How Jesus Came To Guanajuato

(SASKATCHEWAN) - Mexican history is a little complicated for a gringo, but it's manageable once you realize that it's more religiously straitjacketed than American history and almost as hilarious as Canadian history. But it's necessary to decipher the past, at least that of the State of Guanajuato, because of the recent royal visit of Pope Benedict XVI, nee Joseph Ratzinger who first honed his disciple skills as a mere boy in the Hitler Youth.

All we really knew about Mexican history until now was that bit about stout Cortez staring with eagle eyes at the Pacific, according to Keats. Actually, Keats screwed up, because it was Balboa who nailed the Southwest Passage, and fielded that famous punchline “But where, Senor, is the gold?”

Essentially, historical Mexico as well as present-day Mexico, is made up of four demographic groups: (1) The peasants, who are by definition poor, slightly educated and 83.5% Catholic, (2) the rich landowners, who have no particular religion, except for the Roman Catholic Church, which is prominent in their membership, (3) the drug lords, who might be considered a sub-set of (2) above, except they don't care about the land, except as the locus for their opulent mansions, and (4) the Government, which is in a more or less constant state of successive revolutions and periods of flux, with the peasants usually the demographic group most often fluxed.

Our primary focus is the history of Guanajuato State, which is prime territory for a papal visit, first because the region has been marinated in the Catholic religion for 500 years, the people are mostly peasants and not too keen on Aids or contraception, and finally, because here the usual priestly after-hours amusement tends to be limited to gardening and stamp collecting. Perhaps, in their liturgical logistics, altar boys are rarely available since they are required from an early age to labor, unlike the lilies, in the fields.

The first noteworthy Jesus (pronounced Hey, Zeus!) in Guanajuato State was a pharmacist who participated in the famous Cristero War. (1926-29) The Cristeros (or as we gringos say, “Christers”) rebelled against the nacionales, the government which, following the regime of Huerta, and the accidental death of Emiliano Zapata, (of 126 bullet holes) tended to be occasionally left-leaning, even communist, and imposed strict rules, such as denying religious freedom to bishops, priests and the 83.5% of the faithful. “Religious freedom,” there as in contemporary America is defined as any encroachment on the Church, such as advocating contraception of any kind.

The Cristeros began seizing villages with the battle cry “Vive the Virgin of Guadelupe!” who apparently was still alive. The most successful rebel leaders were the aforementioned Jesus Degollado (with a name like that, how could he miss?), a ranch hand named Victoriano Raminez, and Jose Reyes Vega, who was a priest in name only, who had entered the seminary under duress because his family wanted him to be a priest. (He went along with it, although he made no pretense of living a virtuous life, especially as it applied to celibacy. Unlike most priests, he was not particular who his victims were, as long as they were female.)

The Mexican catholic establishment never officially supported the rebellion, but the rebels did obtain some scant vindication for their cause as legitimate. The Cristeros quickly began to lose in the face of superior federal forces, and retreated into remote areas, constantly striking and then fleeing from the federales.

In 1929, the Cristeros attacked Guadalajara and failed, although they managed to take Tepatitlan. Father Vega was killed, some say in that battle, some say by a jealous husband. (He was among several hers beatified by Pope John Paul II, but failed to make the final cut as Saint.) In any event, the military rebellion was met with more than equal force and the Cristeros soon faced division within their own ranks. The church ostensibly ended its support for the rebels following its reconciliation with the government.

In 1992, the Mexican Government amended the constitution by granting all religious groups legal status, conceding them limited property rights, and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country.

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI met with President Felipe Calderon in Guanajuato City and later told about 4,000 children massed in the colonial-era city's Peace Plaza that they are each a "gift of God to Mexico and the world." It was a strange way of greeting children in light of the recent world news concerning child abuse. He called on the young to be messengers of peace in a country traumatized by the deaths of more than 47,000 people in the drug war. His Holiness is on the record as opposing both war and contraception, since both negatively impact potential Catholic membership.

The following day, tens of thousands of people gathered for an open-air Mass close to the Christ the King monument in Guanajuato State, to be conducted by the Pope himself, who arrived, reminiscent of George Bush's “Mission Accomplished” gig, flying over the 72-foot monument in a Mexican military Superpuma helicopter, dubbed on this occasion as Vatican One.

