Religion and Private Life

Oakland_(But really this one is Tocambaro, Mexico). I brought back an interesting strain of viral bronchitis and have been out of commission for the last few days. But the videos have not stopped playing out in my mind since the trip ended on Sunday. So to not let them fester in that backwards of my mind and furthermore, to not let the suspense lead to disappointment, let Tumbaro at night roll. We have already been to New Jerusalem (which Mark and I so fondly refer to as “NJ”) by day and have committed to the late Sunday morning mass at 7 am. We’ve been informed that members of the compound are required to pray something like 4 hours a day and morning alone provides ample opportunity for that requisite number starting at 4 am. To get an extra hour of much-craved sleep after getting to bed around 1 in the morning, we slept in until 5 am and saw the red embers of a tree broken by a lightening strike on the way to the compound. We saw the wild streak of lightening right above the compound and wondered, omen? We made a bet the clean up crew wouldn’t make it there that day or a week later for that matter.

Michocan_We’ve gone West into Michoacan, past Tuluca which was not one of Mark’s favorite places - he sped through in the way that I would most preferably go through Los Angeles. There was a horrible smell and traffic that, not unlike Mexico City, was a Hobbsian exercise in competition for survival. We got out of there fast and kept going west into Patzcuaro where we would stay the night and then drive into New Jerusalem with some kind of plan in place to get into the town. Mark had been there seven years earlier when he was writing a millennium feature story and New Jerusalem members were expecting the world to end in 2000. But it didn’t, so the community continued. Vigilance at that time was high and the community had its own armed guards and people standing vigil at all times to keep people (especially reporters for which there was a permanent ban out). In recent years the community had experienced many problems, including allegations of sexual abuse and violence. There was no telling how we would be received. The chances of me being able to use a camera or audio device was practically nil.

July 6, 2007

Uruapan__“Estas maraniendo el bandwidth,” you’re hogging the bandwith, is not something you want to hear while you’re trying to upload a video of your latest adventures in trying to track down a cult. In all my internet life (yes, I call it that since I’ve been on since some crazy pre-internet days when I was 17 surfing on librarians’ terminals) I have never been called a bandwidth hog. I felt dejected and insulted and to top it off I was kicked out into the rainy wire-less world with my present of a video dead in my laptop which had also just ran out of battery. So sitting here in Urupuan since 10:30 am, I have been waiting patiently in the corner while my 60 meg video uploads to YouSendIt, just watching the bar slowly fill at 4 kg per minute. It’s worse than waiting for your tea to seep. Filing videos from the remote parts of Mexico has been an exercise in patience and creativity, but at the very least there will be one video of my adventures up by today, thanks to Jeremy. Onward to Guadalajara and Luz del Mundo, Light of the World. There’s a decent article by the San Antonio Express that tells more about this growing church.

July 5, 2007

Nuevo Jerusalen_At 5 am Mark and I dragged ourselves out of our dingy hotel room in Potambaro, packed up our gear and headed out in a stupor to New Jerusalem for their 7 am mass.  No coffee, no food, no water, just gear and our mud stained gray Subaru slowly making its way through a thick darkness stirring with sugar cane fields and heat lighting clouds hanging low across a moon lit by flashes of lighting. Not a single car passed for miles and we slowed down between towns because the landscapes we’d gauged our progress by the previous day, were all shapeless now amid the indescript shanties behind barbed wire fencing or broken planks of wood. Now and then the thin shadow of a dog would scamper across the road and then darkness again. We were right on time for the late mass, which was to be held all in Latin and which, started at 4 am every morning. I did not dare ask when they went to sleep as I sat across from the bishop, dressed in a pink cassock with matching pick hat, burrowing a hole though me trying to figure out why we were there.

There were two very clear things to us, going later meant that not only did we get one more hour of sleep, but it also meant we wouldn’t be stuck in the compound while it was dark. We didn’t talk of it too much, but the invitation to sleep bundled up at the feet of the Virgin was not one that we took from Herlinda de Jesus, a Philippine woman who was a loyal follower of the Virgin and who had lived in the compound for more than ten years. She was in a sense, the town historian, translating Spanish text to English and bestowed with the honor of writing out messages that Mary the Virgin gave to her or others in the compound. Luckily for us, she spoke English, but we could only make out half of what she said since she had a tendency to go stream of consciousness with her stories, her thoughts and actual facts of the compound. It was hard to tell what was fact from fiction and for the most part both Mark and I had a difficult time not staring at the gap where her front teeth would have been except the roots were black and the teeth next to the gap were half broken and also going the same rate of decay.

