so, for many in the Mexican community she has emerged as representing a dark, less-traveled path ultimately connected to God.