Sombreros off for church BEFORE dawn on January 4th the mesquite trees around José Reyes Morin’s farm are lit up with Christmas lights. Inside the house, breakfast is eaten by candlelight. Mr Morin, a stickler for the old ways, doesn’t much believe in using electricity at home for anything other than religious occasions.Appetites sated, a score of cowboys, one young woman and your (less young) correspondent mount scraggy horses. “Viva Cristo Rey,” (“Long Live Christ the King”) shouts Mr Morin, silver-buttoned comandante of the group, as the riders set off on a three-day pilgrimage to the 23-metre (75-foot) statue of Cristo Rey, high on a hill in the very centre of Mexico. That cry could once have got him killed as a Catholic reactionary. Today it is a call to rural traditions of faith and endurance in Mexico’s industrial heartland.As the sun rises, the group grows. By lunchtime about 850 horsemen, and a handful of women, are heading towards the monument, visible many miles away. Priests whom they encounter remind them that they are riding in the hoofprints of the Cristero martyrs, who...
via The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21593493-rural-values-endure-industrial-heartland-saddle-up-kneel-down?fsrc=rss|ame
No comments:
Post a Comment