Posted on 07/31/2002 10:37:40 AM PDT by NYer
MEXICO CITY (AP) - In a ceremony mixing Indian and European traditions, Pope John Paul II canonized the Roman Catholic Church's first Indian saint on Wednesday, calling Juan Diego a catalyst for converting the Americas to Christianity. The pope appealed to all Mexicans to help Indians rise from poverty and subjugation.
Hundreds of thousands of jubilant believers lined the streets, singing, cheering and sobbing as they waved yellow-and-white flags. Some watched the ceremony on large screens mounted in the street, and leapt in excitement as Juan Diego was proclaimed a saint. Most caught only a quick glimpse of the pope as he passed by, but that was enough.
"I got chills up to my head," said Irene Guzman, a 25-year-old speech therapist from San Gabriel, California.
Inside the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, dancers dressed in feathered Aztec costumes shook rattles and blew into conch shells as the image of the new saint was carried to the altar. Priests read from the Bible in Spanish and in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs.
The pope said Juan Diego, to whom the Virgin appeared in 1531, was instrumental in the conversion of millions in the Americas to the Catholic faith.
"Christ's message, through his mother, took up the central elements of indigenous culture, purified them and gave them the definitive sense of salvation," he said. "...He facilitated the fruitful meeting of two worlds and became the catalyst for a new Mexican identity."
For the second day in a row, the pontiff appealed for better treatment for Indians in the Americas. He asked Mexicans to help create "greater justice and solidarity" for all, and to "support the indigenous peoples in their legitimate aspirations, respecting and defending the authentic values of each ethnic group."
"Mexico needs its indigenous peoples and these peoples need Mexico," he said.
The 82-year-old pontiff, who suffers from symptoms of Parkinson's disease and hip and knee problems, appeared weary on the last leg of his 11-day, three-country visit. Wearing a yellow robe and hat, he slumped in a gilded chair placed near Juan Diego's cloak, straining to raise his head before speaking. His speech, however, was clearer than in recent days.
At his arrival ceremony Tuesday night, the pope motioned to an aide to help him stand as a band struck up the national anthems of Mexico and the Vatican. But he began to slide back into his seat, and President Vicente Fox reached over to steady him.
Fox also attended the Mass on Wednesday, the first time a Mexican president has attended a papal Mass. Mexico only recently repealed what for decades were some of the world's strictest anti-religion laws, designed to rein in a church that for centuries ruled as part of the colonial power structure, owned much of Mexico's land and allied itself with foreign invaders and domestic dictators.
Only 22,000 people fit into the Basilica, and earlier plans for a Mass that would accommodate up to 5 million people were canceled. So most people had to be content with catching a glimpse of John Paul as he passed by on the street in his popemobile.
Faithful hordes climbed trees, hung from balconies and perched on rooftops to get a view of the pope, who waved through armored glass that was partially lowered to give the crowds a better view.
"Our faith is great, so we want to see him close up," said Juventino Carrillo, of San Jose, California, a 54-year-old cook at Stanford University.
Mexicans have a special affection for John Paul, who chose their country for the first foreign trip of his papacy and has returned for the fifth time on what many expect will be one of his last. The pope repeatedly expressed his delight to be back in Mexico, where in 1979 he strummed a guitar with mariachis and donned a sombrero at a bullfighting ring.
Juan Diego was an Indian born before Europeans arrived in the New World. According to church tradition, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego in 1531, leaving an olive-skinned image of herself on his cloak and helping drive the conversion of millions of Indians throughout the Americas.
Debate has intensified in recent months over Juan Diego, who some believe never existed. Several Mexican priests unsuccessfully petitioned the Vatican to delay the canonization because of the doubts. Canonization is the process by which the Roman Catholic Church declares someone a saint.
But the vast majority of Mexicans tie their national identity to the Virgin of Guadalupe, and to the man to whom she appeared.
"This is the first pope to recognize an Indian, a humble Indian," said Maria Socorro Dominguez, a 48-year-old lawyer among the faithful lining the streets.
More than 30,000 police were deployed around the city to keep the peace, and some officers said they were told they wouldn't sleep for three days — the duration of the pope's stay.
"It's worth it, isn't it?" said officer Ruben Alejandro Rodriguez, 29, holding his city-supplied meal of two small ham-and-cheese sandwiches and an apple.
On Tuesday in Guatemala City, John Paul canonized Pedro de San Jose Betancur, a 17th-century church handyman and prison pastor who founded an international order that serves the poor.
The pope said Indians, many targeted by Guatemalan troops during a 1960-1996 civil war that killed 200,000 people, deserve "justice, integral development and peace."
Adressing the many Mayan Indians at the ceremony, he said: "The pope does not forget you and, admiring the values of your cultures, encourages you to overcome with hope the sometimes difficult situations you experience."
With something like 5-10% of "Catholics" going to mass in Western Europe and the numbers plunging in the U.S., we need help immediately.
