“To
this day, I recall being in Mexico City with John Paul II in 2002 for
the canonization Mass of Juan Diego, and watching a female Mexican
shaman perform a dancing purification ritual on the pontiff with a bit
of shrubbery during the Mass - in effect, the witch doctor exorcised
John Paul. (Marini later explained that the ritual is part of
traditional Mexican religiosity, arguing there’s a time-honored thrust
in Christianity to “baptize” such expressions of popular faith.)”
— John L. Allen writing in New parlor game —