With all roads in the area sealed off by tight security, pilgrims newshounds and a legion of street vendors walked for miles to the Mass with plastic lawn chairs, water and backpacks. Old women walked with canes. Some Mass-goers wrapped themselves in blankets or Vatican flags, trekking past vendors selling sun hats, flags, potato chips and “We Like Benny” tee shirts.

Hundreds of young priests in white and black cassocks, waiting to pass through the metal detectors, shouted "Christ Lives!" and "Long Live Christ the King!" -- the battle cry of the Cristeros.

They may have been right. Because among the throng, a slight figure clad in a burnoose and a white robe rode quietly on a small donkey scarcely larger than a burro. Stopped by security at the metal detector location, he was ordered to dismount and check his donkey.

“Verily,” said the Man, who looked something like Charlton Heston with a beard, “I will tether my donkey and walk to that graven image of Me.”

“Si, senor,” said one of the guards, “leave him in the ditch there. Then you'll be able to tell your ass from that hole in the ground.”

The man in the robe was confronted thrice before the Mass crowd broke up later that day. Three temptations, like. (Get it?) First, three men wearing black suits and sunglasses surrounded him and said: “have you got the stuff?”

“Why dost thou accost me thus,” said the Man. “Wist thee not that I should be about my Father's business?”

“Si, gringo, ” said one of the suits. “You mean “Father” Brown in Brownsville, right? They said you'd look like Lawrence of Arabia.”

His next encounter was even more strange. Stopping among the street vendors along the way, he pulled two loaves and three fishes from under his robe and began to feed the multitude as they passed.

“Hey, Gringo,” said a young man with a clipboard and an I.D. Card that read: 'Franchise Co-ordinator,' “If you haven't got a licence, move along.”

The third altercation involved three or four young priests, still chanting about the Cristero War. They surrounded him as he stood watching the Pope celebrating the Mass. The Man was threatening to cast all the gold fixtures out of the temple, that is to say the temporary stage that had been erected, saying: “Behold; in my Father's House are many mansions, but this is not one of them.”

Forcibly ejected, he returned to rest by the road with his donkey and watch the crowd disburse. Presently, a blind man came along, tapping the shoulder of the road with his white cane. The Man immediately rose and placed his hands on the blind man's temples. “He who hath eyes,” he pronounced, “let him see.”

Almost immediately, the erstwhile blind man tore the shades from his eyes and shouted: “I can see!”

The crowd continued to shuffle by without noticing. But within a half an hour, a Humvee pulled up and two federales jumped out, training their AK-47's on the Man.

“You are under arrest, senor,” said one. “For practising medicine without a licence.”

In Guanajuato State, the peasants continue to be 83.5% Catholic, and they still believe the legend that some day Emiliano Zapata will return, coming down from the hills on his white horse. But this wasn't it. The peasants refer to the singular papal visit as “The Mass of the Ass.”

Born in New Jersey at the height of the Bergen County massacre that either led to – or was the direct result of - the Wall Street Crash, William Annett entered Canada illegally at the age of three as part of a witness protection program. Confined to the Alberta dust bowl during most of the Thirties, Bill got even, at the age of 18, by making the anthology “Canadian Short Stories” (fortunately prior to its editing by Margaret Atwood).

He has never gone straight, although he was forced to work fitfully as a jug hustler for both a seismograph crew and a bootlegger, a cook in a lumber camp, a logger in a cooking school, a cab driver, a stock broker in Vancouver, a broke stocker in a supermarket and as a last resort, a financial columnist.

Bill's rap sheet lists six books, including a page-turner on mutual funds, a send-up on the securities industry, three corporate puff pieces and a novel that has been banned in Boston, Etobicoke and the Campfire Girls' reading list. His academic honors include under- and over- graduate study at University of Manitoba, N.Y.U. and the Wharton School, topped by a failed MFA at UBC (in creative writing).

Under cover of the millennium glitch, he sought refugee status in Florida, where he currently divides his time between training geckos for the insurance industry and playing motivational piano in a Tampa bordello.