But since religion relies on faith at least as much as proof, I'm not really troubled by that. It's more of an observation on my part than anything else.
But that's a good point you raise. St. Christopher and St. Juan Diego are quite similar in that regard.
Easy to find where? If your referring to one of the many books being hawked by the anti-Masonic fanatics, you've only contributed to their bank account.
I'm talking about valid academic accounts of the masonic persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. It is historical fact, not anti-Masonic fiction.
How so? How much do you know about this saint? What, if anything do you know about Our Lady of Guadalupe?
St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (1474-1548). Little is known about the life of Juan Diego before his conversion, but tradition and archaeological and iconographical sources, along with the most important and oldest indigenous document on the event of Guadalupe, "El Nican Mopohua" (written in Náhuatl with Latin characters, 1556, by the Indigenous writer Antonio Valeriano), give some information on the life of the saint and the apparitions.
Juan Diego was born in 1474 with the name "Cuauhtlatoatzin" ("the talking eagle") in Cuautlitlán, today part of Mexico City, Mexico. He was a gifted member of the Chichimeca people, one of the more culturally advanced groups living in the Anáhuac Valley.
When he was 50 years old he was baptized by a Franciscan priest, Fr Peter da Gand, one of the first Franciscan missionaries. On 9 December 1531, when Juan Diego was on his way to morning Mass, the Blessed Mother appeared to him on Tepeyac Hill, the outskirts of what is now Mexico City. She asked him to go to the Bishop and to request in her name that a shrine be built at Tepeyac, where she promised to pour out her grace upon those who invoked her. The Bishop, who did not believe Juan Diego, asked for a sign to prove that the apparition was true. On 12 December, Juan Diego returned to Tepeyac. Here, the Blessed Mother told him to climb the hill and to pick the flowers that he would find in bloom. He obeyed, and although it was winter time, he found roses flowering. He gathered the flowers and took them to Our Lady who carefully placed them in his mantle and told him to take them to the Bishop as "proof". When he opened his mantle, the flowers fell on the ground and there remained impressed, in place of the flowers, an image of the Blessed Mother, the apparition at Tepeyac.
With the Bishop's permission, Juan Diego lived the rest of his life as a hermit in a small hut near the chapel where the miraculous image was placed for veneration. Here he cared for the church and the first pilgrims who came to pray to the Mother of Jesus.
Much deeper than the "exterior grace" of having been "chosen" as Our Lady's "messenger", Juan Diego received the grace of interior enlightenment and from that moment, he began a life dedicated to prayer and the practice of virtue and boundless love of God and neighbour. He died in 1548 and was buried in the first chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. He was beatified on 6 May 1990 by
Pope John Paul II in the Basilica of Santa Maria di Guadalupe, Mexico City.
The miraculous image, which is preserved in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, shows a woman with native features and dress. She is supported by an angel whose wings are reminiscent of one of the major gods of the traditional religion of that area. The moon is beneath her feet and her blue mantle is covered with gold stars. The black girdle about her waist signifies that she is pregnant. Thus, the image graphically depicts the fact that Christ is to be "born" again among the peoples of the New World, and is a message as relevant to the "New World" today as it was during the lifetime of Juan Diego.
By the way, an attempt to blow up the image in the '20's, bent this candlestick. The Image, only a few feet away, was completely unharmed. 
As for the "doubting" Thomas side of your nature, you should visit this site: <a href="http://www.sancta.org/eyes.html> The Mystery in Our Lady's eyes </a> <p>
It has been told for generations that the image is on the cactus fiber mantle of Juan Diego. But it turns out to be on hemp, which was a common canvas for painting in the 16th century. There appears to be another painting behind the image.
There certainly exists a controversy within the church as to its authenticity and to the entire legend. I'm not the one questioning it, catholic scholars are. You might read one of the books written by Leoncio Garza-Valdes.
I find the controversy interesting from a historical and sociological standpoint, but I'm not interested in changing anyone's mind, especially if they choose to believe. I'm not catholic, so I really don't care whether he's a saint or not. He is one now, so that settles that issue for me.
The miraculous image, which is preserved in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, shows a woman with native features and dress. She is supported by an angel whose wings are reminiscent of one of the major gods of the traditional religion of that area. The moon is beneath her feet and her blue mantle is covered with gold stars.Infrared tests on the tilma show that the woman and her dress are part of the original image (no known medium or method of application), but that the angel was painted on at a later date, as were the gold stars on her mantle.
The underlying image per se is but one of the astonishing features of this icon. For example, the tilma, which is made of cactus fibers that should have disintegrated within 20 years of its fabrication, is composed of two pieces of fabric that are held together by a single thread; yet, despite the tilma's not being protected at all for the first several decades after its appearance, it is perfectly preserved.
It's worth adding that not only was the tilma not protected under glass at first, but the Aztecs used to mount it on a pole and take it to the waters edge to ward off the advancing floods that beseiged the area, as well as to Aztec chiefs on their deathbeds, who were subsequently miraculously cured.
