Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico)

Our Lady of Guadalupe, commonly known as the Virgin of Guadalupe, is a Marian apparition of the Catholic Church of Mexican origin, whose image has its main center of cult in the Basilica of Guadalupe, located on the slopes of the Tepeyac hill, in the north of Mexico City.

According to Mexican oral tradition, and what is described by historical documents from the Vatican and others found around the world in different archives, Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared four times to the Chichimeca indigenous Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on the hill from Tepeyac, and on one occasion to Juan Bernardino, Juan Diego's uncle. The Guadalupan story known as Nican mopohua narrates that after her first appearance, the Virgin ordered Juan Diego to appear before the first bishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumárraga, to tell him that a temple should be erected for her.. Faced with the skepticism of Juan de Zumárraga, she asked Juan Diego for a test. In the last apparition of the Virgin and by her order, Juan Diego carried in his smock some flowers that he cut in Tepeyac, went to the bishop's palace and displayed his smock before Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, revealing the image of the Virgin. Virgin Mary, whose features have been interpreted as "mestizos" despite being much lighter skinned than her Spanish namesake. The resemblance between that figure and the one embroidered at the time by all known Banner of Hernán Cortés would be the cause of her being called Virgin of Guadalupe.

According to the Nican Mopohua, a hagiographic text published in the XVII century, the apparitions they took place in 1531, the last one occurring on December 12 of that same year. The most important source that recounts them was Juan Diego himself, who would have recounted everything that had happened. Later this oral tradition was collected in a writing with a Nahuatl sound but with Latin characters (a technique that no Spaniard knew how to do and that was used only very rarely by the natives); this writing is called the Nican mopohua, and is attributed to the indigenous Antonio Valeriano (1522-1605). Later in 1648 the book Image of the Virgin Mary Mother of God of Guadalupe was published by the presbyter Miguel Sánchez, contributing to compiling everything that was known at the time about Guadalupe devotion.

According to various researchers, the Guadalupan cult is one of the most historically rooted beliefs in present-day Mexico and part of its identity, and has been present in the development of the country since the 19th century XVI even in its most important social processes such as the Independence of Mexico, the Reform, the Mexican Revolution and in current Mexican society, where it counts with millions of faithful, some of them professing as guadalupanos without necessarily being part of Catholicism. The original devotional roots of this image would be in the Virgin of Guadalupe of Extremadura, for which the Spanish conquerors had devotion.

History

Marian tale

According to Catholic tradition, the body of historical documents accepted by the church, and essentially the narration of the Nican Mopohua, the so-called Guadalupan miracle occurred as follows:

Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin was born in 1474 in Cuautitlán, then the kingdom of Texcoco, belonging to the Chichimeca ethnic group. His name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, which in his mother tongue meant 'talking eagle', or 'he who talks to an eagle'.

Already an adult and father of a family, attracted by the doctrine of the Franciscan fathers ―arriving in Mexico in 1524―, he would have received the baptism and the Hispanic name of Juan Diego, and his wife was called María Lucía. Christian marriage was also celebrated. His wife died in 1529.

The Nican Mopohua narrates that on Saturday, December 9, 1531, while he was walking to Tlatelolco, in a place called Tepeyac, the first apparition of the Virgin Mary took place, which was presented to him as «the perfect always virgin holy Mary, mother of the true God». The Virgin commissioned him to ask the bishop of the capital - the Franciscan Juan de Zumárraga - in her name to build a church in the place of her apparition. Since the bishop did not accept the idea, Cuauhtlatoatzin saw the Virgin again that same day and she asked him to insist (second apparition).

The next day, Sunday the 10th, Cuauhtlatoatzin met the prelate again, who examined him in Christian doctrine and asked for objective evidence to confirm the prodigy. That same day her third apparition took place, in which the Virgin Mary then ordered Juan Diego to go see her the next day, Monday the 11th, to give her the sign that she would make her believe.

On Monday the 11th, Cuauhtlatoatzin did not go to Tepeyac because he found his uncle Juan Bernardino sick. His uncle asked Juan Diego to go to Tlaltelolco the next day in search of a confessor, since he was sure he was going to die. Juan Diego obeyed and left early in the morning on Tuesday, December 12, 1531, but remembering that the Virgin had summoned him and fearing that she would entertain him and not let him go in search of his confessor, he wanted to avoid his meeting and so, he in Instead of continuing his path, he climbed between Tepeyac and the hill to which it was attached, planning to surround Tepeyac along the slope that faces east until he reached where the front of the Basilica is now and take the road to Tlaltelolco there. On her way, the virgin met her (fourth apparition) and explained the situation of her uncle. To this the Virgin Mary replied:

«Listen and understand, my son, the youngest, that it is nothing that frightens and afflicts you; your heart is not troubled; do not fear that disease or any other disease and anguish. Am i not here, me that I'm your mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not perchance in my lap? Don't be ashamed, or worry about anything else; do not be afflicted by your uncle's illness, he will not die of it: he is sure that he has already healed ».

Juan Diego, convinced of what he was told, asked the Virgin to give him the sign and the message to take them to the bishop.

