Do Pagan Aztec Dancers Have Room In Our Church In Honor Of Our lady Of Guadalupe?

QUESTION?

I am the pastor at a parish Minnesota. As we prepare to celebrate Our Lady’s feast next Thursday I am trying to discern the presence of some Aztec dancers that have often come to the festivities.
From what I can gather, the group is composed of non-practicing chicanos.  I have not felt comfortable with the dances that they perform especially because they are not Catholic and they burn incense.  Do you have any insight that could help me?
Thank you, God bless,

ANSWER!

I am Mexican American, I have seen aztec dancers outside the courtyard of Catholic Church's but never dancing inside. This phenomena has only been occurring since  after Vatican II, this is when we started seeing Aztec dancers at spanish Masses around Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feastday. There is a difference, these Catholics dressed as Aztec dancers are not bowing down to Aztec gods like at the Vatican gardens and they are not inside the Church.  

This continues to happen because most Catholics are not properly catechized and thus not evangelized (in other words, Christ is not their King).  Therefore, because of their incomplete conversion to the Catholic faith, they continue to relish and practice some of the pagan Aztec religious practices. As Catholics we cannot mix our Catholic faith with the Aztec pagan religious practices, this is known as the "sin of syncretism." To many uncatechized Mexican Catholics are mixing Catholicism with paganism because they don't know their faith. Hosea 4:6 says: "my people are perishing for their lack of knowledge." There are elements of truth even in pagan religions but we must not revert to pagan Hispanic practices, that is a step backward, not forward. If we are stuck in our pagan past, we can't grow up and follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All those traditions had some elements of truth, but now that we have found the fullness of truth in the Catholic Religion, why should we revert to the past and dress like our pagan ancestors that hunted for their food, practiced infanticide, practice cannibalism, make shrines out of decapitated skulls and worshipped false gods. Some people call this inculturation, I disagree, this is false ecumenism. St Paul says it best 2 Corinthians 6:14-17: "Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? [15] What accord has Christ with Be'lial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? [16] What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [17] Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you." 

I would argue that Mexico was never really evangelized or catechized, they were colonized, they were sacramentalized. This is why the Popes have called for a New Evangelization, because most modern western people have not been evangelized and the continuation of these Aztec dancers at Catholic Church's is proof positive. Every Caucasian Catholic is a descendant of a Viking, Barbarian, Vandal, Visigoth or Pirate. Do they come to Catholic Church's on designated days dressed like their pagan descendants and begin dancing in the courtyard in honor of their pagan deities? No. It is condescending to look at hispanic Catholics and allow them to continue to wallow in their ignorance, thats clericalism in my opinion. Its like saying: "pobrecito (poor one), your to simple minded and or  ignorant to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so continue to practice your aztec paganism, muchachito." (little child).