Did you catch the article about Jesús Malverde in the Times the other day? He's a popular saint from northwest Mexico - not officially beatified or canonized - who is thought to help people avoid being caught by the police. A sort of bandit who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, he was hanged by the police in 1909. He's prayed to when people try to sneak across the border, but is also thought to be the patron saint of drug dealers! Indeed, Malverde symbols in cars are things cops look out for as telltale signs. Courts in California, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas (we learn in the article) have ruled that Malverde trinkets and talismans are admisible evidence in drug and money-laundering cases.
Jesús must really deliver the goods if he's worth the risk! Who says the saints have no power in our disenchanted age, or - in any age - that their power is mediated by the church or its values? Have I told you that I think that a course (or a section of a course) on the cult of the saints would be sufficient to blast to smithereens the Protestant frame of modern thinking on religion as accessory to ethics (varieties moralistic therapeutic deism, basically)? I wonder if there's a patron saint for that battle...!?(The top picture's from one of my fellow flickrers, the bottom from the Times)
