Talk:Juan Diego/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Projected re-write: Earliest published narrative sources of the Guadalupe event

  • [1] The first written account to be published of the Guadalupe event was a theological exegesis hailing Mexico as the New Jerusalem and correlating Juan Diego with Moses at Mount Horeb and the Virgin with the mysterious Woman of the Apocalypse in chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. Entitled Imagen de la Virgen Maria, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe, Milagrosamente aparecida en la Ciudad de México ("Image of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God of Guadalupe, who miraculously appeared in the City of Mexico"), it was published in Spanish in Mexico City in 1648 after a prolonged gestation. <note 1.> The author was a Mexican-born Spanish priest, Miguel Sánchez, who asserted in his introduction (Fundamento de la historia) that his account of the apparitions was based on documentary sources (few, and only vaguely alluded to) and on an oral tradition which he calls "antigua, uniforme y general" (ancient, consistent and widespread). The book is structured as a theological examination of the meaning of the apparitions to which is added a description of the tilma and of the sanctuary, accompanied by a description of seven miracles associated with the cult, the last of which related to a devastating inundation of Mexico City in the years 1629-1634. Although the work inspired panegyrical sermons preached in honour of the Virgin of Guadalupe between 1661 and 1766, it was not popular and was rarely reprinted.<note 2.> Pared of its devotional and scriptural matter and with a few additions, Sánchez' account was republished in 1660 by a Jesuit priest from Puebla named Mateo de la Cruz, whose book, entitled "Account of the miraculous apparition of the Holy Image of the Virgin of Guadalupe of Mexico", was soon reprinted in Spain (1662) and served greatly to spread knowledge of the cult.<note 3.>
  • [2] The second in time is known by the opening words of its long title: Huei tlamahuiçoltica ("The great event"). It was published in Nahuatl by the then vicar of the hermitage at Guadalupe, Luis Lasso de la Vega, in 1649. In four places in the introduction he announced his authorship of all or part of the text - a claim long received with varying degrees of incredulity because of the text's consummate grasp of a form of classical Nahuatl dating from the mid-16th century the command of which Lasso de la Vega neither before nor after left any sign.<note 4.> The complete work comprises several elements including a brief biography of Juan Diego and, most famously, a highly wrought and ceremonious account of the apparitions known from its opening words as the Nican Mopohua ("Here it is told"). Despite the variations in style and content which mark the various elements, an exclusively textual analysis by three American investigators published in 1998 provisionally (a) assigned the entire work to the same author or authors, (b) saw no good reason to strip de la Vega of the authorship role he had improbably claimed, and (c) of the three possible explanations for the close link between Sánchez's work and the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, opted for a dependence of the latter upon the former which, however, was said to be indicated rather than proved. Whether the role to be attributed to Lasso de la Vega was creative, editorial or redactional remains an open question.<note 5.> Nevertheless, the broad consensus among Mexican historians (both ecclesiastical and secular) has long been, and remains, that the Nican Mopohua dates from as early as the mid-16th century and (so far as it is attributed to any author) that Antonio Valeriano had a hand in it.<note 6.> The Nican Mopohua was not reprinted or translated in full into Spanish until 1929, although an incomplete translation had been published in 1895 and Becerra Tanco's 1675 account (see next entry) has close affinities with it.<note 7.>
  • [3] The third work to be published was written by Luis Becerra Tanco who professed to correct some errors in the two previous accounts. Like Sánchez a Mexican-born Spanish diocesan priest, Becerra Tanco ended his career as professor of astrology and mathematics at the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico.<note 8.> As first published in Mexico City in 1666, Becerra Tanco's work was entitled Origen milagroso del Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe ("Miraculous origin of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe") and it gave an account of the apparitions mainly taken from de la Cruz' summary (see entry [1], above).<Brading, p.81> The text of the pamphlet was incorporated into the evidence given to a canonical inquiry conducted in 1666, the proceedings of which are known as the Informaciones Jurídicas de 1666 (see next entry). A revised and expanded edition of the pamphlet (drawing more obviously on the Nican Mopohua) was published posthumously in 1675 as Felicidad de Mexico and again in 1685 (in Seville, Spain). Republished in Mexico in 1780 and (as part of a collection of texts) republished in Spain in 1785, it became the primary source for the apparition narrative until displaced by the Nican Mopohua which gained a new readership from the Spanish translation published by Primo Velázquez in Mexico in 1929 becoming thereafter the narrative of choice.<Brading, pp. 76, 89 and 95> Like Sánchez, Becerra Tanco confirms the absence of any documentary source for the Guadalupe event in the official diocesan records, and asserts that knowledge of it depends on the oral tradition handed on by the natives and recorded by them first in paintings and later in an alphabetized Nahuatl.<note 9.> More precisely, Becerra Tanco claimed that before 1629 he had himself heard "cantares" (or memory songs) sung by the natives at Guadalupe celebrating the apparitions, and that he had seen among the papers of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (?1578-1650) (i) a "mapa" (or pictographic codex) which covered three centuries of native history, ending with the apparition at Tepeyac, and (ii) a manuscript book written in alphabetized Nahuatl by an Indian which described all five apparitions.<note 10.> In a separate section entitled Testificación he names five illustrious members of the ecclesiastical and secular elite from whom he personally had received an account of the tradition – quite apart from his Indian sources (whom he does not name).<note 11.>
  • [4] The fourth in time (but not in date of publication) is the Informaciones Jurídicas de 1666 already mentioned. As its name indicates, it is a collection of sworn testimonies; these were taken down in order to validate an application to Rome for liturgical recognition of the Guadalupe event. The collection includes reminiscences in the form of sworn statements by informants (many of them of advanced age, including eight Indians from Cuauhtitlán) who claimed to be transmitting accounts of the life and experiences of Juan Diego which they had received from parents, grandparents or others who had known or met him. The substance of the testimonies was reported by Florencia in chapter 13 of his work Estrella de el Norte de México (see next entry). Until very recently the only source for the text was a copy dating from 1737 of the translation made into Spanish which itself was first published in 1889.<note 12.> An original copy of the translation (dated 14 April 1666) was discovered by Eduardo Chávez Sánchex in July 2001 as part of his researches in the archives of the Basilica de Guadalupe.<note 13.>
  • [5] The last to be published was Estrella de el Norte de México by Francisco de Florencia, a Jesuit priest, which was published in Mexico in 1688 and then in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain, in 1741 and 1785, respectively.<note 14.> Florencia, while applauding Sánchez's theological meditations in themselves, considered that they broke the thread of the story. Accordingly, his account of the apparitions follows that of Mateo de la Cruz's abridgement.<note 15.> Although he identified various Indian documentary sources as corroborating his account (including materials used and discussed by Becerra Tanco, as to which see the preceding entry), Florencia considered that the cult's authenticity was amply proved by the tilma itself,<note 16.> and by what he called a "constant tradition from fathers to sons . . so firm as to be an irrefutable argument".<note 17.> Florencia had on loan from the famous scholar and polymath Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora two such documentary sources, one of which - the antigua relación (or, old account) - he discussed in sufficient detail to reveal that it was parallel to but not identical with the Huei tlamahuiçoltica. So far as concerns the life of Juan Diego (and of Juan Bernardino) after the apparitions, the antigua relación reported circumstantial details which embellish rather than add to what was already known.<cap. XIII §10> The other documentary source of Indian origin in Florencia's temporary possession was the text of a memory song said to have been composed by Don Placido, lord of Azcapotzalco, on the occasion of the solemn transfer of the Virgin's image to Tepeyac in 1531 – this he promised to insert later on in his history, but never did.<note 18.>

