Devoted to Death Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint

This new third edition of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has become the fastest growing new religious movement worldwide over the past two decades. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions in Latin America, the U.S., and beyond. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia now outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity. In particular, Santa Muerte has become the patron saint of drug traffickers, playing an important role as protector of peddlers of fentanyl and marijuana; DEA agents and Mexican police often find her altars in the safe houses of drug smugglers. Yet, Saint Death plays other important roles: she is a supernatural healer, love doctor, money-maker, lawyer, and angel of death. She has become without doubt one of the most popular and powerful saints of both the Latin American and American religious landscapes.

Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut is Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies and Professor and Director of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of the first academic book in English and several other languages on the folk saint of death-- Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy, and Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles.