Though Santeria differs from Wiccan and other Neopagan faiths greatly, being what Isaac Bonewits would term a “Mesopagan” religion, their plight in the US today is of great interest to the wider Pagan community. They share many commonalities with Pagans – their religion is misunderstood, they are of a minority faith, they are polytheistic, they are engaged in legal battles on many fronts to protect their faith and practices, and they are often made into a scapegoat. In fact, Santeros often have it worse than Wiccans as they have routinely been blamed (along with Satanists) whenever any gruesome animal remains turn up because animal sacrifice is a living part of their tradition. However, animal sacrifice is a way of honoring deity, and does not mean mutilation or torture, which almost always is the work of disturbed teenagers rather than any truly spiritual ritual.

Recently a prominent babalawo, or high priest of Santeria, named Ramon Cruz has been accused of animal abuse and neglect for whatever has been going on in his home while he’s been away in Mexico for a year. You can read the very interesting debate about this case in Philadelphia over at the Wild Hunt blog, but to summarize, nobody at this point really knows what happened. On the one hand, authorities and media alike may be over-reacting and sensationalizing the story – on the other hand, Cruz’s friend who was supposed to be taking care of the house may have let things get this bad (or perhaps Cruz himself had left things in such a state, which remains to be seen). As Jason Pitzl-Waters summed it up in his latest post on the situation:

So we have two competing narratives. One, is that Ramon Cruz, and possibly some others, have been engaged in a twisted orgy of animal sacrifice. Leaving an offal and blood-encrusted house that simply confounds local animal welfare officers. The other narrative is that Cruz’s house has long been a target of the PSPCA, and that the malnourished dogs were the casus belli they were looking for in order to take down a known center of Santeria worship. So we have to decide, bloody death-pit, or anti-Santeria vendetta by biased officials? Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between?

Until we know all the facts in the case, it isn’t our place to speculate needlessly or pass judgments on things we have not seen or experienced first-hand. The news stories do make it sound incredibly filthy and cruel, but then, we’ve all seen what happens when even a good-intentioned reporter files an article on Wicca. Things quickly get twisted and distorted in their limited framework.

Compare this current scandal to an account of a raid three decades ago:

In the spring of 1980 the ASPCA, apparently acting on a neighbor’s tip, raided an apartment in the Bronx where an asiento was about to take place. According to an article in The New York Times (May 24,1980), ASPCA agents came upon “a scene of blood-spattered confusion.” Several chickens and hamsters and a goat had already been sacrificed, and the raiders confiscated eighteen chickens, three goats, and several hamsters.

This report gave Santeria a few months of adverse and much sensationalized publicity, and a great deal of speculation took place as to the purpose of the sacrifices. The press, obviously unfamiliar with Santeria, commonly used terms like “satanic cults” and “bizarre ritualistic activities.” (Santeria, González-Wippler.)

Interesting that these phrases are almost perfectly mimicked in today’s reporting.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because everyone – both in our community and in the US at large – could stand to learn more about Santeria and other minority faiths. And this situation is anything but new. I recently came across an old issue of Gnostica, a New Age magazine formerly published by Llewellyn owner Carl L. Weschcke. In the “letters” section, one letter came from a practitioner of Santeria (signed anonymously, so I don’t know if this is a Santero or Santera), complaining bitterly about how this faith was misunderstood by Wiccans. I would like to share a short excerpt:

In the Santeria Pantheon there is a God/Father form, a Goddess/Mother form, and a Pantheon very similar to the Welsh Wiccan, Scottish and Irish Druidic, and most other Celtic-oriented traditions in the Earth religions and Pagan communities. But while visiting a certain Gardnerian High Priest and Priestess, I have been forbidden to practice even my Santeria morning and evening devotions. I find it impossible to comprehend how this “devoted” High Priestess finds it within her to forbid a person of another segment of the Wiccan community, with roots probably much more fresh, to practice his/her religion.

(Note how interesting it is that this letter writer referred to himself or herself as part of the Wiccan community! This has surely faded from fashion.)

Please, Mr. Weschcke, may we have some assistance from your writers/editors, to help inform our sister-traditions of our “acceptable form” of worshipping the  Mother Goddess? I was deeply hurt by this instance with my Gardnerian friends; and how many more of my brother and sister Santero(a)s will be hurt by just such other misinformed Wiccans?

Carl responded to this letter, writing in the same issue:

While it’s true that Santeria is only lately receiving fairly widespread publicity, and its details are still generally unknown, prejudice is always ugly. So let’s redress the balance. Santeria is fine by us, and we’d certainly welcome well-written articles on this, and of course on any other less-known, less-accepted traditions of Paganism.

Now, let me tell you when this was published – it was the May/June issue (#51) of Gnostica from 1979! (If I could capitalize numbers, believe me, I would be doing so in this case.) Yes, 1979. We have come 31 years and Santeria is still misunderstood, although one could argue it is less misunderstood in the general Pagan community these days than in the public.