Note 1. Sánchez claimed in 1666 to have been researching the topic for "more than fifty years", see Poole (1995), p.102 Note 2. Brading, p.74; Poole (1995), p.109 Note 3. Florencia, cap. XIV, n° 183, foll.89v. and 90r.; Brading, p. 76 Note 4. Sousa et al., pp. 46-47; Brading, p. 360 Note 5. Sousa et al., pp. 5, 18-21, 47; their conclusion (b) was foreshadowed by Poole (1995), p. 221 and accepted as proved by Brading, pp. 358-360 and Burkhart (2000, p.1), despite the qualified nature of the claims actually made by the authors. Poole (loc. cit.), speaks of Lasso's "substantial or supervisory authorship even if most of the work was done by native assistants". Note 6. See sketch by Traslosheros citing Primo Feliciano Velázquez, Angel María Garibay and Miguel León Portilla, to whom can be added Eduardo O'Gorman and, from the 19th century, García Icazbalceta who (as others have done) linked it to the college of Santa Cruz at Tlatelolco (see Poole (1995), p.222). Note 7. Poole (1995), p.117 and pp. 145, 148 where he calls it a paraphrase; cf. Brading, p.89 who speaks of it as a "translation". Note 8. Poole (1995), pp. 143f; Brading, p.89; for his claim to be correcting errors in previous accounts, see p. viii of the prologue to the 1883 edition of Felicidad and ibid. p.24 where he calls it "la tradicion primera, mas antigua y mas fidedigna" (the first, most ancient and most credible tradition). Among the alleged errors are those relating to Juan Diego's residence in 1531 (Tolpetlac, p.2), and the material of the tilma (said to be palm, not maguey, fibre, p. 42). Note 9. 1883 edition, prologue, pp. vii and viii and p. 28 for the absence of official records, and pp. 33-36 for records of the native traditions. Note 10. For the "cantares" see p.38 of the 1883 edition; for reference to the native documents held by Alva, ibid., pp. 36f. Note 11. 1883 edition, pp.44-48; the named sources included Pedro Ponce de Léon (1546-1626), and Gaspar de Prabez (1548-1628) who said he had received the tradition from Antonio Valeriano. Note 12. See Poole (1995), p.138; he gives an abstract of the testimonies at ibid., pp.130-137 Note 13. Chávez Sánchez, Eduardo, La Virgen de Guadalupe y Juan Diego en las Informaciones Jurídicas de 1666, (con facsímil del original), Edición del Instituto de Estudios Teológicos e Históricos Guadalupanos, 2002. Note 14. It contains a reference to 1686 as the date when the work was still being composed (cap. XIII, n° 158, fol.74r.); for the dates of the 18th c. editions see "The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company", online catalogue, accessed February 26, 2011. It was republished in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico in 1895. A paperback edition was published in 2010 by Nabu Press, "Amazon online catalogue", accessed February 26, 2011. Note 15. cap. XIV, n° 182, fol.89v.; n° 183, fol.89v. Note 16. cap. X passim, n°65-83, foll.26r.-35r. Note 17. la tradición constante de padres á hijos, un tan firme como innegable argumento, cap. XI, n° 84, fol.35v. (and cap. XI passim); cf. passages to similar effect at cap.XII, n° 99, fol.43v., cap. XIII, n° 152, fol.70v., etc. Note 18. Florencia's treatment of the various documentary Indian sources for the Guadalupe event (capp. XIII §§8-10, XV, and XVI) is both confusing and not entirely satisfactory on several other grounds, including much of what is objected by Poole (1995) pp.159-162, and Brading, pp.104-107