The Virgin then told him to go up to the top of the hill where he used to see him and to cut the flowers that he would find there, inviting him to go up to the top of the Tepeyac hill to pick flowers and bring them to her. Despite the cold winter season and the aridity of the place, Cuauhtlatoatzin found several flowers, including roses from Castilla. Once collected, he placed them in his "tilma" and took them to the Virgin, who ordered him to present them to the bishop as proof of veracity. Once before the bishop, the saint opened his "tilma" and let the flowers fall while the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared, inexplicably printed on the fabric, which from that moment became the spiritual heart of the Church in Mexico..

According to Catholic tradition, the image that today is exhibited in the Basilica of Guadalupe would be the same as that of that day in 1531, although there is no scientific certainty of this.

Juan Diego did not return home until the next day, because the bishop detained him one more day. That morning he told her: "Go show us where it is the will of the Lady of Heaven that her temple be erected."

Juan Diego led the people that the bishop arranged to accompany him to the place where the Virgin had appeared and where her Shrine should be erected and asked permission to leave, but they did not let him go alone, but accompanied him to his house, arriving at which they saw that his uncle was perfectly healthy; Juan Diego explained to his uncle the reason why he arrived in such good company and told her about the apparitions and that the Virgin had told him that he was cured. Upon hearing the story of his nephew Juan Diego, the uncle stated that the Lady herself had certainly healed him, since she had appeared to him himself (fifth apparition) and added that she had told him to tell the bishop that it was her will that she will be called "the Always Virgin Saint Mary of Guadalupe".

Over time, Juan Diego, moved by a tender and deep devotion to the Mother of God, left his family, his house, his goods and his land and, with the permission of the bishop, went to live in a poor house next to the temple of the "Lady of Heaven". His concern was cleaning the chapel and welcoming pilgrims who visited the small oratory, today transformed into a basilica, an eloquent symbol of Mexican Marian devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a layman faithful to divine grace, enjoyed such high esteem among his contemporaries that they used to say to their children: "May God make you like Juan Diego."

Cuauhtlatoatzin died in 1548, with a reputation for holiness. His memory, always linked to the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe, spanned the centuries, reaching the entire Americas, Europe and Asia.

Background

In the context of the Spanish Reconquest, two were the images that gained notoriety as part of this social, political and religious movement in part of the current territory of Spain: Santiago —including its dedication to Matamoros— and the Virgin of Guadalupe (Extremadura, Spain) having an important presence in the nascent Hispanic world. This image, venerated in the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe in Extremadura, had a boom from the XIV and up to the XVII. According to Catholic tradition, this image, also called the Morena Madonna, was sculpted by the apostle Luke himself, and was found in the 17th century. XII near the Guadalupe River in the Las Villuercas region. Some coincidences of the Marian account of Guadalupe in Spain will find later coincidences in that of New Spain, for example, the appearance in a rural environment casually to a seer of low social stratum, the discovery and disbelief of the religious authorities who ask for a test, the embodiment of their own image in an object that they will give to the seer, the healing of a sick person or the resuscitation of a death as first miracles as well as the order for the construction of a temple where his discovery is honored.

Devotion in the 16th century

Allegory of the pontificate declaration of Benedict XIV on April 24, 1754 of the Guadalupano patronate on New Spain, anonymous novohispano, centuryXVIII. It shows the virgin accompanied by the pontiff himself, in addition to King Fernando VI of Spain, Saint Peter and St. Paul.

Although there is no mention or allusion to the Guadalupano miracle in Zumárraga's epistolary corpus, the narrations made in the 17th century indicate that the bishop ordered the image to be taken to the Cathedral of Mexico. The image would have been transferred to the Tepeyac hill -or Tepeyacac as it was still known- later in a lavish ceremony, presided over by Zumárraga himself, Juan Diego and the president of the Second Court, Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal.

It is in the context of said procession that the first miracle of the Virgin is believed to have occurred, when an aborigine who was participating in a theatrical representation of a battle as part of the festivities, was wounded with a real arrow. When brought before the virgin, the wound would have miraculously healed.

Narration in Nahuatl

The Nican mopohua (‘here it is narrated’, in the Nahuatl language) is the title of the narration in which the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe are recounted. The elegant and complex text is written with a Nahuatl sound but with Latin characters.

The Nican mopohua is contained within a larger book, the Huei tlamahuiçoltica published in the year 1649 by the Creole bachelor Luis Lasso de la Vega (1605-1660), chaplain of the sanctuary of Guadeloupe. The title of the Huei tlamahuizoltica is derived from the first two words of the text, printed in thick characters in its first publication (‘The great event’, which are the two initial words of the text). This Huei tlamahuizoltica includes ―in addition to the Nican mopohua― introductory texts, prayers and the Nican motecpana ('Here it is put in order') which is the list of some miracles attributed to the Virgin in the years that followed her first appearance.