When we had first entered the compound (which to Mark’s surprise had no armed guards as it had had 7 years ago when he discovered it and wrote about it) she was the first person we met and she took a liking to us, schooling us on all the ways of the compound and the fact that today, of all days, we had shown up on “el dia de la conferencia,” conference day was an omen to her. It meant we had been summoned by the Virgin in some way and that we were meant to be here, she later told me as we stared out at the sea of women’s bent heads wearing scarves in pink (pilgrims), green (ladies of market), red (courtesans, young girls), purple (margaritas), beige (nuns), yellow (juanitas). The omen for us, if we were ever to believe in one, was that as we crossed the town of Pernales, which was about 10 km from New Jerusalem, was a large tree fallen over the road, its trunk cracked down the middle with red embers from the recent strike of lightening. The heat lightening continued and we noticed it was exactly right above New Jerusalem and thought the tree was a strange coincidence that we could laugh off since we both felt nervous about returning to the compound.

We’d been lucky the day before, we walked right in because the compound is open to the public and just hoped for the best after I left all of my gear except a small video camera in the trunk of the car. She did not once ask us if we were journalists – a question we were happy not to hear because it could mean us getting barred from entering the compound. My fingers itched when the large blue iron gates were opened and standing about 40 feet tall was a statue of the Saint Michael (?) with trellises of jacaranda hanging from the open roof. There was a sign indicating I could not photograph or videotape outside once inside the compound, so I just pressed my fingers against the camera and bit down hard on my lip.

Upon reaching the gate I was asked whether I had nail polish on my nails, but with much guilt I answered, no, but I bite them. To which the three men guarding the entrance of the gate smiled and I was allowed to pass. The gates were closed behind us and so we entered like any regular citizen interested in learning about their religion, in particular, a certain peasant personalization of religion, which embodied an entire community worshipping Virgin of Rosario and working for Papa Nabor’s (the ex-communicated priest who founded the religion) vision of a utopian community among the sugar cane.

Some things that are part of this utopian socieyt that’s been around since 1974:

-It is a peasant’s version of salvation with a very dynamic congregation of spirits that includes different spirits who are living in the compound that day. New ones come, like John F. Kennedy, Lazaro Cardenas (president from 1934-1940), Popeius Pope Paul VI,
-The congregation will temporarily ascend to heaven on August 15.
- There is a prophecy says that a big ditch will open right past the Pemex gas station in Tacambaro and a big magnet will pull all the planes into the ditch.

-The chapel was on the hill broadcasting salvation to the four cardinal points.

Even more interesting is the way  different relics are brought out and hidden again, the rebosa to kiss for conversion and healing,
pictures of Mama Salome painted by the Virgin, the piece of shirt, tilma, the rock upon which the Virgin of Rosario sat. While in the past New Jerusalem had aligned itself with the old ruling PRI party it has now aligned itself with Felipe Calderon (leader of the lefty party in Mexico who is still running a parallel government) who is shown in a painting praying.

More on my meeting the soon to be 97-year-old Papa Nabor later….

Guadalajara, Mexico__It’s a radioactive sky outside, the color of rust and the silhouette of planes against pools of water from the rain that has just stopped in Guadalajara where I wait for my next plane. I’m piggybacking on free Wi-Fi and clearing out unsent emails, while drinking a peach-prune yogurt from a slender bottle (you know you’re in Mexico when trying to get a plain yogurt is an impossible task). The airport is empty except for all the eyes peering at Paraguay’s one point lead. The Starbucks has a long line of teenagers in pink flipflops and business men with their crackberries (some things never change I suppose).

In an hour I’ll be in Mexico City where the storms have not yet let up and where tonight myself and another reporter will start our trek to New Jerusalem to find a cult (is that perjorative? do people in cults refer to their religions as “cults?”) that has been in existence for more than 10 years — longer than Sam Quinones who reported on it in 1998 can date it back, but Mark Stevenson dates it back 1974 (see the longer story inserted at the end). I have been warned by the only two reporters I know who have been there that there is a permanent ban on reporters in this utopian religious society way beyond Morelia, about 6 hours drive from Mexico City. I have no idea if I’m even going to be able to get inside, but many of the ex-members of the compound still live on the outskirts and it’s almost mythic in quality at his point. Worse comes to worse, I only get a Luz del Mundo story, which is just as interesting as far as its ties to the immigrant influence on Catholicism in the United States. It gives some real teeth to the origins of the charismatic expression of spirituality for Latinos and Hispanics as examined in the Pew study.