Text of proposed new section ends. Ridiculus mus (talk) 08:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Projected re-write: Objections: the silence of the sources

Here follows proposed text discussing the "objection from silence"

Overview

Leaving aside any question as to the reality of supernatural events as such, the primary doubts about the historicity of Juan Diego (and the Guadalupe event itself) arise from the silence of those major sources who would be expected to have mentioned him, including, in particular, Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and the earliest ecclesiastical historians who reported the spread of the Catholic faith among the Indians in the early decades after the conquest of Tenochtítlan in 1521. Despite references in near-contemporary sources which do attest a mid-16th century cult attached to a miraculous image of the Virgin at a shrine at Tepeyac under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and despite the weight of oral tradition concerning Juan Diego and the apparitions (which, at the most, spans less than four generations before being reduced to writing), the fundamental objection of this silence of core 16th century sources remains a perplexing feature of the history of the cult which has, nevertheless, continued to grow outside Mexico and the Americas. The first writer to address this problem of the silence of the sources was Francisco de Florencia in chapter 12 of his book Estrella de el norte de Mexico, but it was not until 1794 that the argument from silence was presented to the public in detail by someone – Juan Bautista Muñoz – who clearly did not believe in the historicity of Juan Diego or of the apparitions. Substantially the same argument was publicized in updated form at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries in reaction to renewed steps taken by the ecclesiastical authorities to defend and promote the cult through the coronation of the Virgin in 1895 and the beatification of Juan Diego in 1990.<note 1.>

The silence of the sources can be examined by reference to two main periods: (i) 1531-1556 and (ii) 1556-1606 which, for convenience, may loosely be termed (i) Zumárraga's silence, and (ii) the Franciscan silence. Despite the accumulation of evidence by the start of the 17th century (including allusions to the apparitions and the miraculous origin of the image),<note 2.> the phenomenon of silence in the sources persists well into the second decade of that century, by which time the silence ceases to be prima facie evidence that there was no tradition of the Guadalupe event before the publication of the first narrative account of it in 1648. For example, Bernardo de Balbuena wrote a poem while in Mexico City in 1602 entitled La Grandeza Mexicana in which he mentions all the cults and sanctuaries of any importance in Mexico City except Guadalupe, and Antonio de Remesal published in 1620 a general history of the New World which devoted space to Zumárraga but was silent about Guadalupe.<on Balbuena, see Lafaye, pp.51-59 with 291; on de Remesal, see Poole (1995), p.94.>

Zumárraga's silence

Period (i) extends from the date of the alleged apparitions down to 1556, by which date there first emerges clear evidence of a Marian cult (a) located in an ermita or oratory at Tepeyac, (b) known under the name Guadalupe, (c) focussed on a painting, and (d) believed to be productive of miracles (especially miracles of healing). This first period itself divides into two unequal sub-periods either side of the year 1548 when Bishop Zumárraga died. The later sub-period can be summarily disposed of, for it is almost entirely accounted for by the delay between Zumárraga's death on 3 June 1548 and the arrival in Mexico of his successor, Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar, on 23 June 1554.<note 3.> During this interval there was lacking not only a bishop in Mexico City (the only local source of authority over the cult of the Virgin Mary and over the cult of the saints), but also an officially approved resident at the ermita – Juan Diego having died in the same month as Zumárraga, and no resident priest having been appointed until the time of Montúfar. In the circumstances, it is not surprising that a cult at Tepeyac (whatever its nature) should have fallen into abeyance. Nor is it a matter for surprise that a cult failed to spring up around Juan Diego's tomb at this time. The tomb of the saintly fray Martín de Valencia (the leader of the twelve pioneering Franciscan priests who had arrived in New Spain in 1524) was opened many times for more than thirty years after his death in 1534 until it was found, on the last occasion, to be empty. Dead or alive, fray Martín had failed to acquire a reputation as a miracle-worker.<note 4.>