Luis Lasso de la Vega attributes the Nican Mopohua to Antonio Valeriano de Azcapotzalco (c. 1520 – c. 1605), who would have been an indigenous nobleman of the previous century (relative of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin), and who, as a student at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, would have been one of the Nahua students of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590).

Lasso de la Vega also affirms that the indigenous Valeriano had heard the story directly from the lips of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (who, according to Lasso himself, would have died in 1548).^{[citation required]}

It is likely that the Nahuatl manuscript used by Luis Lasso de la Vega was the original by Antonio Valeriano. Most authorities agree on this and on the dating of when the Nican Mopohua was written, year 1556.

In fact a very old partial copy of the Nican Mopohua manuscript in 16 pages that is believed to date from the year 1556 can be found in the New York Public Library which has been there since 1880

Based on the date of the First Mexican Provincial Council ―which was held in Mexico City between June and November 1555―, Edmundo O'Gorman (1906-1995) believes that Antonio Valeriano had written the Nican mopohua in 1556. León-Portilla accepts O'Gorman's hypothesis in the same way.

At that council, Archbishop Montúfar ordered that the histories of the sanctuaries and icons venerated in Mexico be examined, and that all those that did not have sufficient foundation be destroyed.^{[citation required]}

The Catholic priest Luis Becerra Tanco (17th century) recounts that at a party on December 12, 1666 ―only Seventeen years after the publication of the Huei tlamahuizoltica ― he heard some aborigines who during the dance sang in Nahuatl how the Virgin Mary had appeared to the aboriginal Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, how she had cured his uncle and how he had appeared in the tilma before the bishop.

The work is written in fine poetic prose (tecpiltlahtolli: 'noble language') and had several translations, the most widespread being those of:

• 1666: Luis Becerra Tanco.
• Before 1688: Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, translation for frastic to Spanish, which appears in The North of Mexico Star (1688) by Francisco de Florence.
• 1886: Agustin de la Rosa (direct translation from Nahuatl to Latin).
• 1926: Primo Feliciano Velázquez
• 1978: Mario Rojas Sánchez (from the diocese of Huejutla).
• 1978: Angel María Garibay Kintana (1892-1967).
• 1989: Guillermo Ortiz de Montellano
• 2002: Miguel León-Portilla (first lay translation).

Etymology of the name

The origin of the name "Guadalupe" is controversial. In Catholicism, it is estimated that "Guadalupe" could come from the Nahuatl term "coatlaxopeuh", pronounced "quatlasupe", with what its phonic value is similar to that of the word in Spanish «Guadalupe». «Coa» means «snake», «tla» is equivalent to the article «la», while «xopeuh» means «to crush», with which would constitute the expression "the one who crushes the (head of the) serpent".

There are other possible etymologies, these in the event that there was a transfer or contagion of the name of the popular Virgin of Extremadura. In this case, the term "Guadalupe" has a clearly Arabic first component -present in dozens of Spanish place names- which is "wādī" (وَادِي = "bed, river"), the controversy being rather in the second part of the name. One theory states that it could come from "wadi al-iub", which means "river of black pebbles" or, according to a deformation pointed out by Ana Castillo, "river of love" or "river of light". ». Other popular etymologies include the one pointed out by David Brading: «wadi-lupi» which means «river of wolves», in reference to the animals that could drink in the vicinity of the sanctuary, or to the ability of the invocation to overcome idolatry.

Internationalization

Fidelity expanded during the colonial era, extending from Mexico City in the foreground, towards its surroundings, south to the Captaincy General of Guatemala, the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Viceroyalty of Peru, to the north to Alta California, the Territory of Nutca, the Internal Provinces and the Territory of La Luisiana, to the east to Spain, the General Captaincy of Cuba, the General Captaincy of Santo Domingo and the Province of La Florida; and, to the west, to the Captaincy General of the Philippines and the Governorate of Taiwan.

Basilicas outside of Mexico

• Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Ancient Cuscatlán, El Salvador.
• Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in the City of Santa Fe, Argentina

Origin of the veneration of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Tepeyac

In the image, the most famous effigy of Coatlicue, found on August 13, 1790 during the leveling work of the main square of Mexico. Mexican culture, Possic Late (sss. XII-XV). According to Cinna Lomnitz and Heriberta Castaños Rodríguez, no indigenous worship was found in Tepeyac, while the Mexico Valley is full of them.

Since pre-Hispanic times, Tepeyac had been a center of religious devotion for the inhabitants of the Valley of Mexico. In this geographical eminence located on what used to be the western shore of Lake Texcoco was the most important sanctuary of the Nahua divinity of the earth and fertility. This goddess was called Coatlicue (cóatl-cuéitl, 'lady of the snake skirt', in Nahuatl), who was also known by other names as Teteoinan (téotl-nan, 'mother god', or mother of the gods, in Nahuatl), Toci or Tonantzin (to-nan-tzin, 'our adorable little mother', in Nahuatl), a name that was later given to her by the indigenous people. The winter solstice of 1531 took place on December 12, according to the UNAM. The Toci temple was completely destroyed as a result of the Conquest.^{[citation required ]}

Contrary to these assumptions, the academics Cinna Lomnitz and Heriberta Castaños Rodríguez pointed out that there is no indigenous goddess named Tonantzin and that no indigenous shrine was found in Tepeyac —while the Valley of Mexico is full of them—, that is to say, that no archaeological evidence has been recorded about a pre-Hispanic cult in Tepeyac.

