"So... aren’t you supposed to believe that the Catholic Church is divinely guided so as to judge miracles correctly? If it was a true miracle, there should have been no fear that they would denounce it, right?"
Thanks for a good laugh!
First of all, there is nothing in Catholic doctrine which requires me to believe in the Guadalupe apparitions or in any other apparitions, since these are classified as "private revelations" and therefore are not a matter of doctrine or dogma. The most that the relevant authority (i.e. the bishop) can do would be to (1) investigate to see whether there is a non-supernatural explanation for the apparition (is the "visionary" making an honest mistake based on some ambiguous visual or auditory phenomenon? Drunk? On drugs? Hallucinating? A charlatan, or the victim of one?)
IF those can be ruled out, then the next question is: is there anything in the purported revelation contrary to Catholic faith or morals?
Very often an investigation must simply be called inconclusive, since there is not good enough evidence to make a fair determination. Moreover the Church is usually in no hurry to endorse an alleged miracle. For instance, the purported visions which began in 1981 in Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, are still under investigation, there is hearty debate about them, and neither a ruling of "definitely supernatural" or "definitely non-supernatural" has been forthcoming.
Secondly, there is plenty of room for Church authorities to be wrong. Even the Pope may be in error in his opinions: Papal infallibility does not extend to his views on politics, iconography, sports or weather, nor (God knows!) to Vatican diplomacy.
Any reasonably well-educated Catholic high school student should know that.
Thirdly, I am not citing anything as proof-positive of the Guadalupe apparitions. I am merely offering evidence, and reasonable inferences from evidence. I can serenely note counter-evidence, weigh it, and accept it if well-founded.
Now, to the topic at hand: the existence of a letter in some long-forgotten archive, reporting on the Guadalupe apparitions in 1531, would be a valuable piece of historic evidence. However, the lack of such a letter does not prove the falsity of the apparitions. As I understand it, the Nican Mopohua, written in classical Nahautl in 1556, is--- by way of comparison --- about as authentic as a birth certificate would be: it is an official document, and an early one. So it counts, not as proof, but as significant evidence.
"Sure, that [5,000,000 conversions in 5 years] is amazing, but as someone else upthread stated that they were trying to convert earlier, and Cortes had to turn them away, it may have had nothing to do with the cult of Guadalupe. If I were an Aztec, and I just saw my seemingly invincible empire leveled by a couple boatloads of foreigners, I think I would be disillusioned with my gods and looking for a new religion too".
Granted. I’m sure there were numerous and various factors for conversions in general, syncretism being part of the mix. But there isn’t any other explanation--- other than the Guadalupe phenomenon --- for 5 million conversions between 1531 and 1536. I am open to competing hypotheses, but they'd better be good.
It does no good to say this was all a 16th century Catholic proselytizing hoax, either, since it was controversial from the very beginning, denounced by some Franciscans for being too closely associated with Tonantzin, and downplayed by the Church for many, many years. If it was a symbol of Spanish hegemony, it was not a very good one, since Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla initiated the bid for Mexican independence with his Grito de Dolores, with the cry "Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!"
Until the discovery of the deer-skin codex in 1995, there were serious doubts, freely voiced within the Church, about the existence of Juan Diego, the man who received the image to begin with. This recently found manuscript (called the Codex Escalada) provided the documentation needed for the canonization Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, which only happened in 2002 (471 years after the apparitions.). Not exactly a full-speed-ahead 16th century propaganda campaign.
Something happened between 1531 and 1536. Any other hypotheses? Something in the chocolate?
Happy New Year and a Mexican tequila chocolate to you, Boogieman!
FYI:
1 1/2 ounces tequila
1 ounce coffee liqueur
1/8 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup coffee ice cream
Stir with a cinnamon stick!
Of course I am not saying that everybody in the Catholic clergy claims infallibility on all matters, or anything like that. However, the Catholic church as a body does claim divine authority to judge these matters, so why should they be rejecting false miracles if that authority is factual? They are certain enough of this authority when they pronounce someone a Saint, giving their believers the go ahead to communicate with them through prayer. That’s pretty confident, I would say, otherwise they could possibly be encouraging spiritism or divination, if their judgement was sometimes incorrect.
Since the process of sainthood is dependent on the process that verifies miracles, the same level of authority must be assumed to be at work there too. Otherwise, it stands to reason, if they are sometimes wrong about the miracles, then they are sometimes wrong about the saints, and therefore dangerously presumptuous in telling people to pray to them. It’s a tricky path to say “we make mistakes”, there are more consequences than just the convenient ones.
“However, the lack of such a letter does not prove the falsity of the apparitions.”
No, it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t mean there’s no letter because the Bishop was afraid of some consequences if people found out what was happening. It’s just a bit odd that a main character in the story, who is, as you pointed out, the one most responsible for verifying these kinds of things, didn’t seem to tell anyone about it. Maybe he did and all the records have been lost, but unless we find something like that, I think it’s an oddity.
“As I understand it, the Nican Mopohua, written in classical Nahautl in 1556, is-— by way of comparison -— about as authentic as a birth certificate would be: it is an official document, and an early one.”
An official document of who? The church, the government, the local priest? They have a pretty good guess as to the author, but I don’t think it’s an official document so much as a tract that someone wrote promoting their story of this apparition. On the other hand, we have a source from at least as early, that is attributable to someone with some position of authority in the church, denouncing spurious claims of a miracle by the peasants that sound just like the Guadalupe cult. Even if that’s just the one man’s opinion, it demonstrates that there wasn’t a general belief, even 25 years later, that this miracle was legitimate and leading some miraculous wave of conversions.
“But there isn’t any other explanation-— other than the Guadalupe phenomenon -— for 5 million conversions between 1531 and 1536. I am open to competing hypotheses, but they’d better be good.”
Of course there are other explanations. First of all 5 million is impressive, but take things in perspective. There were over 5 million people in the capital alone, and Mexico is a large country, so if you were to look at it percentage-wise, it’s not so miraculous. Mass conversions do happen, sometimes at the point of a sword, sometimes from waves of fervor, and often during times of massive social upheaval. How many people were converted to Islam in a few decades? That doesn’t require any miraculous explanation, so why does this?
“It does no good to say this was all a 16th century Catholic proselytizing hoax, either, since it was controversial from the very beginning”
That really doesn’t do much to contradict the hypothesis, since it could have been simply one missionary, or local governor who hatched a plan that unexpectedly caught on. There’s no reason to assume that, if it were a “tall tale” concocted to win converts, that all the authorities in the region would be in on it.
“If it was a symbol of Spanish hegemony, it was not a very good one, since Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla initiated the bid for Mexican independence with his Grito de Dolores, with the cry “Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!””
The Law of Unintended Consequences can really come back to bite you.
“This recently found manuscript (called the Codex Escalada) provided the documentation needed for the canonization Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, which only happened in 2002 (471 years after the apparitions.).”
Yes, that was very convenient, that it was discovered just at the time that the very information in the Codex was needed to overcome objections. I guess you could either see that as miraculous itself, or suspicious, depending on your perspective.
“Not exactly a full-speed-ahead 16th century propaganda campaign.”
I don’t think it’s likely there was any official propaganda campaign. If it was a hoax, it was probably like every other hoax, the work of one or a few anonymous individuals who did it for their own reasons. If it’s just a folktale, then those stories just spread organically until someone bothers to write them down and set some version in stone.