Turning to the years before Zumárraga's death, there is no known document securely dated to the period 1531 to 1548 which mentions Juan Diego, a cult to the Virgin Mary at Tepeyac, or the Guadalupe event. The lack of any contemporary evidence linking Zumárraga with the Guadalupe event is particularly noteworthy, but, of the surviving documents attributable to him, only his will can be said to be just such a document as might have been expected to mention an ermita or the cult.<note 5.> In this will he left certain movable and personal items to the cathedral, to the infirmary of the monastery of St. Francis, and to the Conceptionist convent (all in Mexico City); divided his books between the library of the monastery of St Francis in Mexico City and the guesthouse of a monastery in his hometown of Durango, Spain; freed his slaves and disposed of his horses and mules; made some small bequests of corn and money; and gave substantial bequests in favour of two charitable institutions founded by him - one in Mexico City and one in Veracruz.<note 6.> Even without any testamentary notice, Zumárraga's lack of concern for the ermita at Tepeyac is amply demonstrated by the fact that the building said to have been erected there in 1531 was, at best, a simple adobe structure, built in two weeks and not replaced until 1556 (by Archbishop Montúfar, who built another adobe structure on the same site).<note 7.> Among the factors which might explain a change of attitude by Zumárraga to a cult which he seemingly ignored after his return from Spain in October 1534, the most prominent is a vigorous inquisition conducted by him between 1536 and 1539 specifically to root out covert devotion among Indians to pre-Christian deities. The climax of the sixteen trials in this period (involving 27 mostly high-ranking Indians) was the burning at the stake of Don Carlos Ometochtli, lord of the wealthy and important city of Texcoco, in 1539 - an event so fraught with potential for social and political unrest that Zumárraga was officially reprimanded by the Council of the Indies in Spain and subsequently relieved of his inquisitorial functions (in 1543).<note 8.> In such a climate and at such a time as that he can hardly have shown favour to a cult which had been launched without any prior investigation, had never been subjected to a canonical inquiry, and was focussed on a cult object with particular appeal to Indians at a site arguably connected with popular devotion to a pre-Christian female deity. Leading Franciscans were notoriously hostile to - or at best suspicious of - Guadalupe throughout the second half of the 16th century precisely on the grounds of practices arguably syncretic or worse. This is evident in the strong reaction evinced in 1556 when Zumárraga's successor signified his official support for the cult by rebuilding the ermita, endowing the sanctuary, and establishing a priest there the previous year. It is reasonable to conjecture that had Zumárraga shown any similar partiality for the cult from 1534 onwards (in itself unlikely, given his role as Inquisitor from 1535), he would have provoked a similar public rebuke.<note 9.>

The Franciscan silence

The second main period during which the sources are silent extends for the half century after 1556 when the then Franciscan provincial, fray Francisco de Bustamante, publicly rebuked Archbishop Montúfar for promoting the Guadalupe cult. In this period, three Franciscan friars (among others) were writing histories of New Spain and of the peoples (and their cultures) who either submitted to or were defeated by the Spanish Conquistadores. A fourth Franciscan friar, Toribio de Benevente (known as Motolinía), who had completed his history as early as 1541, falls outside this period, but his work was primarily in the Tlaxcala-Puebla area.<note 10.> One explanation for the Franciscans' particular antagonism to the Marian cult at Tepeyac is that (as Torquemada asserts in his Monarquía indiana, Bk.X, cap.28) it was they who had initiated it in the first place, before realising the risks involved.<note 11.> In due course this attitude was gradually relaxed, but not until some time after a change in spiritual direction in New Spain attributed to a confluence of factors including (i) the passing away of the first Franciscan pioneers with their distinct brand of evangelical millennarianism compounded of the ideas of Joachim de Fiore and Desiderius Erasmus (the last to die were Motolinía in 1569 and Andrés de Olmos in 1571), (ii) the arrival of Jesuits in 1572 (founded by Ignatius Loyola and approved as a religious order in 1540), and (iii) the assertion of the supremacy of the bishops over the Franciscans and the other mendicant Orders by the Third Mexican Council of 1585, thus signalling the end of jurisdictional arguments dating from the arrival of Zumárraga in Mexico in December 1528.<note 12.> > Other events largely impacting on society and the life of the Church in New Spain in the second half of the 16th century cannot be ignored in this context:- depopulation of the Indians through excessive forced labour and the great epidemics of 1545, 1576-1579 and 1595,<note 13.> and the Council of Trent, summoned in response to the pressure for reform, which sat in twenty-five sessions between 1545 and 1563 and which reasserted the basic elements of the Catholic faith and confirmed the continuing validity of certain forms of popular religiosity (including the cult of the saints).<note 14.> Conflict over an evangelical style of Catholicism promoted by Desiderius Erasmus - which Zumárraga and the Franciscan pioneers favoured - was terminated by the Catholic Church's condemnation of Erasmus' works in the 1550's. The themes of Counter-reformation Catholicism were strenuously promoted by the Jesuits, who enthusiastically took up the cult of Guadalupe in Mexico.<note 15.>