The Franciscans decided to keep a small hermitage on the site. The decision to maintain a hermitage occurred within the framework of an intense campaign to destroy the images of the Mesoamerican gods, which were seen as a threat to the Christianization of the indigenous people. It is believed that one of the first records on the The existence of the hermitage corresponds to the 1530s.^{[citation required]} The indigenous people went to the place following the pre-Hispanic tradition. Two decades later, not only the indigenous people went to the Tepeyac hermitage to venerate -according to documents of the time- the image of the Virgin Mary that had appeared. Indeed, by the middle of the XVI century, devotion to the image had spread among the Creoles.

Catholic tradition believes that the appearance of the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was in the year 1531, ten years after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan into the hands of the Spanish. This date is recorded in the Nican mopohua (one of the chapters that make up the Huei tlamahuizoltica, a work in the Nahuatl language published by Luis Lasso de la Vega) and that tradition attributes to the indigenous Antonio Valeriano.

In 1555, Montúfar ordered the remodeling of the hermitage and entrusted it to the secular clergy. The first records of the appearance of the Marian image in the hermitage correspond precisely to the years 1555 and 1556. Among other early testimonies of the event are the Diaries of Juan Bautista and the Annals of Mexico and its surroundings. The first document affirms that "in the year 1555 was when Santa María de Guadalupe appeared, there in Tepeyacac", while the Anales locate the event a year later: "1556 XII Flint: The Lady descended to Tepeyácac; at the same time she smoked the star ». In the XVII century , the Chalca Domingo Francisco Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin would collect the first documents in his Relaciones de Chalco Amaquemecan , in which he places the event in 1556:

Year 12-Pedernal, 1556 years. The stone wall that would turn the entire city of Mexico was well bent and strong. For the work they brought together all the people of all the peoples of the course, by order of the leaders and according to provisions of Don Luis de Velasco, Visurrey. So the wall could be finished. Also then came the apparition, said with respect, of our dear mother, Mary of Guadalupe in Tepeyac.

Tilma de San Juan Diego in the New Basilica.

Contributing decisively to the strengthening of the cult of the Virgin of Tepeyac was the First Mexican Council, which was held in Mexico City between June 29 and November 7, 1555. The council was organized by the Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar and brought together numerous representatives of the monastic orders of New Spain, including the Franciscan Pedro de Gante; as well as Bishops Martín Sarmiento de Hojacastro (Tlaxcala), Tomás de Casillas (Chiapas), Juan López de Zárate (Oaxaca) and Vasco de Quiroga (Michoacán). Among other things, the First Council of the New Spanish Church resolved to regulate the manufacture of religious images, especially those made by indigenous people. It was also decided to favor the cult of the patron saints of each town and all Marian devotions.

The First Mexican Council proposed controls on images that could be accepted in temples or places of worship, as well as the granting of licenses for their use, and declared itself in favor of ending the «abuses of paintings and indecency of images »produced by the indigenous people who «do not know how to paint nor do they understand well what they are doing because they paint images regardless of everything they want, which all results in contempt for our holy faith» On September 6, 1556, Montúfar preached a homily in which he declared himself in favor of promoting the cult of the Guadalupana among the indigenous people. On September 8 of that same year (1556), Archbishop Montúfar obtained a highly critical response from the Franciscans in the mouth of Francisco de Bustamante. The work of the Franciscan Order in the Christianization of America had been imbued with the Erasmian philosophy that rejected the veneration of images, so that when Montúfar was in favor of spreading the cult of the Tepeyac image, he obtained in response from Bustamante It was that the Guadalupano cult was idolatrous, accusing Montúfar of being a disseminator of the supposed miracles of the image and the sanctuary.

The dispute between the Franciscans and the archbishopric of Mexico was resolved in favor of the latter. For this, Montúfar and his supporters had to moderate their discourse on the nature of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe, apparently approaching the precepts defended by the Franciscans.

The official promotion of the Guadalupan cult by the Church of New Spain is part of a broader process in which the humanist perspective of the Franciscans and their missionary work was replaced by the precepts officially adopted through the resolutions of the Council of Trent. In accordance with these, the Church should promote and preserve the cult of the images of Christ, the Virgin and all the saints, in a clear reaction against the Protestant iconoclasm that prospered in northern Europe.

Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), a great knowledgeer of Nahua culture and language, was one of the critics of worship in Tepeyac and the use of the name of Tonantzin to call Our Lady of Guadalupe during the sixteenth century.

Pragmatically, the archbishopric of Mexico ignored the warnings issued by the Franciscans about the confusion that the cult of the image of Tepeyac could generate among the recently Christianized indigenous people of central Mexico. It is in this context, according to Gruzinski, that the canvas of Guadalupe could have been commissioned from an indigenous manufacture.