I saw the candlestick that was damaged in the blast, and the picture you posted doesn't do it justice. It is a tall, thick, solid piece of metal that was on the altar beneath the tilma. I wish I could tell you that the crazed revolutionary who planted the bomb there was moved to conversion when he saw that the unofficial image of Mexican identity he hoped to destroy withstood his attack, but I've never read any follow up to the incident.
But it turns out to be on hemp, which was a common canvas for painting in the 16th century. There appears to be another painting behind the image.... You might read one of the books written by Leoncio Garza-Valdes.Thank you for the citing your sources. The question of the tilma's authenticity fascinates me, as do the divergent conclusions drawn by those who have access to the results of the various tests that the tilma has been subjected to.
I've followed the news coverage, but haven't read his books. I did a search on Amazon before my last response to make sure that he really was a published author, and he is.
It seems to me that the rest should be pretty straight forward -- infrared tests, etc. -- so I don't quite understand the controversy. Whatever it is -- authentic miracle or fabulous fake -- its sure got a lot of history.
Thanks for the link.
In the "good old days" saints were made by popular acclaim. By this criteria, Juan Diego has been a saint for a long time.
Around here, we're rooting for Kateri Tekawitha, a Mowhawk Indian girl, to be raised to sainthood. We've considered her a saint since I was a little girl, but they are still awaiting a certified "miracle".
Remember that Indian woman who awoke from a 16 year coma two years ago in Albuquerque? The family had prayed for her the week before, and in their prayers asked Kateri to restore her to health. Every Indian Catholic knows that it was a miracle, but the doctors poo poohed it, saying it was because she was given an anti influenza medication that did it. So we are awaiting another miracle.
And when SHE is canonized, you'll probably see the politically correct saying that her canonization is political also....
I have ALWAYS been fascinated by the shroud. There are some excellent web sites which provide scientific research into the actual fabric as well as the image.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel has done a series on the Trinity which is broadcast at strange hours of the night on EWTN. The other night, he mentioned the shroud which naturally caught my attention. He noted that scientists have counted the whip lashes on the man of the shroud. In Roman times, it seems, the standard penalty called for 30 lashes. However, the man of the shroud had 110 whip lashes!. He said it was miracle enough that he was able to walk the length of the Via Dolorosa, much less carry the crossbar of His cross, with his skin hanging in shreds.
He also spoke of a friend, a priest with a parish in Rhode Island. It seems his friends parish church was directly in the path of a major highway and was condemned by the city. In preparation for construction of a new church, he thought it might be interesting to have a "corpus" for the crucifix, made from the 3D image model of the man of the shroud. When Fr. Groeschel looked at the "corpus", he said: "That's not Christ". The physical structure of the man of the shroud was a broad shouldered man. The images we see in paintings or statues, show a man with a smaller frame. On greater reflection, though, he recalled that Jesus had been raised in the house of Joseph, a carpenter. He had worked, side by side, with Joseph, learning the skills of a carpenter. That meant that he had to haul heavy pieces of wood, etc., much like a construction worker. In the end, he realized that the "corpus" made from the 3D image was probably a better representation of Christ than anything we had ever seen in a painting.
Atl. Journal-Const. 7/31/02 Susan Ferriss
The controversy over the existence of Juan Diego and his encounter with the Virgin of Guadalupe is fast becoming entwined with the new issue: his depiction by the Catholic Church for his canonization.
Juan Diego was supposed to be a copper-skinned Indian, but to many in Mexico the official image makes him look more like one of Hernando Cortes' Spanish conquistadors than one of their indigenous ancestors.
The image of Juan Diego on church-appoved posters being sold everywhere portrays a man lighter-skinned than the vast majority of modern Mexicans, who identify themselves as mestizo, or mixed-race.
The official Juan Diego also sports a thicker beard than most Mexican Indians, who tend to be less hirsute than Europeans.
Almost apologetically, the church says the image is a copy of an 18th-century painting believed to be the earliest rendition of Juan Diego.
"Nope, that's not really what our race looks like," observed Guillermo Alvarez, a construction worker who examined a giant copy of the poster while visiting Mexico City's Basilica de Guadalupe recently. Alvarez's friend, Adrian Gonzalez, agreed the official image doesn't look Indian. But he stopped short of attributing the choice to a current of racism toward Indians--more than 10 percent of the population--that still runs deep in Mexico.
"I think it could be kind of a marketing gimmick," Gonzalez admitted. "But what matters most is what we feel about Juan Diego."
Mexicans have weathered earlier controversy about Juan Diego.
In 1999, three priests who worked at the basilica wrote to the Vatican urging Pope John Paul II not to canonize Juan Diego because it couldn't be proved beyond a doubt that he existed.
But even the skeptical priests, who were quickly silenced, are expected to join the canonization ceremony today.
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