Llewellyn eventually went on to publish several books on Santeria by author Migene González-Wippler, including the book I quoted from above, Santeria: The Religion, originally published in 1989. Although we do have a quite few books in Spanish, this is the only English book we still have in print on the religion. That said, I would highly encourage any experienced practitioners with a fresh voice and a modern perspective to contact me with their book proposals. This is something we could use here at Llewellyn – and something that, it seems, the public at large could use as well.

Gina Uberti says she was fired last November after speaking with her manager about a vacation she took. Uberti says that for the past six years, she has taken a week off every year to celebrate Samhain in Salem, Massachusetts, and her absence in 2008 was both planned and approved by a previous manager nearly a year in advance. From what I can gather, the new manager never told her she could not take the time off, but rebuked her for taking the time off once she was back, on November 4. Apparently the week she had taken off work was the week of the rolling-out of an important company campaign, and the manager was frustrated that Uberti could not be reached on the phone during this time. She wanted to know what was so important that Uberti had put the planned time off higher on her list of priorities than this company project. Uberti told her that it was a religious observance, which caused the manager to ask what holiday she could be celebrating at the end of October/beginning of November. Uberti told the manager she was Wiccan and explained the significance of Samhain as the new year for Wiccans. From there, things went further south, with the manager allegedly calling her religious beliefs “ridiculous” and allegedly calling Uberti herself a “devil-worshipper” and threatening her employment. Uberti was fired two weeks after that conversation.

Now, so far this whole interaction, as related by Uberti, raises many questions, which I’ll take one at a time. Are employees of major corporations so beholden to their jobs and co-workers that they must even sacrifice their personal vacations for them, vacations that were planned far in advance? (This question extends to any vacations, not just religious ones, as this was the manager’s complaint before she knew about the religious aspect of the trip.) Aren’t people allowed to simply unplug anymore without fear of losing their jobs? Can a regional manager really go so batty because one of her sales managers is unreachable for one measly week? And yes, one can argue that this was an important week for the company and the “good employee” would have changed her personal plans, but in some high-responsibility jobs there is never a good time for you to be absent. People today wishing to remain sane and balanced must carve out time for themselves. At times we need to put our foot down, say “enough,” and take some personal time. It’s a shame that this manager pressed the employee to explain herself simply for taking the paid vacation that was her due for working all year.

Still, if this really was such a huge project, it’s possible that Uberti failed to meet her employment objectives or job responsibilities by not working or being in contact during that important week. If that were the case though, I think the manager should have told her ahead of time that she would be fired for taking the time off because the company needed her to work at that time, and leave it at that. Just like folks who are required to work on Thanksgiving or Christmas, who would rather be at home with their families but who need the job so much they do it anyway, it could have been Uberti’s sole decision. And it wouldn’t have led to prying questions about what she was doing with her time off.

The next question, which some people have been discussing over at the Wild Hunt, is whether Uberti should have even told the manager the reason for her absence or vacation. In an ideal utopia, of course, the manager has no right to know what the employee is doing with her approved time off, but unfortunately that’s not the way large businesses work. The manager obviously felt she had a right to know why the employee did not reschedule the vacation in light of the project she was needed for, and demanded answers. So was Uberti right to bring religion into it?

Well, why not? Just because some people are prejudiced does not mean that Pagans and Wiccans need to live like lepers or like gays in the military – “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It doesn’t sound like Uberti was proselytizing or being outspoken about her religious beliefs, just answering a very specific question: why this specific week? She had a valid answer and in a truly non-judgmental world that adheres to non-discrimination against “race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status” as Bath & Body Works aspires to do, it wouldn’t have mattered. But for this particular manager, it apparently mattered – a great deal. Unfortunately companies can write lovely non-discrimination policies, but it is often left to small-minded people to enforce them, or not. Which is why the company’s response to this should be interesting.

Keep in mind that Uberti had worked for Bath & Body works for eight years, had been promoted, had gotten good reviews – it sounds like she was dedicated to this company, in it for the long haul. Keep in mind as well that this problem only occurred when a new manager stepped in; her previous managers had allowed the trips for six years running with no written complaints. It does seem like a case of religious discrimination, and if the courts agree with Uberti, I hope that she will receive full justice and an apology from her former employer. We’ll just have to follow this case, wait and see. After all, we still only know one side of the story.

But let’s turn the questions back to you. First off, have you ever been reprimanded for simply taking time off? (I honestly believe everyone has – I was scoffed at once during high school for taking unpaid time off from my restaurant job because I had pneumonia and my doctor told me to rest at home for ten days – the manager arrogantly told me he’d been back to work after two days when he’d had it. Yeah, whatever.) Have you ever been pressured to reschedule a vacation because of work duties, and if so, did you? Have you ever been discriminated against at work for your religion or for anything else? If so, what did you do about it? If not, imagine yourself in Gina Uberti’s place – would you have played the Wicca card, or made up an excuse about a dying grandmother to explain your absence? Would you have sued your employer after being fired this way?

(P.S. If you’re reading this on Facebook, please visit our blog by clicking on “view original post,” just underneath this post. If you’re reading this on the Llewellyn website blog, why not visit us on Facebook and become a fan? Go to http://www.facebook.com/LlewellynBooks. Please feel free to join the discussion in either place. Thanks! – Elysia)