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Post by bixaorellana on May 2, 2017 19:34:17 GMT
Bad Bixa has tarried in responding to the kind comradely comments and compliments! LaGatta, there are many, many followers of various Protestant religions and sects here. My landlords are Baptists, for instance, and there are many pious adherents of the "born again" faiths. Thanks so much, Cheery! Yes, religion is woven in everywhere, which is kind of funny when you consider Mexico is much more rigid than the US about separation of church and state. There are not as many Roman Catholics as is past years but even then, none have them have seen anything as extreme as this. It is even more apparent that this form of Catholicism is not practiced here. Do you think that certain people in positions of authority have over the many decades in Mexico , put their spin on things to what is portrayed in public? Tod, when I was a child my family moved to Spain and as little RC American kids, my brother and I were positively shocked by Spanish Catholicism -- neighborhood moms flagellating themselves in procession, statues with graphic depictions of abuse, Franco's granddaughter's First Communion hogging the news for days, etc. History and current observation make it obvious that Mexico's version of Catholicism was imported from Spain. I have a friend from Madrid who lives here. I said to her the other day that I disapproved of the small children carrying those big banners in the procession. She rolled her eyes and agreed with me, commenting that in the south of Spain that sort of dramatic religious observance is still common and that her young niece, whose mother is from Valencia, is always taking part in processions and the like.
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Post by tod2 on May 4, 2017 11:01:21 GMT
Thank you for a supporting incident in your experience as a child at the Easter parade. Even though the scenes may be extreme to us, your fantastic photos fill my screen with bold bright colours! Just unreal...and positively worth all the time and effort you took to bring them to us. In contrast, the Easter celebration in South Africa was made noteworthy by The Shembe(pronounced SHEM BEE) religion who dress in long white robes. This Christian religion is gathering huge momentum. tinyurl.com/mhqjpb7Just a mention of my horrified experience as 5 Year old at Easter...my mother sent us off to a neighbor who held Sunday school in her home. This was Easter Sunday so off we went, only to return home bawling our eyes out. The old dear had brought out pictures of Christ all bloody and hanging from the cross. Other pictures of him praying for his life in Gethsemane and being flogged were held up. But what got us spooked was that she was crying buckets and moaning "Look what they did to the Lord - Look at the blood - Oh! my dear Jesus, what did they do"! etc.etc. When my mother calmed us down she said we did not have to go back to me and my sister's relief.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 4, 2017 15:05:11 GMT
Fascinating information! I looked it up further & it's not a new movement. It appears to be a version of the Baptist church, but with controversy over whether or not Isaiah Shembe presented himself as the new messiah or not. I'm laughing a little bit, Tod, because I grew up with those images that horrified little you. Almost every Catholic church I've ever seen has the 14 stations of the cross hung around the walls. On Fridays in Lent there is celebration of the stations, with the congregation praying at each one and contemplating on the suffering of Jesus. I guess from seeing these depictions all the time my hard little heart became inured to them. Oddly, I only really fixated on them fairly recently when I saw the Botero Via Crucis. I didn't care for it, but the desired artistic message was not lost on me. You can see the stations in this thread, in the last couple of pictures in reply #1 and the first couple in reply #2, with a close-up in the second post of reply #2/
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Post by tod2 on May 5, 2017 7:25:29 GMT
Bixa - I must have got over my 'initiation' to vividness of the visions I saw as I took to Catholicism with relish when my parents stuck my sister and I into a convent boarding school run by Dominican nuns. I bought holy cards, rosaries and knelt obediently at the statue of the Virgin Mary. I must say there wasn't much blood spattering on effigies then. I remember doing a circuit of the Stations but it was a little beyond me as a young kid in Grade 2.
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Post by nycgirl on May 29, 2017 19:51:25 GMT
I noticed right away that the KKK look-alikes were absent. But I'm late to the party, so no prize cross for me. The procession is less eye-catching and dramatic without them, but also a good deal less creepy. It's a trade-off. You have some wonderful shots here, Bixa. The dark, moody shot of the older woman is dynamite. And you always capture some beautiful children, like the little girl mentioned earlier. Tod, your Sunday school experience sounds terrifying. What a bizarre way to teach children.
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