In the same vein, Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) expresses his concern that the cult in Tepeyac and the use of the name Tonantzin to call "Our Lady of Guadalupe" 3. 4;:

Near the mountains there are three or four places where they used to make very solemn sacrifices, and they came to them from far away lands. The one of these is here in Mexico, where there is a mountain called Tepeacac, and the Spaniards call Tepeaquilla and now it is called Our Lady of Guadalupe; in this place they had a temple dedicated to the mother of the gods that called Tonantzin, which means Our Mother. There they made many sacrifices to honor this goddess, and came to them from far away lands, of more than twenty leagues from all these regions of Mexico, and they brought many offerings: men and women and young men and young men and women came.
The people's contest was great these days; and they all said, "Let us go to the feast of Tonantzin"; and now that the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe is built, they also call it Tonantzin to take the occasion of the preachers who call it Tonantzin to Our Lady the Mother of God. Wherever this foundation of this Tonantzin was born, we do not know of it, but this we know of the truth: that the word means of its first imposition on that ancient Tonantzin, and it is something that must be remedied because the very name of the Mother of God, Our Lady, is not Tonantzin but God and Nantzin. It seems this satanic invention to alleviate idolatry under the mistake of this name Tonantzin and come now to visit this Tonantzin from far away, as far as before, which devotion is also suspicious, because everywhere there are many churches of Our Lady, and they do not go to them, and come from distant lands to this Tonantzin as anciently.

Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590): General History of the Things of New Spain (1576)

Representation of indigenous people venerating the Virgin of Guadalupe

Historical debate and controversies

The historicity of the apparition has been controversial since its inception, and a considerable amount of literature has been published discussing the problems that arise when trying to understand the apparition as a historically accurate event.

On September 8, 1556, on the occasion of the celebration of the Nativity of Mary, Francisco de Bustamante stated the following during a sermon:

Devotion in this city that has been growing in our church dedicated to Our Lady, who have intitulated Guadalupe, is gravely harmful to the natives, because it makes them believe that the image painted by an Indian does miracles.

Father Francisco de Bustamante, sermon of September 8, 1556, in the text Information of 1556.

In those days, Alonso de Montúfar, who was known as one of the main promoters of the Guadalupano cult, was in charge of the Archdiocese of Mexico.

Referring to Philip Serna Callahan's examination of the tilma using an infrared camera in 1979, Professor Jody Brant Smith wrote: "if Marcos did it, he did it without a preliminary sketch -. In itself an almost miraculous procedure [...] He may well have lent a hand restoring the image, but only restoring the additions, such as the angel and moon at the feet of the Virgin"

The missionary and linguist Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) wrote that the sanctuary of Tepeyac was extremely popular but worrisome, because now that the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe was built there they also called Our Lady by the name of Tonantzin. Sahagún said that the faithful affirmed that in Nahuatl Tonantzin meant "mother of God" ―but he refuted them saying that "mother of God" in Nahuatl would be Dios and nantzin.

Writing about the devotion to Tepeyac in his book General History of the Things of New Spain, Sahagún said that the origin of the cult of Tonantzin "was not known for certain".

According to Joaquín García Icazbalceta, historian of the XIX century, Fray Juan de Zumárraga (1468-1548) lived many years, and many letters and notes survive from him, and a Christian rule that according to Icazbalceta "if it is not his, as seems certain, at least it was compiled and ordered to be printed by him". He also adds that in none of these texts does he mention having witnessed the miracle that would be attributed to him more than a century later. On the contrary, within the Christian rule―which was published in New Spain before his death―, the following is asked:

"Why don't miracles happen anymore?"
The answer is: “Because the Redeemer of the world thinks they are no longer necessary”.

GARCíA ICAZBALCETA JOAQUíN, Letter on the Origin of the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe of Mexico (Pub. of 1896)

Two Guadalupano apologists ―Cousin Feliciano Velázquez and Fortino Hipólito Vera― in response to their arguments argued that Zumárraga refers to the fact that the Redeemer no longer performs miracles "requested out of curiosity", in addition to the fact that the text was not written by Zumárraga, but only he approved it as a religious authority, and that, finally, it is impossible for Zumárraga to deny the miracles that medieval and Renaissance saints had carried out according to the Christian tradition.

Joaquín García Icazbalceta also denied the apparition story and indicated in a confidential report to Archbishop Labastida, in 1883, that there never existed such a person named Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin.

Several writers, including historians, scholars, and religious men, took it upon themselves to respond to Icazbalceta's statement, showing documentation such as the testament of the daughter of Juan García Martín, a document from the century XVI mentioning Juan Diego, by name, and arguing in favor of the Legal Information of 1666 that the indigenous people had given about the existence and virtues of Juan Diego:

• Primo Feliciano Velázquez en The apparition of Santa Maria de Guadalupe,
• Fortino Hipólito Vera (Bishop of Cuernavaca) in Historical-critical response,
• Agustin de la Rosa in his Defense of the Guatemalan apparition
• Jesús García Gutiérrez showed a list of more than 50 Guatemalan historical documents in his First Guadalupano Century
• Joel Romero Salinas—in modern times—in his book Eclipse guadalupano.
• José Bravo Ugarte in his book Guatemalan historical issues.
• Mariano Cuevas in her book Historic Album of the IV Centenary Guadalupano.