The basis of the Franciscans' disquiet and even hostility to Guadalupe was their fear that the evangelization of the Indians had been superficial, that the Indians had retained some of their pre-Christian beliefs, and, in the worst case, that Christian baptism was a cloak for persisting in pre-Christian devotions.<note 16.> These concerns are to be found in what was said or written by leading Franciscans such as fray Francisco de Bustamante (involved in a dispute on this topic with Archbishop Montúfar in 1556, as mentioned above);- fray Bernardino de Sahagún (whose Historia general was completed in 1576/7 with an appendix on surviving superstitions in which he singles out Guadalupe as a prime focus of suspect devotions);- fray Jerónimo de Mendieta (whose Historia eclesiástica indiana was written in the 1590's);- and fray Juan de Torquemada who drew heavily on Mendieta's unpublished history in his own work known as the Monarquía indiana (completed in 1615 and published in Seville, Spain, that same year). There was no uniform approach to the problem and some were less reticent than others. Bustamante publicly condemned the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe outright precisely because it was centred on a painting (which he was reported as having said had been painted "yesterday" by an Indian) to which miraculous powers were attributed,<see, Brading, pp.268-275> whereas Sahagún expressed deep reservations as to the Marian cult at Tepeyac without mentioning the cult image at all.<note 17.> Mendieta made no reference to the Guadalupe event although he paid particular attention to Marian and other apparitions and miraculous occurrences in Book IV of his history – none of which, however, had evolved into established cults centred on a cult object. He also drew attention to the practice of Indians concealing pre-Christian cult objects inside or behind Christian statues and crucifixes in order to mask the true focus of their devotion.<note 18.> Torquemada repeated, with variations, an established idea that churches had been deliberately erected to Christian saints at certain locations (Tepeyac among them) in order to channel pre-Christian devotions towards Christian cults.<note 19.>

The argument from silence is a blunt instrument, and only under very precise conditions can it be said to amount to negative evidence. A sermon preached by Miguel Sánchez himself in 1653 on the Immaculate Conception – in which he cites chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation but makes no mention of Guadalupe – is highly instructive when it comes to making deductions from mere silence in a source.<Poole (1995) p.109>


<Note 1. Brading claims de Florencia was the first writer to address the Franciscan silence: pp.103f.; for Muñoz, see ibid., pp.212-216; for the factionalism surrounding the coronation project between 1886 and 1895, see ibid., pp.267-287; for the Schulenberg affair in 1995/6, see ibid., pp.348f.> <Note 2. The earliest known copy of the tilma is significant in this regard - a painting by Baltasar de Echave Orio, signed and dated 1606. On the acheiropoietic iconology, see Jeanette Favrot Peterson, chapter 7 of Religion in New Spain, Susan Schroeder, Stafford Poole edd., University of New Mexico Press (2007), pp.125—156, at pp.130 and 150; and Clara Bargellini, "Originality and invention in the painting of New Spain", in Painting a new world: Mexican art and life, 1521-1821, by Donna Pierce, Rogelio Ruiz Gomar, Clara Bargellini, University of Texas Press (2004), pp.79-91, at p.86> <Note 3. Enciclopedia Franciscana; Poole (1995) p.58> <Note 4. Torquemada (no reference) cited by Brading at p.45; and see Enciclopedia Franciscana.> <Note 5. See Poole (1995) on (i) the reports of proceedings at the nine ecclesiastical juntas held between 1532 and 1548, and (ii) the joint letter of 1537 sent by Zumárraga and his brother bishops to the Emperor Charles V, as to both of which Poole remarks "undue importance should not be attached to . . failure to mention the apparitions", pp.37f.> <Note 6. The will (dated 2 June 1548) was published in 1881 by García Icazbelceta in Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga, primer Obispo y Arzobispo de México, in the appendix, docc. 41-43 at pp.171-181, and it is summarily noticed in Poole (1995), pp.35f.> <Note 7. For the construction of the first ermita, see Miguel Sánchez, Imagen at Sousa et al., p.141; for another reference to it, see letter of 23 September 1575 from the viceroy (Martín Enríquez) to King Philip II quoted in Poole (1995), p.73. For Montúfar's adobe ermita, see Francisco Miranda Gódinez: Dos cultos fundantes: los Remedios y Guadalupe, El Colegio de Michoacán A.C. (2001), pp.335, 351, 353. In 1562 it was allegedly "a mean and low building and so cheap that it is of very little value . . almost completely made of adobe and very low" (tan ruin y bajo edificio, y tan poco costoso que es de muy poco valor, y lo que está hecho por ser como es casi todo de adobes e muy bajo): E. R. Medrano: "Los negocios de un arzobispo: el caso de fray Alonso de Montúfar", Estudios de Historia Novohispana, No. 012, enero 1992, pp.63-83, apéndice 2, at p.83. But, according to the Protestant English pirate Miles Philips who saw it in 1568 on his way to Mexico City as a prisoner, the church was "very faire" and was decorated "by as many lamps of silver as there be dayes in the yeere, which upon high dayes are all lighted" (quoted in Brading, p.2).> <Note 8. Patricia Lopes Don: "The 1539 Inquisition and Trial of Don Carlos of Texcoco in Early Mexico", Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 88:4 (2008), pp.573-606, at pp.573f. and 605> <Note 9. The context is explored by Jacques Lafaye: Quetzacoátl and Guadalupe; see pp.239f. and, passim, chapters 3 "The Inquisition and the Pagan Underground", 8 "The First Franciscans", and 12 "Holy Mary and Tonantzin".> <Note 10. Hence the attention he gives in Bk. III, cap.14 to the three martyr children of Tlaxcala: Cristobal, Antonio and Juan - beatified with Juan Diego in May 1990: see Homily of John Paul II, 6 May 1990. <Note 11. See Lafaye, p.238; Franciscan acceptance of the cult as late as 1544 is implicit in the second Guadalupan miracle as related by Miguel Sánchez (see Sousa et al., pp.142f.)> <Note 12. See Lafaye, pp.30-34, with 242; Phelan, passim.> <Note 13. See ibid., pp.15f., 254; Phelan, chapter 10 on the epidemics> <Note 14. On the cult of the saints (including "the legitimate use of images") see Conc. Trid., Sess. XXV, de invocatione, veneratione et reliquiis sanctorum, et sacris imaginibus in Denzinger Schönmetzer Enchiridion Symbolorum (edn. 32, 1963) 1821-1825.> <Note 15. See Brading, pp.327f. for a discussion of Edmundo O'Gorman's argument in his Destierro des sombras(1986) which addresses this point.> <Note 16. See, e.g., John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World, California University Press (1956, 2nd edn. 1970), p.51; Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe, (1974, Engl. trans. University of Chicago Press, 1976), p.238; Poole (1995), at, e.g., pp.62, 68, 150 etc.> <Note 17. See Lafaye, pp.216f.; Brading, pp.214f.; and Poole (1995), p.78> <Note 18. Mendieta: Historia eclesiástica indiana, Bk. IV, capp. 24-28 for Marian apparitions etc.; Bk. III, cap.23 for Indians insinuating pre-Christian cult objects into churches.> <Note 19. Monarquía indiana, Bk.X, cap.8, quoted at Poole (1995), pp.92f.>

