Santeria priest won't let religious freedom be sacrificed

Ernesto Pichardo, co-founder of the first incorporated Santeria church in the United States, has filed a lawsuit stemming from a police raid during a worship ritual in 2007. 

Pichardo, 53, is a small man with a weather-worn face and a comb-over, a chain smoker and a trash-talker, argumentative, opinionated and occasionally profane, writes Richard Fausset.

He is a proud member of the Cuban American bourgeoisie and a Republican. Yet his streetwise English carries a hint of Abbie Hoffman, with sentences that often end with a sardonic "man."

"Jesus Suarez, a Santeria priest, had slit the throat of one goat that June afternoon. He had three more goats, two sheep and 44 chickens to go."

"But before he could finish the ritual sacrifice, Coral Gables police swarmed the house where he and some 20 other followers of the Afro-Cuban religion had gathered to worship."

"...Soon thereafter, word of the raid made its way to the great defender of Santeria in the United States. That would be Ernesto Pichardo -- high priest, physical extension of the fire spirit Shango and co-founder of the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, the first incorporated Santeria church in the nation."

Read more on Pichardo and Santeria here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo:  “It’s almost offensive, the mentality of the Coral Gables mayor,” Ernesto Pichardo says. “To him, it seems that it’s OK to practice these backwards African things in some other city, just not [his].” Credit: David Adame / For The Times