Some Catholic historians and priests, including American historian priest Stafford Poole and former abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe Guillermo Schulenburg, have rejected the existence of Juan Diego.

In 1995, the then abbot Guillermo Schulenburg declared the following to the Mexican Catholic magazine Ixtus:

Ixtus: Did Juan Diego exist?
Schulenburg: No. It's a symbol, not a reality.
Ixtus: Then how does the beatification of the Pope fit?
Schulenburg: This beatification is a recognition of worship, it is not a recognition of the physical and real existence of the character; it is not, therefore, a beatification.

Interview with Guillermo Schulenburg

Months after this series of statements, Schulenburg spontaneously resigned as abbot of the Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe, a position he had held for more than thirty years.

Schulenburg was not the first to discredit the traditional event nor was he the first Catholic to leave his post after his questioning of the Guadalupe story. In 1897, Eduardo Sánchez Camacho, Bishop of Tamaulipas, was forced to leave his post after expressing a similar opinion. It should be noted that the Holy See ordered an extensive investigation into Schulenburg's position, and finally the existence of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin as a real person was considered historically proven. Three historians, Eduardo Chávez Sánchez, José Luis Guerrero Rosado and Fidel González Fernández, published this research in the book The meeting of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Juan Diego (Mexico: Porrúa, 1999).

Possible syncretism

Some historians describe as a syncretism the assimilation of the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe with that of the Mexica deity Toci in Tepeyacac ―which was a site of worship of the goddess― providing a way for the Spanish to of the 16th century won the support of the indigenous population of Mexico. It may have provided 16th-century indigenous Mexicans with a means to secretly practice their pre-conquest religion.

Sahagún's critique of the cult at Tepeyac seems to have stemmed primarily from his concern with a syncretistic application of the native name Tonantzin to the Virgin Mary. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún mentions it in one of his texts denoting that indigenous pilgrimages to that site persisted in the friar's time.

For the decade of the 30s of the XVI century, and taking as a reference the date of the Nican Mopohua, the process of Conquest of Mexico was still in progress in a large part of the territory of present-day Mexico, and less than a decade ago the Spanish imperial effort of evangelization began in the conquered territories in charge of the mendicant orders. According to Lafaye, at that time in New Spain the beliefs "were the unstable product of heterogeneous religious contributions, due to unequal ethnic groups," as well as "the indigenous communities in the rural world, the convents in Creole society, the milieu of slaves and castes in the cities, seemed to have been specific foci of appearances of specifically Mexican syncretic beliefs and magical practices" whose coincidences found the newly conquered from the adoption or imposition of Catholicism, with their old beliefs.

The process of conquest and subsequent colonization of New Spain had radical political, economic and social consequences and changes, with the Catholic religion as an elemental manifestation as it was one of its most important social axes and was imbricated in all its aspects. This context would determine the origin of the Guadalupano cult in Mexico and its subsequent growth and consolidation.

The Virgin of Guadalupe in the history of Mexico or Guadalupanism

The Virgin Mary of Guadalupe has had an important place in the history of Mexico, from shortly after the Conquest of Mexico, to the present day.

Independence

Anverse of the banner with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, symbolized by Miguel Hidalgo and Costilla in the church of Atotonilco (Guanajuato) when he was on his way from Dolores to San Miguel el Grande on September 16, 1810, hours after the cry of Dolores that began the war of Mexico's independence.

Street speaker in a market in Mexico City.

Los Guadalupes, a secret society with intense activity between 1811 and 1814 driven by insurgent liberal ideals, took its name in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a symbol of national unity. This society was one of the main precursors of the Independence of Mexico. The Mexican independence movement had the Virgin of Guadalupe as its first banner. On his way from Dolores to San Miguel el Grande, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla stopped to pray in the church of Atotonilco (Guanajuato) while his six hundred men waited in the atrium. Upon leaving, he raised an image capable of uniting the people for the company of National Independence. «He painted on his banner the image of our august patron saint, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and put the following inscription on it: Viva la Religión. Long live our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe. Long live Ferdinand VII! Long live America and death to bad government."

On March 11, 1813, from Ometepec (Guerrero state), José María Morelos issued a decree exalting the Guadalupana, "so that she may be honored and every man declares to be a devotee of the Holy Image, a soldier and defender of the Homeland" and two years later he would ask as his last concession to go pray to the Virgin before being executed in Ecatepec in 1815.

First Empire of Mexico

Agustín I of Mexico creates the National Order of Our Lady of Guadalupe. After the abdication of the emperor, in the autumn of 1824 it fell into disuse.