Proposed text ends. Ridiculus mus (talk) 19:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Projected re-write: Pastoral significance of St. Juan Diego in the Catholic Church in Mexico and beyond

The text of this, the final section of my projected re-write of the article, has been put on my user page at User:Ridiculus_mus/Tab_2 where it is available for comments and suggestions. In due course I shall move all the projected sections from here to there, with the references properly formatted to facilitate comment. With apologies to, and gratitude for the forbearance of, all who have visited this talk page since I began to over-populate it. Ridiculus mus (talk) 10:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Just took a brief look at it, but it appeared to be in good shape. Mamalujo (talk) 18:28, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

New proposed substituted article

The full text of the proposed re-write, with correctly formatted footnotes, is now available for comment at User:Ridiculus_mus/Tab_2. Of the sections of the article as projected by me on 11 February (see section 8 above) one was jettisoned as over-burdensome, impractical, and unnecessary ("Primary documentary materials from the 16th and 17th centuries"). Ridiculus mus (talk) 23:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not see why this rewrite was sat on for 2 years, so I am moving it now. Shii (tock) 15:23, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for moving it. The previous article was very contentious and I had promised not to replace it before garnering some kind of consensus. I agree that 2 years was long enough for objections to be raised (and almost none were while it languished on my userpage), but I note that since the transfer, an unparticularised objection has been registered (claiming lack of references [!], especially on the historicity topic) leading to the article to be marked as "needing immediate attention" in wikiprojects Biography, Mesoamerica/Aztec, and Saints. That type of objection does not assist in improving the quality of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ridiculus mus (talk • contribs) 19:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
ALERT - since all these comments (bar the last two) relate to the previous article, can everything not now be archived?Ridiculus mus (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The "immediate attention" comment was left in 2007 so we can delete it. I will get the page archived now. Shii (tock) 16:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks on both counts. Ridiculus mus (talk) 20:16, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

On impossibility of the word "Guadalupe" being used

In the segment on the debate over whether the story of Juan Diego represents a historical person or a fictional one, I included a link to the wiki article that tries to deal with the fact that the language that Juan Diego is asserted to have spoken could not possibly form the word "Guadalupe" as its significant in that the only tale we have that asserts this person existed has him saying a word that would not have been possible. I will reword the sentence in this article to clarify its relevance --Wowaconia (talk) 08:01, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