Here’s some pictures of what the whole concept of New Jerusalem epitomizes:

La Nueva Jerusalen
By Mark Stevenson, 1999

Associated Press, Mexico City

La escena sería normal en Europa del siglo XVI: monjes
de sotana parda y monas de hábito azul vigilan a niños
descalzos que juegan a la sombra de una capilla
amurallada.

Pero esto es México a fines del milenio. Y Nueva
Jerusalén no tiene nada de normal. Aquí no hay bebés,
y la educación termina en quinto grado. No hace falta
más. Porque se acaba el mundo.

Su fin se producirá en un Apocalipsis de fuego al
terminar el milenio, dicen los habitantes. Sólo los
que habitan la “tierra santa” de este fértil valle del
oeste de México serán salvados, por una Virgen María
que indicará el camino hacia una nueva fase de la
existencia, retrocediendo en el tiempo.

En este lugar tan especial, las autoridades han
impuesto reglas para asegurar que solos los más puros
puedan disfrutar de los beneficios.

Recientemente, una camioneta recogió a una familia y
sus posesiones para llevarlos “Afuera”. “Los
expulsaron porque descubrieron que la esposa estaba
embarazada”, dijo un espectador, que se negó a
identificarse.

Decenas de personas han sido expulsadas por otras
violaciones -despertarse tarde, faltar a misa, usar
maquillaje- pero la mayoría se ha instalado en las
afueras del pueblo con la esperanza de estar cerca de
la salvación.

La línea que divide adentro de afuera es bastante
clara. Una cadena cruza el único camino de acceso,
vigilado por guardias las 24 horas del día. Un letrero
manuscrito explica las reglas para los habitantes,
llamados “vivientes”
Prohibidas las citas.
Prohibidas las drogas y el alcohol.
Prohibido el maquillaje.

Y hay otras: la televisión y la radio están
prohibidas. Todos deben asistir a los servicios
religiosos, hasta cuatro por día, a partir de las 4 de
la mañana. Todos deben realizar una semana de trabajo
comunitario. Y deben pedir permiso para viajar afuera.

Los hombres no pueden llevar el pelo largo y las
mujeres deben llevar la cabeza cubierta con pañuelos
cuyos colores, del celeste al púrpura, reflejan su
jerarquía en el sistema religioso, “peregrinas”,
“juanitas”, “cortesanas” a “monjas” -y vestidos largos
hasta los tobillos que parecen una cruza entre la
vestimenta indígena y la europea medieval.

Nueva Jerusalén comenzó en 1973 cuando Papa Nabor, un
cura párroco degradado, abandonó lo que consideraba
los defectos del catolicismo romano moderno y fundó
una religión basada en mensajes de la Virgen María que
le transmitió una anciana analfabeta.

Desde entonces unos 5,000 campesinos se han instalado
en su paraíso, y él ha ordenado a cientos como monjes,
sacerdotes y obispos.

Juntos, los “vivientes” han recuperado el color, las
ceremonias, los ritos, la mística, la magia y el
misterio, la fogosa energía apocalíptica, con los
cuales convirtieron a sus antepasados indígenas en el
siglo XVI y que según ellos la iglesia ha perdido.

Los residentes celebran la misa en latín y ritos
tradicionales de exorcismo y bautismo que la iglesia
abandonó hace mucho tiempo.

Los ojos de Pablo Pérez brillaron al describir lo que
encontró cuando siguió a su hermano a este pueblo 360
kilómetros al oeste de la capital en 1982.

“Solía ir a peregrinajes y nadie conocía los
responsorios en la misa, apenas ocho o diez de cada
cien personas cantaban, y había vendedores y puestos
de comida frente a las iglesia”, dijo.

“Cuando vine aquí y vi a las mujeres vestidas de
manera tan bonita, en dos hileras, tan rectas, tan
disciplinadas, todas cantando, supe que aquí era donde
quería estar”.

La aureola de colores que vio esa noche en torno de un
retrato de la Virgen del Rosario terminó por
decidirlo. Pérez vendió su granja “por la mitad de lo
que valía, y nunca me he preocupado por ello”.

