History, Growth and the Church's Response

Santa Muerte devotion existed in more private, localized forms earlier, but scholars mark Enriqueta Romero's decision in 2001 to place a large public statue of the figure outside her home in Tepito as the turning point that brought the devotion into open, publicly visible practice and accelerated its growth into a large and still expanding movement, now also well established among Mexican communities in the United States. The devotee base spans a wide social range, a point scholarship on the movement stresses against a media tendency to frame it narrowly through its association with drug trafficking culture, though that association is real for some devotees and has been cited by both journalists and law enforcement.

The Catholic hierarchy in Mexico and statements from the Vatican have publicly condemned the devotion as incompatible with Christian faith, and no canonization process has ever considered her, since canonization applies to historical individuals recognized after death rather than to a personification of death itself; some Mexican shrines have also been subject to demolition by state authorities. The devotion continues to grow regardless of that condemnation, and this entry records both facts without treating either as settling the question of the devotion's legitimacy.