As of this edit the coverage in the article is WP:UNDUE according to the single book source you provide. Please either provide more reliable secondary sources or cut down the text to one or two sentences. Elizium23 (talk) 19:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Segment trimmed as suggested, will look for additional sources as well. --Wowaconia () 20:33, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I had previously advised Wowaconia via talk page to consider the treatment of this topic in the "Name" section of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As for the current edit, there is more than one actual "difficulty". What "text" claims to have been written in 1548? What "work" by Sánchez merits the date 1643? If these are Wills' blunders, they add salt to the more fundamental question : what in "Catholic author" qualifies a man to pronounce on language contact phenomena between Spanish and Nahua in New Spain the mid-1500's? As for people making sounds "impossible for them to make", the most common baptism names being taken in the first decades after the conquest included Domingo and Pedro for males and Magdalena for females. See: Cline, "The Book of Tributes: The Cuernavaca-region Censuses", in Lockhart et al. (edd.) Sources and Methods for the Study of Post-conquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory (2007-). Ridiculus mus (talk) 01:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree that presenting this as relevant to Juan Diego's biography is WP:SYNTH based largely on one book. Shii (tock) 01:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)


  • It seems you are holding that the only story we have of Diego's existence does not come into question if it has him speak in ways that would've been impossible for Nahuatl indian of his day. This seems similar to the difficulty Mormons encounter when maintaining that the American Indians that they hold wrote the Book of Mormon communicated in "Reformed Egyptian", their critics hold that this is dubious and reject the claim of historicity of anyone in those stories. A fact that is mentioned in the wiki-article Linguistics and the Book of Mormon.
Unlike the Book of Mormon where every character's historicity comes into question by questioning the problems with claims of language, in the Diego story, historians have ample proof for the existence of the bishop in that story so the only character notable enough to have his own wiki-article, but whose historicity is in question is Diego. The historicity of Diego is called into question by him having been held to have used a word that would be just as bizarre to an Nahuatl indian as claiming they communicated in "reformed egyptian". The theories to explain away the problem, show there is a problem - your argument seems to be that as there are theories on the subject there is no problem and it shouldn't be mentioned.
  • Yes there is a mention of the difficulty on other pages but it is Wikipedia's practice to have information that is relevant to an article appear in that article with greater depth on the subject being treated in an additional full article elsewhere.
For example the question of the historcity of the Book of Mormon is mentioned in brief on the main article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_mormon#Historical_authenticity
There is additionally a fuller treatment of the question in its own article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_authenticity_of_the_Book_of_Mormon
There is additionally a question about the difficulty of the linguistics around the question of historicity that gets its own article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics_and_the_Book_of_Mormon
(And, perhaps not germaine to this discussion, there are also further articles on questions about it such as Criticism of the Book of Mormon, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Genetics and the Book of Mormon, Origin of the Book of Mormon, and Book of Mormon anachronisms).
So the argument that as the subject is mentioned elsewhere, no mention of it should be brought up here is not one in accord with Wikipedia's norms.
  • Perhaps I need to offer clearer citations. Maybe you are under the impression that its just me having a problem with the language usage, rather its scholars I have read, so I will note that more clearly in the article.
Here are some of the references in full:
    • Jeanette Rodriguez,Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and Empowerment among Mexican-American Women, 1994, University of Texas Press
"the Nahuatl language does not contain the letters d and g; therefor Our Lady's name could not have been "Guadalupe".
Her note cites Xavier Escalada,Los catolicos hsipanos en los Estados Unidos,New York, Centra Catolico de Patoral para Hispanos del Nordest, 1965
    • Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797
By Stafford Poole, C.M.; University of Arizona Press, 1995
pg 31 "The other problem is to be found in the very name of the devotion, Guadalupe. Why were the image and shrine given a Spanish name of Arabic origin? The word was difficult for the Nahuas to pronounce because there is no g or d in Nahuatl."
The endnote to the passage refers the reader to Becerra Tano "Origen milagroso," in THG, 321 and Karttunen and Lockhart, "Nahuatl in the Middle Years", 1-15, esp. 3-4, which discusses intervocalic d pronounced as t or l.
This use of language causes difficulties with the story as Poole points out:
"Why the archbishop or those who were in his entourage could not have learned the correct Nahuatl term from the two Indians [Diego and his uncle] or why the latter would have permitted an incorrect name to be given to the chapel is not explained. Why, too, did the archbishop, who was so obedient to the Virgins' command to build a chapel, fail to obey her command to give it a specific name?"
  • I am not advocating that Wikipedia declare the story of Diego a myth, or that we choose one or the other theories that try to resolve the problem around his supposed use of the word "Guadalupe" and promote that, but that we include the existence of the problem in the article and link to a page that expresses the theories in greater depth. Just as Wikipedia does not declare that the characters within the Book of Mormon myths because of the B.O.M.'s own problems with Native American communication, but Wikipedia does point out that the critique exists.
