Earlier this year, a protestant pastor in Mexico was briefly arrested and then forced to leave Santiago Malacatepec, Oaxaca where he pastored and lived.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports that in November last year, Pastor Mariano Velásquez Martínez was given the position of mayordomo in the community.

Typically this is given to a faithful member of the Roman Catholic Church because it involves organizing and facilitating Roman Catholic festivals in the community.

But Martinez pastors a small evangelical church in the community called Iglesia Camino Nuevo y Vivo. 

Not surprisingly, he wasn’t keen on accepting the position. But he agreed after being told he would only need to provide flowers and candles for the various ceremonies.

But things changed on January 15, 2026. A fellow mayordomo told Martinez that he needed to light the candles during a ceremony. He was also instructed to kneel and pray before the statue of St. James the Apostle.

When Martinez stated this is not what he agreed to, his concerns were ignored.

According to CSW, after Martinez refused, citing his Christian faith, the second mayordomo reported Martinez to the town’s leaders. He was promptly arrested and put in jail for five days.

Two days into his detention, Martinez was tied up in ropes and dragged to a community meeting involving about 180 people. Ironically, it was being overseen my Martinez’s uncle.

At the meeting, Martinez was told that he and his family were being expelled from their community. As part of this, he was forced to sign a document. Though Martinez was not given an opportunity to read it, he suspects that it states he voluntarily agreed to leave.

After his release, Martinez and his family left the community and are now living in Oaxaca City.  

‘The arbitrary detention of Pastor Mariano Velásquez Martínez and the subsequent forced displacement of him and his family is unconscionable” said CSW’s Director of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl. “His case demonstrates how both state and federal governments are failing to meet not only their international human rights obligations, but, even more fundamentally, their commitments to uphold basic rights in Mexico’s own constitution and laws.”

Praying to the saints is a long standing tradition in the Roman Catholic church. There is no Biblical basis for it. In fact, there are multiple warnings against consulting the dead (Leviticus 20:6 and Deuteronomy 18:10-11).

When pressed on the issue, Catholics state they are not praying to the dead. They are simply asking the saints (typically martyred heroes of the faith) to pray for them. But protestants argue this is little more than semantics.

John Calvin (1509-1564) was a former Roman Catholic priest before he joined the Protestant Reformation. He stated that the Roman Catholic saints replaced the throng of pagan demigods, that dominated early Roman culture.

These demigods were used to protect people during travel and childbirth and for dozens of other issues.

In his book Treatise on Relics, Calvin cited several examples were the saints took on similar roles to these demigods:

Thus St. Anthony of Padua restores, like Mercury, stolen property; St. Hubert, like Diana, is the patron of sportsmen; St. Cosmas, like Esculapius, that of physicians, etc.