Which one of the devout believers below do you suppose is demanding the death of a blasphemous artist?

They both are.

The lady on the right is Paloma, a Mexican citizen who, as a Catholic, is a devotee of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

She was interviewed on Telemundo the other day about the latest cover of the Santa Fe Reporter, a regional newspaper. In the center of the cover illustration is a depiction of the saintly Lupe, venerated by Mexican Catholics. The national icon has been transformed into a frolicsome cover girl, sipping a margarita in a bikini:

Harmless fun? Tell that to Paloma (whose name means “dove,” by the way — the universal symbol of peace. Ha). Paloma is introduced by the interviewer as someone who believes that blasphemers (such as the illustrator of the Santa Fe periodical) “deserve the worst of punishments.” And then Paloma is on-camera, and she says: “Kill them. Catch them and kill them.”

Killing cartoonists — it’s not just for Muslims anymore!

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P.S.: A friend pointed out that the illustration is by Brooklyn artist Danny Hellman. That brings it a little closer to home for me (and not just geographically). When I was the Editor-in-Chief of a few issues of the New-York-based student travel magazine BREAK, about ten years ago, Danny illustrated an article for us. He did a lovely job despite the fact that he put my likeness in the art (because it accompanied a first-person story of mine). I don’t know what happened to the original files, but I found this snippet on on my hard drive. Sadly, there isn’t a lick of blasphemy to be detected here, unless you count the long-gone goatee.