SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (AP) -- Pope John Paul II,
                  arriving in Mexico City later this week, has long feared Protestant inroads
                  into Latin America. To find the fiercest of battles for souls, he has only to
                  look to the southern state of Chiapas, site of the 1994 Zapatista uprising.

                  On a recent Sunday in Chiapas, hundreds of Tzotzil Indians gathered in
                  the Catholic church in the mountain village of San Juan Chamula just north
                  of San Cristobal. In one corner, men in black wool tunics and straw hats
                  adorned with ribbon sang softly to the accompaniment of harps. Behind
                  them stood dozens of glass cases housing statues of saints. A man went from
                  case to case, washing each figure like a mother wiping an infant's face.

                  Women knelt silently before thousands of white candles stuck with wax to
                  the tile floor, filling the church with a haze of smoke.

                  In the San Cristobal settlement of Nueva Esperanza, another group of
                  Chamulas knelt in a bright and airy church, the only adornment a Mexican
                  flag on the altar. Fourteen men in Western dress led the group in songs of
                  Jesus' love and prayers for prosperity, backed by earsplitting electric guitars.

                  They are Protestants now, expelled from their home of Chamula more than
                  20 years ago when they converted from Catholicism. Protestant wives left
                  behind Catholic husbands, and brother parted with brother as belief became
                  thicker than blood.

                  Just as troubling for the pope, tensions run high in Chiapas between
                  Catholics of differing customs and political views.

                  Too often these conflicts have been depicted solely as religious battles in
                  Chiapas' indigenous communities. In reality, they are fueled by a complex
                  mix of social concerns and spiritual beliefs. And religious groups say they
                  ignore either factor at their own peril.

                  It was more than half a century ago that the Mexican government invited
                  Protestant Bible translators to Chiapas to teach Indians to read. For the
                  first several years, the Protestants made few converts, according to
                  Stanford University anthropology professor George Collier.

                  But by the 1970s, he reports, "The missionaries began to witness a change
                  of heart, especially among the poor."

                  Xunka Lopez Diaz of Chamula became a Protestant in the 1970s after her
                  family became convinced that the Bible rejected praying to the saints who
                  lined the Church of San Juan.

                  "Catholics talk to saints," she says, "and the saints don't listen because
                  they're made of wood."

                  But as Catholics have discovered from Chicago to Chamula, the reasons for
                  conversion are often as much about power as about Biblical truth.

                  Protestant churches in Chiapas tended to be more egalitarian, notes Collier,
                  allowing women to participate and men to hold church office without paying
                  for the honor.

                  Women were attracted to Protestant groups that forbade alcohol. Sober
                  Protestants, says Lopez, made better husbands.

                  The Catholic hierarchy, complacent for generations, now faced the challenge
                  of reaching the Indians throughout Chiapas.

                  "Catholic Indians were treated like foreigners inside the church," says Bishop
                  Samuel Ruiz.

                  Ruiz is the leader of the diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, 460 miles
                  southeast of Mexico City. He is best known in the United States for his role
                  as mediator between the Mexican government and the Zapatista rebels. But
                  he has been here since the 1960s, when Masses were said only in Spanish
                  instead of Indian languages, even as Protestants were gaining fluency in
                  Tzotzil.

                  The Catholic hierarchy responded with teams of traveling Indian catechists,
                  bilingual religion teachers. They talked to the people about how the Bible
                  addressed injustice in their lives, such as illegal land confiscation.

                  This mission intensified after the Second Vatican Council called on Catholics
                  to make a "preferential option for the poor."

                  For many, Ruiz became an emblem of that commitment, the amiable
                  Mexican cleric who learned Indian languages and visited indigenous
                  communities on horseback or on foot.

                  But as religions options increased so did tensions.

                  In the village of Chamula, men and women remained deeply attached to a
                  hybrid of Catholic and Mayan traditions and severely restricted the visits of
                  diocesan priests. They resented the Protestants' failure to participate in
                  religious festivals, pay religious taxes and buy pox, a potent alcohol used in
                  ceremonies.

                  Beginning in the mid-1970s Chamula leaders expelled some 25,000
                  Protestants, confiscating and sometimes burning their homes.