Mediante una disciplina estricta, impuesta por voces
de ultratumba que transmiten santos videntes, los
residentes han construido su paraíso terrenal y aquí
esperan el fin del mundo.

Los hombres cultivan maíz en las pronunciadas laderas
del valle o, con permiso de las autoridades, pasan una
semana o dos afuera del pueblo trabajando como peones.

Viven en pequeñas casas de ladrillo que bordean una
pulcra calle principal, la catedral y un parque
dominado por una cruz de piedra, flores banderas y un
retrato mural de Papa Nabor.

Algunas casas no tienen electricidad pero casi todas
tienen agua y el pueblo es más limpio que los vecinos.
Más importante aún , hay decenas de sacerdotes
mientras que en la mayoría de los pueblos un solo
sacerdote debe recorrer varias parroquias.

Los residentes creen que sólo sus oraciones y su
rechazo terminante del “modernismo y la moda”
mantendrá viva a la Tierra durante 50 años más.

“El conocimiento se ha vuelto satánico. Ya no es
sagrado”, dijo el vidente don Agapito en febrero de
1998, actuando como conducto de un espíritu llamado
Oscar. “El fax, la computadora, la televisión, todo es
conocimiento satánico. Estamos en el fin de los
tiempos, cuando todo es satánico”.

Ha habido otros vaticinios del Apocalipsis, el último
en 1990, pero ninguno ha sido tan firme como éste. Los
videntes dicen que las señales son más fuertes. Y por
eso, las autoridades del pueblo tomaron medidas.

Hace cinco años, prohibieron a los residentes que
tengan hijos: ¿qué sentido tiene, si el mundo está por
terminar?.

En la catedral, un hombre de hábito papal blanco al
que llaman el arzobispo realiza una ceremonia de
confirmación de niños que llevan coronas de papel y
dice a sus padres: “Saquen a sus hijos de la escuela.
La tierra se acaba, sólo enseñan suciedad”.

Después de 26 años de grandes esfuerzos para erigir un
pueblo entre los maizales, la construcción está
detenida y la comunidad parece congelada, a la espera.
Su única respuesta a las preguntas sobre el futuro
inmediato es: “Depende”.

Es la respuesta que da Román Rogel García, principal
autoridad laica, cuando se le pregunta si la catedral
neobarroca en el centro del pueblo tendrá las dos
cúpulas que le faltan.

Cree que tal vez no quede nada de la catedral para fin
de año, pero no está seguro. “Nadie sabe en qué fecha
se acabará el mundo -dijo-. Sólo Dios lo sabe”.

Pero aparentemente don Agapito lo sabe. Es tercero de
una línea de videntes que se remonta a Gabina Romero,
que ya era una anciana cuando vio a la Virgen del
Rosario en este lugar en 1973. Generalmente habla con
la voz de Lázaro Cárdenas, un venerado presidente de
los años 30 que murió en 1970.

En una cinta grabada que fue sacada clandestinamente
del pueblo, se escucha a don Agapito decir que el
Apocalipsis vendrá al fin del milenio. Poseído por
Oscar, dijo: “El mundo no llegará al 2000″.

Es una visión muy mexicana del Apocalipsis. Con la voz
de otro espíritu, Agapito nombra varios volcanes en
actividad en el centro de México y dice: “Cuando
llegue la hora, estallarán en llamas”.

Sobrevendrá una suerte de invierno nuclear que matará
a toda la vida sobre la tierra. Enormes grietas se
abrirán en torno de Nueva Jerusalén y lo aislarán del
resto del mundo.

“Al borde del nuevo milenio, los desesperanzados han
hecho suya la voluntad de Dios: absurda, ilógica,
apremiante, teñida del color de los sueños
infantiles”, escribió el cineasta Arturo Ripstein
quien se inspiró en Nueva Jerusalén para hacer la
película surrealista “El evangelio de las maravillas”
en 1998.

Llama a Nueva Jerusalén “una fiel reproducción de las
sectas milenaristas medievales” y recuerda el fervor
religioso que sacudió a Europa en el 999.

A diferencia de algunas de esas sectas, los habitantes
de Nueva Jerusalén no se han volcado a la violencia.
Pero muchos dicen que lo harían si el “mundo moderno”
tratara de aplastarlos.

“hasta ahora los ataques han sido verbales -dijo el
obispo José en la catedral-. Pero no siempre será así.
Estamos dispuestos a sellar nuestra fe con nuestra
sangre”.