The Galveston County Daily News

The Day of the Dead, El Dia de los Muertos, is a colorful, complex and ancient tradition practiced in Mexico and Latin America, with analogues occurring other countries as disparate as Brazil, Spain and New Zealand. College of the Mainland Professor Rafael Naranjo, a native of Oaxaca, Mexico, where the tradition is especially strong, traced the roots of the holiday for The Daily News.

Q: Is the Day of the Dead an official Catholic event?

A: The Day of the Dead, also known as All Souls Day (Nov. 2), is a feast day of the Roman Catholic Church. As such, it is celebrated throughout the world; however, given the specific historical background of the Catholic Church in Latin America, the Day of the Dead has a unique significance there.

Q: How did the observance begin?

A: The Day of Dead in Latin America is a mixture consisting of elements from European and pre-Hispanic theology and religious practices. The elaborate ceremonies that we still can see on the Day of the Dead are the centuries-long product of the mixing that occurred when the Aztec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Inca, Mayan and other beliefs were then mixed with the official Roman Catholic doctrine of the afterlife. In countries with more indigenous populations, you see more sophisticated ceremonies commemorating the dead.

Given a native, pre-Hispanic view of the afterlife, the Catholic Church in all Latin-American countries, especially in Mexico and Central America, places more emphasis on All Souls Day on Nov. 2 than on All Saints day on Nov. 1.

It is common for Latin Americans to believe that their prayers are more needed by those souls in Purgatory, than by those who already have attained the status of saints in Heaven. Through time, it became useful to the natives to accommodate their ceremonies to the Catholic calendar, which already had a day dedicated to souls which were still in process of purification, and in return, the church also accommodated its practices to circumstances of its faithful.

Q: Why has the holiday not been widely practiced here in Galveston County even though there are many people here who have roots in Latin America?

A: The histories of the Catholic Church in the United States and of Latin America are different.

Here, it was mainly a church of immigrants who brought their beliefs and practices with them, but in Mexico, they were brought to the native populations mostly by force. But, the natives already had a complex set of religious beliefs, especially with regard to the afterlife, which led to mixing of the two.

Q: Will Day of the Dead observances become more popular here?

A: Just as the Catholic Church had to adapt itself to the pre-Hispanic societies in order to be relevant to them, so the Catholic Church in the United States is doing the same thing at this moment.

In order to be meaningful to new immigrants who come with a their own set of beliefs already in place, Catholic churches in California, the Texas Valley and border communities already are learning to honor, celebrate and integrate the Day of the Dead into their own official practices.

Churches risk becoming obsolete and irrelevant in the lives of the new parishioner, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the new reality.