When I visited a secular funeral service not so long ago, I realised just how poorly secular societies, humanists, have been able to provide a context for life and death, for the big questions in life.

The function, the venue, the atmosphere, it all has a resoundingly religious symbolism attached to almost everything that goes on.

• The hall, in which the funeral takes place, has a church-like quality to it. It’s design has obviously been inspired by modern church design.
• After the visitation, the coffin is taken into the ceremonial hall in a processions, where flowers and pictures of the deceased take the place of religious symbols, and the coffin that of a religious icon.
• The layout of the room is similar to that of a church. The coffin takes the place of the altar. A lectern is placed to the left and the front of the coffin, similar to a pulpit in churches.
• The coffin is covered with pictures of the deceased and it’s close relatives, all very reminiscent of religious symbols. The ‘altar’ is decorated with flowers and candles are lit around the coffin.
• The ceremony itself resembles mass, where the life of the deceased is remembered through particular episodes, lessons are learned through it, and there are musical intermissions.
• At or near the end there is an opportunity to take a private moment with the deceased. Friends and family step forward to ‘have communion with the dead’, similar to taking communion in church.

Why have seculars never been able to provide answers for questions arising from life and death? Or maybe the question should put differently. Why are the answers that secularity provides, on issues of life and death, insufficient when people are confronted with such questions in real-life?

Does secularity not ‘provide’ in such circumstances? Does it not have the answers? Does it revert to religious symbolism because it’s a worldview that, almost by its own definition, refuses to acknowledge the validity of –asking– such questions?

Santa Muerte – the Grim Reaper, the Holy Death – I’d heard of him, off course. Those of my own faith call him the Devil. But not until a week ago did I know him as an object of devotion. Then, in just six short days, I see two very different faces of Saint Death.

Theological reading

The first face shows in Around the World in 80 Faiths, a BBC programme from the religion & ethics department. Peter Owen-Jones, extreme pilgrim and Anglican vicar, travels around the world “to take the religious pulse of the planet.”

In episode 7, on South America, reverend Owen-Jones finds himself in the slums of Mexico city, visiting a Santa Muerte shrine. The doors of the shrine are open to everybody, from every walk of life. To Owen-jones, a theologist, it’s an accepting faith, a faith that draws in people from the back-alleys of society: ex-convicts, criminals, murderers.

Unlike the Catholic God, so omnipresent across South America, Santa Muerte expects little of its devotees. Thus, says reverend Owen-Jones, it is no surprise that faith in Saint Death is on the rise in a society like Mexico’s, torn apart by drug-related crime. Santa Muerte, Death, brings hope to those who’s past has been tainted by violence. You always receive a warm welcome among other death worshippers, even when the doors of the Church are shut.

Social reading

Marjon van Royen, journalist, foreign correspondent for the NOS to South America, introduces us to the second face of Santa Muerte. She’s back in Holland, and talks to Pauw en Witteman about her experiences in Mexico, where she shot several items on drug related crime.

She mentions Santa Muerte worship. In a society where the leaders of drug syndicates are idolised, where violence is accepted, even encouraged as a way of life, it’s telling, says van Royen, that Saint Death has it’s own devotees.

Santa Muerte isn’t drawing castouts back into society, it’s casting people out, into the arms of the drug syndicates, of violence, crime, and death. Santa Muerte isn’t an accepting faith, accepting Santa Muerte means accepting a society where violence and death are commonplace. The growth of the Church of Santa Muerte is indicative only of the problems that face Mexican society, of people coming to terms with the violence that surrounds them.