Tag: mexico

In the News: Candles, Kombucha, Crocodiles, and more!

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A round-up of the week’s religion news. Continue Reading →

The Pope Has Left the Island

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By Nora Connor

Pope Benedict completes his pilgrimage to Cuba today, having wrapped up his “pastoral” visit to Mexico, in which he tidily summarized that nation’s struggles with the drug war-industrial complex:

The pope also addressed Mexico’s struggle against violence on the plane trip here from Rome, where he blamed the “idolatry of money” for drawing young people into lives of crime. In a brief speech at the airport here, he also said he was praying for “those who suffer because of old and new rivalries, resentments and all forms of violence.”

And yet, the pope’s approach — framing Mexico’s violence as a personal moral failing — perfectly matches that of President Calderón, a devout Catholic. That message, experts say, will help shift the debate away from policy, and complaints about how the Calderón administration has managed the fight against drug cartels that has led to 50,000 deaths since late 2006.

In Cuba, things are a bit different, if only in the sense that more people have more things to say about the papal visit to the formerly atheist island nation. Continue Reading →

Brown is Brown

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Far be it from us to support gay-bashing, censorship or breaking the law, ahem, but this little piece from the increasingly paranoid Examiner does a fine job of equating all travelers from Mexico to San Diego as terrorists of one kind or another:

The Los Angeles Times reported on January 27, 2011 that Tunisian-born imam Said Jaziri was arrested earlier this month near San Diego while trying to illegally enter the country.

Jaziri is known for leading protests in Canada against the famous Danish Mohammed cartoons; for proclaiming homosexuality a disease; and for spending time in a French prison for assaulting another Muslim.

News reports do not indicate that Jaziri is a proponent of violent Islamism; but his arrest reminds us that porous borders are dangerous, because not only Mexicans just seeking work are illegal aliens. (See “Hezbollah smuggling people into U.S. through Mexico.”

(h/t Abby Ohlheiser) Continue Reading →