Sanctifying Criminals? The Case of «Narco-Saints» and «Narco-Culture» in Latin America

Narco-Culture seems to be the complex of values, music, and religious practices that normalize and even legitimize the drug trade and its associated lifestyle (Cabanas, 2014). The core question of this presentation is: Why and how are criminals «sanctified», as the phenomenon goes far beyond drug trafficking, since it’s a complex social and cultural movement, where power, wealth and violence are somehow romanticized. Of course, we all are aware of the recent tensions between the United States and Venezuela. The USA claims that Venezuela is a «narco-state», which somehow promotes and exports the «narco-culture» within North America. So in the next minutes, allow me to set some questions from a sociological and theological perspective, in order to approach (at least try) this strange (from where I come from) and the same time interesting culture.