Jalisco Inventory Lists La Luz del Mundo Temple in Guadalajara as Possible Cultural Heritage, Drawing Criticism

Civil organizations in Mexico criticized on Wednesday the possible inclusion of a temple belonging to La Luz del Mundo in a cultural heritage list. The group’s leader is imprisoned in the United States for child sexual abuse.

Press reports this week revealed that the Ministry of Culture of Jalisco had included the church’s main temple last November in an inventory of more than 24,000 properties that could be considered cultural heritage. The church has congregations in countries including the United States, Spain and El Salvador. Its primary temple is in Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco.

Activists questioned the decision in light of the significance the site holds for victims of the congregation’s leader, Naasón Joaquín García. According to the report, he was sentenced in 2022 to 16 years in prison in California on three counts of child abuse. Guadalupe Ramos, a member of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of the Rights of Women (Cladem), told AFP that including the temple would be “unjustifiable” and that it “seems to me a lack of respect, an affront to them.” She said the authorities were sending “a wrong message” to victims and asked that the decision be reversed. Protecting those who have been harmed is a matter of standing up for the vulnerable (Proverbs 31:8-9).

The Secretariat of Culture stated on Wednesday that inclusion in the list does not mean the temple already has cultural heritage status. In a statement, the agency said the inventory “identifies it along with more than 24,000 other properties in Jalisco to promote its safeguard and condition its future interventions to an opinion.”

Gabriela Belén Palacios, manager of the collective More music, less bullets, told AFP that the decision overlooks the “ethical” component of culture, which she described as “much more important.” “As we understand the aesthetic, the stylistic, it is also the ethical, the symbolic,” she said.

The report gave background on the group. La Luz del Mundo was founded in 1926 in Guadalajara by Eusebio Joaquín González, the father of Naasón Joaquín, and the founder claimed to have received a “divine revelation” in his dreams. Each year in August, the congregation holds what it calls its “holy summons” in Guadalajara, a gathering that includes baptisms and religious ceremonies. The report estimated that about 500,000 people from different countries take part each year.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Spanish)