Follow Up on MS-13
[Mark Safranski / “zen“]
Quick follow up to MS-13 Murder or Blood Sacrifice? SWJ on 3rd Generation Gangs at SWJ sent to me by Dr. Robert Bunker:
Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as a street gang—as well as a group with prison gang attributes in Central America—has greatly evolved over the course of the last four decades. Starting out as a Los Angeles ‘stoner gang’ (Mara Salvatrucha Stoners—MSS), it then was directly influenced by the brutality of the El Salvadoran civil war with an influx of new members (losing the second S in the gang name in the process), became a vassal of the Mexican Mafia (with the addition of the 13 to its name—MS-13), was increasingly influenced by the Mexican cartels, and finally has come under the sway of darker Santa Muerte influences. Beyond its journey from a local street to a transnational power-seeking gang, the overlapping ideological themes and cultural narratives underlying Mara Salvatrucha’s evolution have been built upon a foundation of Satanism, occultism, brutality and torture, and rampant criminality. While some gang cliques and their members are still primarily secular in their orientation and view Satanism and occultism from more of an ideological perspective many others embrace a violent magico-religious cosmology in a sense becoming ‘true believers’ that now adhere to amoral or even evil spiritual values that invite sacrifice and torture….
Read the rest here
Also a recommendation – read Sam Logan’s This is For the Mara Salvatrucha
January 25th, 2018 at 7:48 pm
I think it’s worth noting that the tabernacle referred to in the analysis as in the phrase, “attempted to break into the tabernacle of the chapel altar” is of particular significance since it is the place where the consecfated host, the bread transubstantiated intto the body of Christ, and venerated as such, is housed under lock and key.
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Which brings me to a second comment: Messrs Bunker and Sullivan have a subhead “Santa Muerte Veneration and Worship” and the distinction is an important one. In Catholic theology, it is the distincttion between adoratio and veneratio.
In Church terms, veneration is due to saints, relics, etc — sacred items that point us towards, but ar not, God, while adoration is reserbved for God alone, which in Catholic terms includes Christ, andd by extension the body of Christ housed in the tabernacle.
January 26th, 2018 at 2:57 am
Hi Charles,
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The exact Narco-culta of MS-13 is obscure to me; or maybe because of the gang’s decentralized structure there is no consensus as to where their ritualism – be it veneration or adoration – trends.
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Evidently at the original core of the gang were a minority of practicing Satanists and wannabe Satanists. The gang is also intertwined at the border with the cartels where Santa Muerte is fashionable and MS-13 gangs have been picking up Narco habits of decapitation and torture-murder. It’s hard to say if this is to terrorize rvals or is a religious act. Attempted desecration of a tabernacle points more to Satanic than Santa Muerte in my mind
January 26th, 2018 at 4:50 pm
Hiya, Zen —
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“be it veneration or adoration”
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I’m pretty sure you’d agree it was neither of the above, but desecration they had in mind.The thing is, the veneration or adoration distinction, since it is so important to Catholics, is at least potentially important to desecrators, since the holier the object desecrated, the bigger the desecratory bang for their buck.
January 31st, 2018 at 12:47 am
For different content, also interesting is “Former Gang Members Offer Advice on How to Combat MS-13’” by Jonathan Blitzer in latest New Yorker, at:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/former-gang-members-offer-advice-on-how-to-combat-ms-13
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Concluding sentences: “Cardona has no illusions about how dangerous MS-13 is. “You can’t deny this is a criminal enterprise,” he said. “But the question is, should we be fighting them? You want to change the dynamic? Strengthen families. It’s common sense. It’s community-building 101.””