(RNS) Unlike Christianity, Judaism and Islam, historically all led by men, or the philosophies of the East such as Buddhism where male scholars and monks dominate, folk religions are often practiced ...

The prayer in Spanish sounded like one from an ordinary Catholic Mass. But the man who led it wore a coyote-skin headdress and called himself the last of 13 generations of brujos-- witch doctors -- in ...

A few days after a group of armed men kidnapped her 27-year-old son, María set up a shrine to St. Jude Thaddeus at her home in Guadalajara, western Mexico. "I keep photos, candles and holy water at ...

Believers in the figure known as "Saint Death" are paying homage, even as the Catholic church in Mexico rejects her. Halloween is almost here, so is Dia de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead. It's a ...

Editor’s Note: Laura Roush, an anthropology professor at Mexico’s Colegio de Michoacán, has extensively studied the Santa Muerte devotion in Mexico. The views expressed are her own. Mexico City CNN — ...

(RNS) In her Georgia home, Tammy Bloome says her rosary to Santa Muerte, a skull-faced version of the Grim Reaper in woman's garb. In Maryland, Sonia Doi gathers with her fellow spiritists—mostly ...

In her Georgia home, Tammy Bloome says her rosary to Santa Muerte, a skull-faced version of the Grim Reaper in woman’s garb. In Maryland, Sonia Doi gathers with her fellow spiritists — mostly women — ...