Catholic Versus March 20
The air from the central gazebo fumes thickly with aromatic ash, while the grownups on stage sing some vague approximation of a children’s Clean-Up song. Nativist musicians in jaguar garb keep simple rhythm with a tom-tom drum and thirty stomping pairs of shell-laced ankles. Others wave indigo banners, strum two chords on tiny guitars, and flail their feathered headdresses, white shawls, and crimson sashes.
These believers have picked quite a day for their pagan celebration on the Plaza, as today happens to be the Catholic feast of the town’s patron saint, San Jose Obrero. Tony and I are intrigued by the prospect of yet another public showdown between the Catholics and the Aztec, La Triple Alianza. It has been this way for 500 years.
A conch bellows, a wooden flute trills. One exuberant young reveler, wrapped in some kind of sumo trunks and nothing else, wields a painted gourd-like instrument with twelve strings, none of them in tune, but no matter—neither are the accompanying voices, which chant fervently, like enraptured Hare Krishnas. The smoldering urn in the center flares up with an onshore gust, reducing visibility in the gazebo to a blue haze and causing surrounding spectators to cover their mouths.
Then the Catholics arrive, this time not on frightening ships but on sandaled foot, in procession and with purpose, down Calle Rojo Gomez. San Jose’s bell chimes furiously and refuses to stop, as a dozen old ladies and a couple of husbands march around the Plaza, then to the steps of the church, where the priest waits. The husbands are in dirty overalls. They have skipped work to be here, to honor the carpenter Jose Obrero, El Patron, saint for all laborers. The ladies wear long flowing skirts with floral hems and flowers in their hair—no singing, no chanting, No Es Necesario, for the giant tolling bell takes care of that.
The Aztecas raise the volume to be heard in the metallic din, but to no avail. The weight of the bell, like the weight of history itself, drowns the native voices. The resident one-legged grackle circles the gazebo for crumbs in the eventual aftermath.
The airy church is decorated for the holy day with Mexican flags and white ribbons. The priest welcomes his congregation to receive mass. Prayer candles flicker in the warm breeze, as partitioners rise, then sit, then kneel, then rise again before falling again, in unison, as trained. Outside, there is more ankle rattling and sing-song recitation, but not much more. The culture clash of two worlds, one old and the other older, remains a stalemate for today.
The nervous Jehova’s Witness couple from the deep south retreats from their usual bench on the Plaza, mumbling in English and carting away their flimsy literature display. It is possible they have never before felt more outnumbered by believers.