In one Zapotec village, for instance, the town authorities levied a tax equivalent to one year of income to anyone who leaves the Catholic church to join the evangelical church in town. Yet still, people take this risk, pay the fine, and align themselves with the less popular church in town. (Without mentioning the name of the town, I can verify that we took our family there in 2011, and received this report directly from the local pastor.)
More recently (last month), I met this precious Zapotec saint in the photo, who told me her testimony of personal suffering and unbelievable persecution when she became a true Jesus follower in a different village many years ago. She was thrown into a dark prison-type cell with several other believers, all women, and deprived of food, water, and bathroom facilities for two days.
Anyone caught trying to smuggle them so much as a glass of water was likewise thrown into the tiny cell. All were threatened with hanging from a nearby tree if they did not renounce their "new" religion. None did. The second morning the local authorities set them free.
When I translated this story to our visiting short-term team, they could not understand how this still occurs on a regular basis throughout rural regions of Oaxaca.
Whenever we have mentioned situations like this one, people inevitably ask who are the perpetrators. We hesitate to tell the truth, that usually they are the Catholics who initiate the persecution of the believers in any given village. We are always quick to add that these Catholics are not like our sweet Catholic friends north of the border who fully embrace religious tolerance for those of other faiths.
No, these folks are what some refer to as "traditionalist Catholics." Their religion is a mix of traditional animistic beliefs with the outer trappings of the Catholic church added to it, and they are not tolerant of any who do not participate in their festivals and drunken celebrations. According to an article I just read, these traditionalist Catholics "invoke Mexico's Law of Uses and Customs - designed to protect the rights of indigenous communities to practice native rites- to force their practices on people of minority faiths."
Religious persecution is not tolerated in Mexico, at least not officially, yet we could give many accounts of believers who have been threatened, run out of town, had their water and electric supply cut off, thrown in prison, and shot or hung. There are families who were exiled from their villages along with their whole church, whose children cannot enter public schools because their documents were destroyed, and they have no proof of prior schooling. We know of others whose crops were destroyed, whose homes and churches were burned, and whose husbands were killed. To our American ears, it seems beyond belief that these things can occur just south of our own border.
If you have ever traveled with us to some of these villages, you understand how remote they are. Think of it like the Wild West, where local authorities could not always keep a rowdy bunch under control when the "big guns" were too far away to provide additional support. Like the Wild West, many villages still have limited, if any, phone service to the larger cities, and lawmen from the cities have little desire to travel so many hard dusty miles on unpaved rutted roads to aid those who are being persecuted.
Jim and I make a policy of tip-toeing around the issues of persecution, not wanting to draw attention to the problem for fear of stirring up more trouble, and not wanting to put our host country in a bad light. However, I wonder if we aren't doing a disservice not to mention it since our fellow believers do need prayer. Native missionaries and pastors desperately need prayer covering as they boldly (or tentatively) go into areas where the locals are very resistant to the gospel and fearful of outsiders.
Forgive me for stereotyping, but it seems most Americans prefer to phone their congressmen when they hear of human rights violations. Calling in the big guns is our favorite mode of operation. Please resist the urge. The best thing you can do is to take this information and add it to your prayer list. It is a spiritual battle for the souls of men. Call on the REALLY big guns in the heavenlies, and let's wait to see things change in the remote villages of Oaxaca.