Independent Mexico

• Manuel Félix Fernández camped on the side of the creek in the Sierra Mixteca. One of his men dared to go down to the water and was shot down by the enemy arches. The general bravo threw his saber on the other side and shouted, "My sword goes on a garment, I go for it." The whole troop followed him to victory and he, thankful, changed his name for Guadalupe Victoria in thanks to the Virgin for the victory granted. He would later be Mexico's first president.
• Another president, General Vicente Guerrero, persuaded Guadalupe to personally deposit at the foot of the Virgin the flags and trophies won to Barradas.
• Antonio López de Santa Anna, reactivated 30 years after its foundation the National Order of Our Lady of Guadalupe and obtained the recognition of the Catholic Church in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. That same year he fell back into disuse with the triumph of the Ayutla Revolution.
• Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, in his book Pasta and legends and customs of Mexico, says of the president, General Juan Álvarez, former insurgent, who "...made his official pilgrimage to the Villa de Guadalupe", and repeats the same phrase by speaking of General Ignacio Comonfort, also president of Mexico.
• Already in 1828, the Congress established as a national feast on December 12, the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The liberal government of President Benito Juárez, when he moved to Veracruz and established the calendar of obligatory feasts, issued on August 11, 1859 a decree for which he declared a public holiday on December 12, and Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, Minister of Justice, Relations and Governance, commented this fact calling the "untouchable" to the Guatemalan date. In 1856, as a member of the reform government of President Ignacio Comonfort and through the so-called "Ley Juárez", Benito Juárez had finished with the privileges of the Church, and through the "Ley Lerdo" the expropriation of its heritage was justified, but without touching the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe, also followed by the subsequent presidents, beyond its open anti-clerical position.
• Valentin Gómez Farías heads a motion to “enter the National Congress of Our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe”.

Second Empire of Mexico

Maximilian I creates the Order of Guadalupe one of the imperial orders of Mexico (originally National Order of Our Lady of Guadalupe), officially known in the empire as Imperial Order of Our Lady of Guadeloupe

20th century

• Manuel Garibi Tortoler says that when the order was issued to expel General Plutarco Elías Calles (President of the Republic and founder of the Bank of Mexico), the commissioners to execute the order surprised him sleeping; at the evening table, next to his bed, they found an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a lamp lit before her. However it is said that what he did was read the book My struggle of Adolf Hitler.^{[chuckles]required]}
• The then president of Mexico Adolfo López Mateos (1958-1964) was questioned in a tour of Venezuela by a journalist who asked him if the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was to be part of the cultural exchange Mexico-Venezuela and the response of the Mexican president was: "The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is not subject to any exchange, the image belongs to the believing people of Mexico"; in a press conference in Rio de Janeiro, said:
• In 2000, then-elected President Vicente Fox Quesada came to know the result of the elections raised a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and also visited the Basilica of Guadalupe in the following days, a fact that upset non-believers and Masonic groups, in addition to violating the law by participating in religious activities as an executive representative.

Canonization of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin

The Scalda index.

After Juan Diego was beatified on May 6, 1990, in the Basilica of Guadalupe (Mexico), in 1998, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints decided to create a historical commission to investigate the historical existence of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. This commission found in the indigenous oral tradition, decisive in any study of the Mexican peoples, and in some documents such as the so-called Códice Escalada, sufficient grounds to affirm the historicity of the indigenous.

In 1999 after the imminent canonization, a group of canons from the Basilica led by Guillermo Schulenburg wrote to Angelo Sodano about serious doubts they had about the authenticity of Juan Diego's historical existence and that ignoring these reports could jeopardize doubts the credibility and seriousness of the Church.

On July 31, 2002, Pope John Paul II canonized Cuauhtlatoatzin in the Basilica of Guadalupe during one of his apostolic trips to Mexico City.

Image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France Sculpture of San Juan Diego with the image of the virgin of Guadalupe

Image study

Drawing that shows one of the first Guadalupanos analysis in which it is studied how the image of the Virgin Mary could be translated when the Ayate was split in half and joined with a thread.

In 1982, art restorer José Sol Rosales examined the image with stereomicroscopy and identified calcium sulfate, pine soot, in white and blue colors, green earths (dirt), nets made of carmine and other pigments, and also gold. Rosales found in the work materials and methods that coincided with those of human work from the 16th century. Two centuries earlier, in 1751, the painter Miguel Cabrera had ruled that the image could not be explained as humanly made, without knowing the protocol. protoscientific that has led him to said affirmation. In 1979 the Americans Philip Callahan and Jody Brant Smith, associated with a Catholic Marian study center, photographed the image with an infrared camera and found no scientific explanation for the making of the mantle, tunic, hands, and face of the Virgin.

Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop of Mexico, commissioned a study in 1999 about the ayate's making, Leoncio Garza Valdés, a pediatrician and microbiologist who had previously worked on the Turin Shroud, called for an inspection of photographs of the image in which he discovered three superimposed images on the tilma. The first image would be the Virgin of Guadalupe of Extremadura, Spain with the initials M.A., in the second painting the same Virgin of Extremadura but with indigenous features and in the third the Virgin of Guadalupe del Tepeyac that we know today. However he was unable to cite any other independent observers who have seen the same features.