                  Lopez's father, Manuel Lopez Lopez, remembers fleeing with the shirt on his
                  back. His mother followed; his father stayed behind and began a new family,
                  never to visit his son again.

                  Meanwhile, the exiled Protestants founded their own communities on the hills
                  surrounding the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas -- settlements with
                  names like New Jerusalem and streets called Galilee.

                  A year ago in the village of Acteal, north of San Cristobal, another conflict
                  between religious groups ended in a tragedy that reverberated in the
                  Vatican.

                  The conflict focused on Las Abejas, "The Bees," a group of pacifist
                  Catholics formed in 1992 by catechists who support the aims of the leftist
                  rebel group, the Zapatistas, but reject armed conflict.

                  Some Zapatistas accused them of backing the government, while a primarily
                  Protestant pro-government paramilitary patrol accused them of supporting
                  the Zapatistas. Tensions escalated in December 1997.

                  "The paramilitary came and killed 45 people who died without defending
                  themselves," says Alonso Lopez Mendez, a catechist and Las Abejas
                  member. "All they could do was hug each other."

                  The Mexican government characterized the Acteal massacre as a family feud
                  with religious overtones. But there were Catholics as well as Protestants in
                  the paramilitary forces, and Las Abejas members believe their motives were
                  primarily political.

                  Conflicts among more traditional Catholics are less traumatic but persistent
                  enough to be trying for the pope.

                  Ruiz has often been at odds with Mexico's more conservative clerics who
                  dislike his statements against the government's economic and military policies
                  and his decision to mediate between the Zapatistas and the government.

                  In 1993, the papal representative in Mexico accused him of grave doctrinal,
                  pastoral and administrative errors, and the pope appointed another bishop,
                  Raul Vera Lopez, to serve with him. (Vera surprised church officials by
                  emerging as a Ruiz supporter). The pope does not plan to visit Chiapas
                  during his Mexican visit, which begins Friday.

                  Relations with the Mexican government remain tense. The government has
                  expelled six priests in recent years, and paramilitary groups believed to have
                  government ties have threatened the lives of religious leaders. In November
                  1997, gunmen opened fire on a pastoral convoy carrying Ruiz.

                  Still, the bishop is among the religious leaders in Chiapas calling for unity in
                  the midst of strife. Conversions are no longer the goal. Many Catholics, he
                  says, "now believe that God is revealing himself to everyone in the world.
                  Another kind of evangelism is emerging -- to discover what we have in
                  common."

                  The diocese of Chiapas is a partner in The Bible School, which trains
                  Protestant pastors and Catholic catechists, and in a project to promote
                  inter-religious dialogue. Both Catholics and Protestants were involved in a
                  10-year effort to translate the Bible into Tzotzil, replacing an earlier
                  Protestant translation that critics called anti-Catholic.

                  Last month, 600 Tzotzil Protestants, accompanied by state government
                  officials to ensure their safety, held an open prayer service in Chamula for
                  the first time in 25 years. They came not to provoke, they said, but to
                  "search for peace." In Acteal, Las Abejas members are also reaching out.

                  "Some Presbyterians participate in massacre, and for a while we were angry.
                  But now we want to have reconciliation," says Lopez Mendez, who has
                  translated Mahatma Gandhi's writings into Tzotzil.

                  At an indigenous photography project on the outskirts of San Cristobal,
                  young Protestants and Catholics work together each day, treading lightly on
                  religious differences that tore their parents' generation apart. Fecundo
                  Guzman Perez, a member of the Assembly of God church known for its
                  fervent proselytizing, refuses to talk about religious doctrine at work for fear
                  of offending colleagues.

                  "What unites us," he says, "is our common Mayan roots."

                  It's a sentiment that would please the pope, who will likely address such
                  topics at the capital's Basilica of Guadalupe when he speaks Saturday to
                  bishops who participated in the 1997 Synod of America. He will discuss
                  recommendations emerging from the synod, which stressed the importance
                  of improved ecumenical relations.

                  On the eve of the pope's visit, the message of reconciliation is welcome.

                  "I have a lot of hope," Lopez Mendez says. "Hearts are changing."

                  Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.