As early as 1556 Francisco de Bustamante, head of the Colony's Franciscans, delivered a sermon disparaging the holy origins of the painting:
“The devotion that has been growing in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, called of Guadalupe, in this city is greatly harmful for the natives, because it makes them believe that the image painted by Marcos the Indian is in any way miraculous.[24][2]”
In 1611 the Dominican Martin de Leon, fourth viceroy of Mexico, denounced the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a disguised worship of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin.[2] The missionary and anthropologist Bernardino de Sahagún held the same opinion: he wrote that the shrine at Tepeyac was extremely popular but worrisome because people called the Virgin of Guadalupe Tonantzin. Sahagún said that the worshippers claimed that Tonantzin was the proper Nahuatl for "Mother of God" -- but he disagreed, saying that "Mother of God" in Nahuatl would be "Dios y Nantzin."[25]
In 2002, art restoration expert José Sol Rosales examined the icon with a stereomicroscope and identified calcium sulfate, pine soot, white, blue, and green "tierras" (soil), reds made from carmine and other pigments, as well as gold. Rosales said he found the work consistent with 16th century materials and methods.[26]
Guadalupe of ExtremaduraNorberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop of Mexico, commissioned a 1999 study to test the tilma's age. The researcher, Leoncio Garza-Valdés, had previously worked with the Shroud of Turin. Upon inspection Garza-Valdés found three distinct layers in the painting, at least one of which was signed and dated. He also said that the original painting showed striking similarities to the original Lady of Guadalupe found in Extremadura Spain, and that the second painting showed another Virgin with indigenous features. Finally, Garza-Valdés indicated that the fabric on which the icon is painted is made of conventional hemp and linen, not agave fibers as is popularly believed.[27] The photographs of these putative overpaintings were not available in the Garza-Valdés 2002 publication, however.[28] Gilberto Aguirre a San Antonio optometrist and colleague of Garza-Valdés who also took part in the 1999 study, examined the same photographs and stated that, while agreeing the painting had been tampered with, he disagreed with Garza-Valdes' conclusions. Gilberto Aguirre claims the conditions for conducting the study were inadequate. No control of the lighting and the fact that the painting was shot through an acrylic plate scientifically invalidates any results. He also questions Garza-Valdés' claim of ultraviolet light revealing two underlying images because according to Aguirre, ultraviolet light can't penetrate sub-surfaces. The team did take Infrared pictures but those didn't show additional images underneath the present one. [29]
Documentation
A number of primary historical documents are used to support this apparition account, including: the Nahuatl-language Huei tlamahuiçoltica or Nican mopohua ("here it is recounted"), a tract about the Virgin which contains the aforementioned story, and which was printed in 1649; a Spanish-language book about the apparitions titled Imagen de la Virgen María ("Image of the Virgin Mary"), printed in 1648; a seventeenth-century engraving by Samuel Stradanus which used the Virgin's image to advertise indulgences; and the Codex Escalada, a pictographic account of the Virgin on Tepeyac, printed on deerskin and said to date back to 1548.[1]
First page of the Nican Mopohua.The apparition account is also strengthened by a document called the Informaciones Jurídicas of 1666, a collection of oral interviews gathered near Juan Diego's hometown of Cuautitlan. In the "Informaciones Jurídicas," various witnesses affirmed, in interview format, basic details about Saint Juan Diego and the Guadalupan apparition story.[2]
Some historians and clerics, including the U.S. priest-historian Fr.Stafford Poole, the famous Mexican historian Joaquín García Icazbalceta, and former abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe, Guillermo Schulenburg, have expressed doubts about the historicity of the apparition accounts. Schulenburg in particular caused a stir with his 1996 interview with the Catholic magazine Ixthus, when he said that Juan Diego was "a symbol, not a reality." [3][4]
One problem with the apparition tradition is that Juan Diego is said to have met the Virgin in 1531, while the earliest account about their meeting was published in 1648. When discussing the 117-year gap between the apparition and written accounts describing it, apparition believers point to the Codex Escalada, a recently-discovered document which illustrates the Tepeyac apparition and which dates to 1548. The document, a painting on deerskin which illustrates the apparition and discusses Juan Diego's death, was used to shore up Juan Diego's 1990s canonization process. Critics, including Stafford Poole and David A. Brading, find the document suspicious -- partly because of when it was discovered, and partly because it contains the handiwork of both Antonio Valeriano (a man many apparition partisans believe to be the true author of the Nican mopohua) and the signature of Bernardino de Sahagún, the Franciscan missionary and anthropologist. Brading said that:
Codex Escalada.Within the context of the Christian tradition, it was rather like finding a picture of St. Paul's vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, drawn by St. Luke and signed by St. Peter.[5]
Believers in the Codex counter that the Codex has been vetted by scientific tests which prove it is an authentic 16th-century document.[6]
Zumárraga was silent on the topic of the apparition: there is no mention of Juan Diego nor the Virgin in any of his writings. In a catechism written the year before his death he stated: “The Redeemer of the world doesn’t want any more miracles, because they are no longer necessary.[2]”. Furthermore, in 1531 Zumárraga was not Mexico's Archbishop but merely Bishop-elect: he would not be consecrated until 1533.[7]
Guillermo Schulenburg, the Basílica's abbot for over 30 years, declared in 1996 Juan Diego as a symbol and myth, a constructed character made to conquer the hearts of the native people and seize their religiosity in order to redirect it to the Vatican's will. He also commisioned a serious study, "out of sheer love for truth", which demonstrates the Lady of Guadalupe as a man-made painting, with no supernatural elements whatsoever. There is ample evidence of a 16th century shrine to Guadalupe at Tepeyac: however skeptics contend that this shrine was dedicated to the Spanish icon Our Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura.
In 500 years that's all they've got?
#1 - A bad sermon - which I would like to see the whole text, because maybe "Marcos" painted a copy of the original and that is what the priest is talking about.
#2 - "Sahagún said that the worshippers claimed that Tonantzin was the proper Nahuatl for "Mother of God" -- but he disagreed, saying that "Mother of God" in Nahuatl would be "Dios y Nantzin."[25]
"Dios" and "y" are spanish words, not Nahuatl. So I don't what they are trying to say there, that is just dumb.
#3 The scientists. First you should know that most scientists have a bias against religion. Secondly, everyone knows that the tilma has paint on it, - some foolish Mexicans thought it would be a good idea to paint the image to make it look better. For the first 30 years or so the tilma was displayed outside and exposed to sun, wind and rain. A couple hundred years later, they painted on some of the tilma to make it look more colorful and brighter.
The other researcher can't back up his claims - The photographs of these putative overpaintings were not available in the Garza-Valdés 2002 publication, however.
and is disputed by the other researchers[28] Gilberto Aguirre, a San Antonio optometrist and colleague of Garza-Valdés who also took part in the 1999 study, examined the same photographs and stated that, while agreeing the painting had been tampered with, he disagreed with Garza-Valdes' conclusions. Gilberto Aguirre claims the conditions for conducting the study were inadequate. No control of the lighting and the fact that the painting was shot through an acrylic plate scientifically invalidates any results. He also questions Garza-Valdés' claim of ultraviolet light revealing two underlying images because according to Aguirre, ultraviolet light can't penetrate sub-surfaces. The team did take Infrared pictures but those didn't show additional images underneath the present one. [29]