cartel devotion – From El Mencho’s makeshift Catholic altar to Santa Muerte shrines across Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, the story shows how religious devotion can be woven into cartel life—used not for repentance, but to justify violence and reduce fear of dying.
For the second time in recent months, Mexican unrest spilled across borders after Mexico’s forces killed a top cartel leader—an event that came with a new kind of question: what people believed when bullets started flying.
During the shootout in which the drug kingpin known as El Mencho was fatally wounded, the article asks whether he sought help in his final moments by turning to St. Jude—an image of desperate faith emerging alongside a life built on narcoviolence.
El Mencho’s final days were also described through a different lens: Nemesio Oseguera. the CJNG co-founder and head of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). was among Mexico’s most wanted fugitives before being killed in February in a Mexican military raid. His high-end Jalisco villa reportedly included a makeshift shrine topped with Catholic saints and a handwritten copy of the Bible’s Psalm 91. On that altar, the Virgin of Guadalupe sat beside St. Martín Caballero—patron saint of soldiers and travelers—and St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of desperate situations.
Andrew Chesnut. a professor of Catholic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and an expert in Latin American Catholicism. said the display was “completely orthodox Catholic.” But the conflict is the point. How does someone steeped in narcoviolence reconcile cartel life with Catholic devotional practice?.
Chesnut said El Mencho’s faith reflects a broader pattern among criminal actors: villainy paired with veneration. bypassing traditional religious moral frameworks to absolve—or even justify—the deeds that bankroll their power. “It’s completely divorced from the moral compass of Christianity,” Chesnut said. He compared the dynamic to Italian mafiosi who’ve relied on Catholic saints for protection, prosperity, and justification.
The altar also points to a wider geography of belief. Along with St. Jude’s presence in narco culture. another figure appears frequently: the Santo Niño of Atocha. a childlike Christ figure known as the patron saint of prisoners and those in danger. according to a law enforcement trainer and consultant in San Antonio. Texas. Robert Almonte. Almonte said Ovidio Guzmán—the drug lord son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán—wore a pendant bearing the Holy Infant’s image when he was detained in 2019.
St. Jude, however, is the most widely discussed saint among Mexican drug traffickers, Almonte said. He traced its early spread to Colombian narcos and described St. Jude as the patron saint of lost causes and difficult situations—someone Catholics often turn to for help with a terminally ill relative. For cartels. Almonte said the appeal is sharper: “if they’re traveling down the highway in a vehicle loaded with drugs. they’re calling on St. Jude to help the drugs reach their destination.”.
The article also includes a warning from experts that the real religious fuel often comes from folk saints rather than official Catholic doctrine—figures like Santa Muerte (Holy Death) and Jesus Malverde. Chesnut said one advantage of folk saints is that they operate outside the confines of Catholicism. “They don’t operate within Christian morality. so if you want to ask them to bless a shipment of fentanyl to Atlanta. it’s kosher. ” he said.
That framing matters because it turns prayer into an instrument—less a plea for mercy than a tool for outcomes.
Beneath the saints and the shrines sits another practical reality: Mexico is largely Catholic. yet many saints don’t always resonate with modern lives. Bunker, an international security and counterterrorism consultant who studies cartels, gave voice to that friction with a brutal analogy. “If you’re dissolving bodies in vats of acid. your weekly job doesn’t square well with attending Mass on Sunday. ” he said. “You’re not living a good Christian life. You can only say so many Hail Marys and it still doesn’t clean the slate for you.”.
At the same time, the article notes that allegiance to Jesus Malverde has come with powerful symbolism. A journal called Cultural Geographies once noted that some kingpins funded local improvements where government had not. One example it cited was a kingpin who “built a church. a kindergarten and a volleyball court in his hometown of Guamuchilito.” As Almonte put it. “Mexican cartel members often see themselves as doing the right thing.”.
The same logic—faith as cover, faith as permission—surfaces again in the rise of Santa Muerte.
Santa Muerte’s Grim Reaper look and relative obscurity have helped fuel assumptions that her worship is inherently malevolent. News reports have described her as “the cartel patron saint.” A Texas governor’s office news release also described a Santa Muerte altar found at a stash house bust in 2023 as indicating “a connection to Mexican cartels.”.
Chesnut said demonization took off under former Mexican president Felipe Calderón. whose military-led clampdown on cartels began in 2006 and included the razing of numerous Santa Muerte shrines. “He fingered Santa Muerte as public enemy number one,” Chesnut said. “There’s no denying that Santa Muerte has a robust following with the cartels. If you’re wanting to bring death to your enemies. or if you’re looking for protection from death. who better to ask for more grains in the hourglass than death herself?”.
