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[Catholic Caucus] Protector of the IndiansAbove: the old and new basilicas of Our Lady of Guadalupe.In the year 1527 King Charles V of Spain spent Holy Week at the Franciscan Monastery of Barajo near the city of Burgo in northern Spain. Friar Juan de Zumarraga was the prior of the monastery at this time. So impressed was the King by Friar Zumarraga’s holiness and capabilities that a year later, in 1528, he recommended that he become the first bishop of Mexico. His official title would be “Protector of the Indians.”Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowOne might wonder why a Franciscan would...

St. Juan Diego: Ordinary Son of Mary Daniel StewartJuan Diego was born in 1474 in a place called Cuautitlán. Once a part of the Aztec Empire, Cuautitlán was conquered by the Spanish and is now in present day Mexico City. Born before the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Juan Diego was an indigenous Mexican who was given the name Cuauhtlatoatzin at birth. When Franciscan missionaries arrived, Cuauhtlatoatzin and his wife were some of the first indigenous people to convert. At baptism, they were given the names Juan Diego and Maria Lucia. Juan Diego was not a slave but...

Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas--North, Central and South. The feast commemorates the day on which she imprinted her image on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego, whose feast Catholics celebrated on December 9th. It is a beautiful story that took place in 1531, a decade after Cortez's conquest of Aztec Mexico, and just 14 years after Martin Luther's publication of his Ninety-Five Theses, the event which precipitated the Protestant Reformation in Europe. December 9, 1531 is the day on which she first appeared to Juan Diego, an Indian convert...

Our Lady of Guadalupe  Click for enlargement ¿No estoy aqui, yo, que soy tu madre? “Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy?”      The History of Our Lady of Guadalupe    The appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the Aztec Indian Juan Diego in December of 1531 generated the conversion of Mexico, Central and South America to Catholicism. Indeed, the Blessed Virgin Mary entered the very life stream of Central America and became an inextricable part of Mexican life and a central figure to...

St. Juan Diego's tilma: "completely outside" science Monday August 24, 2009 Take a look: A physicist who has spent years researching the tilma bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is affirming that there is no scientific explanation for the phenomenon. Adolfo Orozco stated this in a presentation given at an International Marian Congress that took place Aug. 6-8 in Phoenix. The congress, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, the Phoenix Diocese and the Institute of Guadalupan Studies, was dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Orozco gave a presentation on the image of the Virgin imprinted on St. Juan...

This is indeed a difficult blog to write. Not only because my favorite book on the subject went missing, but I believe, if I write this story just right, millions of souls will convert to Christ ... "That's fantasy!" you may say, and yet that is EXACTLY what happened when Our Lady of Guadalupe first appeared. It happened in Mexico in December of 1531. Many Catholics have heard the story of how Mary suddenly appeared to the poor peasant Juan Diego on his way to daily Mass. Juan had already converted to Catholicism, and yet Her appearance, Her promise of...

In 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to Mexican peasant Juan Diego. To prove to all that the apparitions were real, the Virgin imprinted an image of herself on Juan Diego's tilma, a thin cloth made of cactus fibres. This type of tilma normally decays in 30 to 40 years. But Juan Diego's tilma is still miraculously intact and the same as it was when he wore it. Over the centuries, many have expressed doubts about the divinity of the image, but Prof. Victor Campa Mendoza has no doubt whatsoever. "This is not a human act but an act of God,"...

December 11, 2004Saturday of the Second Week of Advent Reading ISir 48:1-4, 9-11 In those days,like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijahwhose words were as a flaming furnace.Their staff of bread he shattered,in his zeal he reduced them to straits;By the Lord's word he shut up the heavensand three times brought down fire.How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!Whose glory is equal to yours?You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire,in a chariot with fiery horses.You were destined, it is written, in time to cometo put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD,To...

December 12, 2003Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Psalm: Friday 52 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IZec 2:14-17 Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on that day,and they shall be his people,and he will dwell among you,and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.The LORD will possess Judah as his portion in the holy land,and he will again choose Jerusalem.Silence, all mankind, in the presence of the LORD!For he stirs forth from his holy dwelling....

As we Americans watch the exuberant joy of Mexicans at the canonization of Juan Diego, we sense that something is missing in our own affluent culture that the comparatively impoverished Mexicans hold onto tightly. The Mexican experience is of national identity fused with Catholicism. The first Mexican revolutionary against colonial Spanish control was a priest, Padre Hidalgo. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is present everywhere in Mexico. For many Mexicans, Guadalupe is Mexico. There is a similar phenomenon in other Catholic countries: the popularity of Padre, now Saint, Pio of Pietrelcina in Italy comes to mind. Other...

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...

In 1929, Alfonso Marcue, who was the official photographer of the old Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, found what seemed to be a clear image of a bearded man reflected in the right eye of the Virgin. Initially he did not believe what was before his eyes. How could it be? A bearded man inside of the eyes of the Virgin?. After many inspections of many of his black and white photographs he had no doubts and decided to inform the authorities of the Basilica. He was told that time to keep complete silence about the discovery, which he...