Catholic Church Wages Campaign Against Witchcraft In Mexican Town

From across the nation and beyond, visitors come to this picturesque, lagoonside town in southern Mexico, seeking money, love, health and revenge.

To make these wishes come true, they seek out the area's famous "brujos," as they are called in Spanish. For a fee, these shamans and healers perform rituals and call on spirits from the netherworld to influence their clients' fate.

Thanks to this bustling trade in mysticism, Catemaco is Mexico's unofficial capital of all things occult. It also presents a unique challenge for and competition to the Catholic Church.

For decades, the church has waged a campaign against "brujeria," or witchcraft, in Veracruz, a state along the Gulf of Mexico. In recent years the church has issued declarations and even put a cross on the top of White Monkey Peak, a nearby hilltop used by shamans as a ceremonial center. Full Story

Related: religion, wicca, pagan, spells