The story behind Santa Muerte is also described as deeply rooted in overlap—dating to the Spanish conquest. Scholars say 16th-century Catholic missionaries introduced Europe’s Grim Reaper figure to Mexico’s indigenous population. hoping fear of death would push people toward salvation and conversion. Chesnut said indigenous people associated the figure with their own ancient death deities. and the fusion gave rise to Santa Muerte despite church efforts to stamp her out. By the 1940s. Chesnut said. Santa Muerte was seen mainly as a love sorceress—called upon by women to bring back wayward partners “under punishment of being whacked with a scythe.”.
Then. in 2001. a devotee in the Mexico City barrio of Tepito set a life-sized Santa Muerte effigy on the sidewalk outside her home because she no longer had room for it. Chesnut called that act “the fastest growing religious movement on the planet.” The figure was later moved into a glass case attached to the woman’s home. and Chesnut said it is now the most famous Santa Muerte shrine in the world.
Chesnut estimated Santa Muerte’s following at between 13 and 14 million worldwide. “the vast majority in Mexico and the American Southwest.” University of Michigan professor William Calvo-Quirós described in his book “Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migrating Devotions” that veneration of Santa Muerte is a form of spiritual pragmatism “less concerned with the afterlife than the afflictions of the present.”.
That shift helps explain why Santa Muerte has found appeal among the poor and marginalized. especially those facing narcoviolence and other dangers. The Institute for Economics and Peace’s Vision of Humanity reported that Mexico’s homicide rate nearly doubled between 2015 and 2019—from 15.1 to 28.2 deaths per 100. 000 people—an uptick that the article says coincided with the national expansion of El Mencho’s CJNG cartel.
Chesnut said Santa Muerte is especially popular for people who believe death is close. “That includes Mexican law enforcement and soldiers. I call her the patron saint of the narco wars, writ large.”
The article describes Santa Muerte devotion spreading from Guadalajara and Los Angeles to villages in Michoacan. with adherents sharing offerings and prayers on Reddit and finding Santa Muerte statues. medals. and bracelets at botanicas—Latino-oriented spiritual goods stores—throughout the American Southwest. It adds that in Dallas. a botanica called Botanica La Luz held a “Noche de Santa” in December to celebrate the folk saint.
“It’s a belief for Catholics too,” said shop co-owner Zennia Vitela, who was not a Santa Muerte adherent herself but said, “My tías were believers.”
The Catholic Church, however, is not aligned with that worldview. When Pope Francis addressed Mexico’s bishops in 2016. he referred only vaguely to Santa Muerte and her cartel ties while expressing concern “about those many persons who. seduced by the empty power of the world. praise illusions and embrace their macabre symbols to commercialize death in exchange for money.”.
A statement issued the following year by the Catholic bishop of San Angelo, Texas, called Santa Muerte worship “spiritually dangerous” and “a perversion of devotion to the saints.”
For devotees, those warnings can feel like an extra layer of punishment.
Marta Azcona. the proprietor of Botanica La Fe a la Santísima Muerte in Fort Worth. Texas. runs a storefront described as crowded with Santa Muerte statues. candles. bracelets. and figurines. She sometimes holds potluck-style Santa Muerte gatherings in the parking lot with a bonfire under the full moon. Azcona. 47. said visitors come for blessings and spiritual cleansings and have often felt rejected in traditional religious settings due to factors including sexuality. tattoos. or other details of their lives. She said some hide Santa Muerte altars from relatives and friends because of the negative connotations.
“They’ve gone to church, but they feel like they’re being judged,” Azcona said. “Here, there’s no judgment. People who come to her feel everybody has turned their back on them. Where are they going to run to? To somebody who feels the same pain.”
She extended her forearms to reveal tattoos of Jesus on one and Santa Muerte on the other. With God and Santa (Muerte) by her side, Azcona said, “who could be against us?” and then, “No one.”
Still, the article returns to fear—fear that for some, the devotion can slide into something darker.
Bunker said it becomes perilous when what is permissible under Santa Muerte is treated as a permission structure and she is seen not as an intermediary but “a goddess in her own sense.” He warned that “That’s when it turns into something totally different. It’s like a meatball. You’re making stuff up.”.
Almonte agreed, describing the logic cartels can adopt. “Cartel members believe no matter how much criminal activity they’re involved in, as long as they pray to Santa Muerte she’s going to take them to heaven,” he said. “That makes them that much more dangerous. Because they’re not afraid to die.”
El Mencho CJNG narcoviolence Mexico cartels St. Jude Thaddeus Santa Muerte Jesus Malverde Santo Niño of Atocha Psalm 91 U.S. Southwest botanicas Pope Francis Felipe Calderon