In Catemaco, a small city in Veracruz, the dispute between the Catholic Church and witchcraft have been living together with great difficulty for decades, interspersed with periods of peace and confrontation.
The latest conflict that has shaken this city, located between the Veracruz jungle and Lake Catemaco, arose as a result of the construction between its streets of the first satanic temple in Mexico.
The project is in charge of Enrique Marthen Berdón, an authority within witchcraft at a national and international level, and whom Catholics accuse of wanting to encourage "violence and the spirit of evil," said Adriana Franco Sampayo, promoter of the initiative. that has managed to collect more than 26,000 signatures against the construction.
Juan Beristain de los Santos, priest of the Archdiocese of Xalapa, one of the organizations that supported the collection of signatures, assures that the construction of the temple, which at the moment only has one of its walls built, affects "society in general, not only to the Church”.
The organizations Misión Rescate México, Codal, Pastoral Familiar, National Front for the Family and the MAC Women's Association have also joined the complaint, gathering the signatures on a document addressed to Adán Augusto López Hernández, Secretary of the Interior of Mexico.
"The construction of this temple will have negative consequences, it promotes violence and illegality with this excuse of freedom of religious belief," laments the priest.
He also thinks that people resort to these "dark" solutions because the Catholic faith requires a "personal commitment" that people don't want to show.
“If you break up with your partner, but it is your responsibility, there is no magic solution that can fix that,” says De los Santos.
The cave of Marthen Berdón, in Catemaco, from where she does witchcraft. Jana Cavojska (Getty Images)
Berdón, the greatest wizard of Catemaco, defends himself and assures that Lucifer is not what people say.
“He is an entity that the religions themselves have been in charge of turning into something bad.
Until the arrival of the Holy Inquisition, Lucifer was considered a good being ”, he assures.
He wants to build the temple so that believers have a place to worship Lucifer or Luzbel (which means bright or shining), God's favorite angel who was expelled from heaven for rebelling against him.
“People who have seen me know that I do not preach hatred or resentment, I preach respect for human life.
Living in peace leads us to have a better life, ”says Berdón, who wants to finish his temple before the Day of the Witches, which is celebrated in Catemaco on the first Friday of March.
Beyond the religious battle, it is undeniable that the cult of "evil" beliefs is a widespread phenomenon in Mexico and that each year it accumulates more followers, in a country where the majority of people (95.1%) belong to any religion or have any beliefs.
Most are still Catholic, but, as the book
Religious Beliefs, Values and Practices
indicates , in recent years "the diversity of religions" that exist in Mexico has increased.
Berdón, who comes from a long lineage of sorcerers, assures that the practice itself has not changed much, what has changed is the environment.
"Before it was done more clandestinely, people did not get Lucifer tattoos, nor could they wear necklaces or earrings that represented their beliefs," he says.
A magnet for tourists
Catemaco is internationally known for its witchcraft and is attracting more and more tourists, who have had a significant impact on the city.
In this land of sorcerers, sorcerers and shamans, people come to try to solve their health, love or business problems through non-traditional methods.
There you can perform a cleanse to ward off envy and remove the "evil eye", attend a black mass to venerate Lucifer, make a charm or buy a protective amulet.
Sorcerers work with black magic, while healers use plants for their treatments and shamans are in charge of "white magic".
Prices have skyrocketed in recent years, with sorcerers asking between 5,000 and 10,000 pesos to rescue a business that has gone bad.
Travelers in canoes in the Catemaco lagoon on Witches' Day 2022. Yerania Rolón Rolón (Cuartoscuro)
Dagoberto Escobar Pereira, a resident of Catemaco since he was born there 77 years ago, is a bit unhappy with the commercial drift that witchcraft has taken in his city.
"In the old days, when there was still no road and they had to bring things by mule to the town, you didn't see these groups of people glorifying the devil," he says by phone from there.
"But the Catholics are not going to achieve anything either, because freedom of belief must be respected," he says.
“Now everything is ambition, everyone has the ambition to earn more and more because everyone wants to have their car.
Before their work was not glorified, they did it without earning a lot of money, there on their ranches and some lived in caves,” says Pereira, who worked as a publicist before retiring.
He also talks about strange episodes in which he believes with the utmost naturalness,
like sorcerers who made pacts with the devil and became animals, birds that spoke among the leaves of the trees.
"And that Lucifer is a being of light... in this world everything is level, that's why there is sun and moon, light and shadow, good and bad, and so on."
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