Tuesday Travel With Vice Magazine: The Holy Thugs of Venezuela

Okay so the multi-month bender of drunken American history is now over, and were gonna focus elsewhere now to the rarely seen parts of faraway places in our world. Caracas, Venezuela is the most violent capital city of any country in the world. I was actually surprised to hear this myself as I have never been to Venezuela, but I thought that because they had such an iron fist dictator the crime rate would at least the relatively low. But apparently not because last year alone, 14,000 murders were committed in Venezuela with a majority of them happening in the capital city.

As a result of this ever present violent atmosphere, their society has evolved to the point where criminals and thugs have actually joined the ranks of their normally well behaved Catholic saints. The use of a plethora of saints in some Catholic countries satisfies the leftover itch from the people's original conversion from pagan and animistic traditions. This is very clearly seen in the religions of Voodoo and Santeria, and other different takes of the Catholic religion that exist in predominantly lesser developed areas of the world. Venezuela has its own rich and colorful take on the traditional Catholic faith as well by incorporating gangsters and murderers amongst its several "courts" of sainthood.

This episode, the vice crew travels to Caracas and interviews both worshipers and local sociologists to get a really good picture of how deep this unusual tradition has become in the short time it has existed. I think you'll really enjoy this is much as I have, because it is absolutely fascinating....

Even though comparisons to Robin Hood have been made, one can't help but wonder if this practice will change in upcoming generations an end to its thus far endless violence....