Some of these buildings and other structures are rather fine, to think, they probably hire top architects to build these, then, building and grounds keeping creates more jobs. But the drug kingpins are not the only ones with obscene amounts of money, it goes from government corruption to oil and so on.
Some of these beliefs are probably “hybrid” as well, here is an interesting related matter and this exhibit occurred at St. Mary’s university school of law in San Antonio:
Studying the saints that narcos pray to
Law officers get lesson on which icons mean what.
Two days after the Virgin of Guadalupe’s feast day, dozens of area law officers gathered in San Antonio on Tuesday to soak in intelligence about nefarious icons.
They have names like Jesús Malverde and Santa Muerte, or holy death, and San Simón, Guatemala’s “man in black” and the patron saint of childbirth and secrets.
They stand in contrast to more traditional images venerated in Mexico, like the Santo Niño de Atocha, a Christ child statuette credited with miracles, and St. Jude. But the drug underworld uses these, too, albeit for different purposes — protection from the law or to justify violent acts, said Robert Almonte, U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas.
Also, yes, people like El Chapo and his likes are thugs but if you are a commoner, it is probably hard to totally reject the local powers. One might conceivably, for one’s own well being and that of the family, go along with the flow especially, if there is a Federal Government who you might perceive as not really keeping law and order.
Brazil and the Caribbean have their hybrid faith apparently sometimes involving what we’d call voodoo, Santeria and the such. “Other beliefs” being mixed in seems to happen in Mexico as well.
Per this Jesus Malverde mentioned above:
Jesús Malverde, possibly born as Jesús Juarez Mazo (1870–1909) (pronounced: [xeˈsus malˈβeɾ.ðe]), sometimes known as the “generous bandit”, “angel of the poor”,[1] or the “narco-saint”, is a folklore hero in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. He is a “Robin Hood figure” who was supposed to have stolen from the rich to give to the poor.[2]
He is celebrated as a folk saint by some in Mexico and the United States, particularly among those involved in drug trafficking.[3] He is not recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church.
The government of Mexico oppressed the Catholic Church in the 1930s, this we know with the Cristeros movement; but by and large, I think the Catholic Church has often been held in reverence in Mexico throughout most of its life in Mexico however events over the last several years seems to show this line too, has been crossed.