Gilberto Aguirre, who accompanied Garza-Valdés on the 1999 review, examined the same photographs and indicated that while he agreed that the painting had been extensively forced, he opposed Garza Valdés's conclusions and maintained that the study conditions were inadequate. The non-existence of photographs that prove Garza Valdés' thesis, and the fact that these three superimposed images would imply historical anachronisms, has discredited Garza Valdés' conclusions in investigative media. In this regard, he told a newspaper in San Antonio, Texas in 2002 the following:

Dr. Garza-Valdés and I have the same images, but our conclusions are totally different. I can't find anyone who agrees with Dr. Garza-Valdés... Secondly, he states that he not only sees the other two paintings, but a naked baby of Jesus in the arms of the Virgin, as well as the initials M.A. and the date of 1556. I've studied these photos, but I don't see these things.

Several similar images have appeared throughout Mexican history, ^{[citation needed]} in the town of Tlaltenango, in the state of Morelos, a painting of Our Lady de Guadalupe is claimed to have miraculously appeared inside a box left behind by two unknown travelers at a residence. The residence's owners called the local father after the enticing news, scents of flowers and sandalwood wafting from the box. The image has been venerated since its encounter on September 8, 1720, and is accepted as a valid apparition by Catholic authorities. local. ^{[citation required]}

Fabric

In 1946, the Institute of Biology of the National University of Mexico verified that the fibers came from an agave, that is, a maguey. According to the restorer José Sol Rosales in 1982, microscopic analysis of the cloth on which the image was painted and its behavior indicate that it is made of a mixture of hemp and linen, not agave fibers as was believed,

Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe

Guadalupana crafts.

The feast of the Virgin is celebrated on December 12. The night of the day before, the churches throughout the country are filled with faithful to celebrate a party that they call "the morning of the Guadalupana" or serenade to the Virgin. The Sanctuary of Guadalupe, located on the Tepeyac hill in Mexico City, is visited that day by more than 5 million people.

It is customary that such pilgrimages include not only faithful and organizers, but dancers called Matlachines, who lead the processions until they reach the basilica.

The Diaries of Juan Bautista in the mid-XVI century and the 1797 Letters of Servando Teresa de Mier, both give the date September 8 for a celebration dedicated to the birth of Mary (mother of Jesus):

"The same festival of the Sanctuary of Guadalupe that the Indians still celebrate today on September 8... just as the Spanish celebrate on December 12...".

It was because of the Legal Information of 1666 that a feast and own mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe was requested and obtained, and the transfer of the date of the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from September 8 to December 12, the last date the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego. Due to this Information in the year 1754, during the pontificate of Benedict XIV, the Congregation of Rites confirmed the authentic value of the apparitions and granted the celebration of a proper mass and office for the feast of Guadalupe for the December 12.

Papal Honors

Image at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of Comayagua in Honduras.

On October 12, 1895, the Virgin of Guadalupe was canonically crowned in Mexico. In 1910 Pope Pius X named her patron saint of Latin America. Pius XII called her "Empress of the Americas" in 1945. The Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico is one of the three most visited Christian sites in the world.^{[citation needed]}

Guadalupan history in film and television

Cinema

• 1917 - Tepeyac /The Miracle of Tepeyac (Mexico)
• 1918 - The Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico) [documentary short film]
• 1926 - The Miracle of Guadalupana /Milagros de la Guadalupana (Mexico)
• 1931 - Alma de América (Mexico)
• 1939 - The Queen of Mexico (Mexico) [Mediometraje]
• 1942 - The brunette virgin (Mexico)
• 1942 - The virgin who forged a homeland (Mexico)
• 1957 - The smile of the Virgin (Mexico)
• 1959 - The Roses of Miracle (Mexico)
• 1976 - The Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico)
• 1987 - The Mexican people walking (Mexico) [Documental]
• 2006 - Guadalupe (Mexico, Spain)
• 2015 - Guadalupe: The Miracle and the Message /Guadalupe: The miracle and the message (EUA) [documentary footage]
• 2020 - Our Lady of Guadalupe (EUA)
• 2024 - Tepeyac: The Film (Mexico) [Largometer]

Television

• 1981 - The Great Happening. Nican Mopohua (Mexico) [TV-Mediometraje animated]
• 1997 - Enigmas de Guadalupe (Mexico) [Documental]
• 2001 - Juan Diego. Messenger of Guadalupe / Juan Diego. Messenger of Guadalupe (EUA) [Episodio de miniserie de animation]
• 2002 - The Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico) [TV-Serie]
• 2002 - Virgin of Guadalupe, between faith and reason (Mexico) [TV-Mediometraje]
• 2004 - The mystery of the Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico) [TV-Documental]
• 2008-present: The rose of Guadalupe telenovela that presents conflicts that are then resolved when a character prays to the virgin and appears a white flower as proof that the virgin heard the order and performed the miracle.
• 2010 - 1531. The story that doesn't end (Mexico) [TV-Documentary]
• 2015 - Juan Diego. The Indian of Guadalupe (Mexico) [TV-Largometraje]