Mexico sect vows fight over public schools
Mexico sect vows fight over public schools
August 28, 2012 | 10:34 pm
E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
Associated Press
The Washington Examiner
NUEVA JERUSALEN, Mexico (AP) -- Sprouting out of the corn fields of western Mexico rises a hill crowned with two arches and four towers, marking the gates of an improvised "holy land" that farmers built brick by brick over nearly four decades. The sprawling complex, they believed, would be the only place saved in the coming apocalypse: Nueva Jerusalen, or "New Jerusalem."
A cult has since sprung up around the detailed instructions that Our Lady of the Rosary supposedly left for followers, including how its estimated 5,000 members should dress and live. No non-religious music, no alcohol or tobacco, no television or radio, no modern dress and, the injunction that has landed them in trouble, no public education.
That last rule is at the heart of a confrontation brewing at the complex among the sect's traditionalists, its more reformist members and the Mexican government. The conflict escalated into a tense standoff this week between the sect and federal and state police.
According to traditionalists, the government-mandated uniforms, school books and lesson plans, not to mention the computers and televisions now used in many Mexican classrooms, would violate the Virgin Mary's orders, on her own sacred ground.
More:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/mexico-sect-vows-fight-over-public-schools/article/2506294