==Wowaconia (talk) 20:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, this is some kind of progress, I guess. Nothing here supports the assertion that it was "impossible" for Nahuas to have spoken the name "Guadalupe" - certainly not Poole, who (p.32) dismisses the whole phonological/philological argument over "Guadalupe" and the search for Nahua antecedents of the name as premissed on a "fallacy".
The main issue remains, however - how is any of this relevant to the historicity of Juan Diego?Ridiculus mus (talk) 08:18, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Since Wowaconia has now expanded the contested edit to comprise three paragraphs ostensibly adverting to "an additional difficulty" regarding the historicity of Juan Diego, I need to amplify and modify my previous remarks at some length. The latest edit is now a bald mixture of WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE with multiple super-added issues of WP:RELIABLE.
It is undue coverage if and to the extent that it relies for a marginal and highly idiosyncratic point on one source (Garry Wills) who is not, in any event, a recognised authority on the subject – raising the additional issue of credibility. Wills postulates that the limitations of Nahuatl bear negatively on the historicity of Juan Diego because the name Guadalupe "contains sounds Nahuatl speakers could not make" (my emphasis). That is the only substantive point raised by the new section entitled Problem with the Nahuatl language (in itself a tendentious way of expressing a difference between Spanish and Nahuatl phonology).
If the argument from phonology to historicity had any relevance at all, why is it never deployed with reference to Juan Diego's own name? If the argument were valid, how comes it that very numerous other baptismal names taken by Nahuas in the first decades after the conquest also contain D's and G's? This should alert any reasonable person to a difficulty (an insurmountable one) not with the historicity of Juan Diego, but with Wills' argument.
In an attempt to bolster Wills, references have now been added to Stafford Poole and Rodriguez. I am not sure of the latter's current field, but when she was researching her book she was a Ph. D. candidate at the Graduate Theological Union (see her Appendix C). In any event, she is not a Nahuatl scholar (as the edit misleadingly implies), and she is hardly the obvious source for the information that Nahuatl had no voiced obstruents (including D and G) – so there is a major issue of WP:RELIABLE here. If neither of these sources confirms, corroborates or supports Wills' argument, then we are back with issues of WP:UNDUE and WP:RELIABLE relating to Wills.
The first paragraph, apart from its constituting a non sequitur, is pure WP:SYNTH. Who says that the lack of D and G in Nahuatl constitutes "an additional difficulty" for the historicity of Juan Diego? Apart from the editor and Wills (in the second paragraph), nobody. The references to Poole and Rodriguez are not in point. Nobody disputes that Nahuatl lacked D and G or that Nahuas would have found it difficult to pronounce Guadalupe. That is not the issue. No Nahua, by the same token, would have found it easy to pronounce Diego. Does that mean he didn't exist? Of course not.
More significantly, the sounds-Nahuas-could-not-make argument in this paragraph goes nowhere near supporting Wills' theory (cue my point about baptismal names). Neither Poole nor Rodriguez in the works cited connect the phonology point with the historicity of Juan Diego. They do not address, let alone support, the theory :-
Rodriguez', far from supporting Wills, or indeed, any argument proceeding from phonology to historicity, does not presume to enter into any aspect of the Guadalupe controversy at all (see, e.g., her Preface, at xviii, xix, and p. 17). Incidentally, it is not wiki policy to cite books without page references (Wikipedia:VERIFY). The relevant passage is on p. 45. of her book and it is manifest that her point there has nothing to do with the historicity of Juan Diego. Since Fr. Escalada (Rodriguez' source) was a prominent life-long supporter of the historicity of Juan Diego (see his 4 volume Enciclopedia Guadalupana,1995, appendix 1997, passim), it would have been astonishing to find him cited for any argument against it.
Poole treats the nomenclature as an internal difficulty of the apparition story and not as an argument against the historicity of Juan Diego (which he does not accept, but on other grounds). He, too, must be disregarded as a credible source for the Wills theory, not least because he says only that "the word 'Guadalupe' was difficult for Nahuas to pronounce" (my emphasis) and (contrary to what the edit implies) says nothing about Juan Diego's use of it.
So Wills stands alone and we are back with WP:UNDUE and WP:RELIABLE, and I propose deleting the section unless it is reformed or removed.
For completeness, I should say that nothing in the third paragraph relates to Juan Diego's historicity either, as might be guessed from the cited article Coatlaxopeuh which mentions Juan Diego but casts no doubt on the reality of his existence. Ridiculus mus (talk) 14:20, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Changed the segment and expanded info from Poole as per your suggestions. You'll note he does address your question on names. Thanks for your input. --Wowaconia (talk) 17:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks are seriously premature. I deplore the fact that Wowaconia persisted with disputed edits without trying to build consensus in talk. The result is multipe re-edits, treating the article as a sand-box : this is not good practice. I tried correcting blatant errors and omissions, but I still dispute the section.
The current state of affairs is this: (1) a theory propounded by Wills now occupies a large section; (2) Rodríguez is no longer cited, but the material alleging support from Poole is greatly amplified.
Trouble is, Poole doesn't support Wills' theory either. At the top of p. 31 of his 1995 book he notes a curious aspect of Juan Diego's name, but adduces there no argument based on Nahuatl's lack of "d" and "g" – either as regards Guadalupe or as regards Juan Diego's own name or his uncle's (Juan Bernardino). Two paragraphs and 28 lines later, Poole turns to the name Guadalupe, alludes to Nahuatl phonology, and uses all of p. 32 to dismiss speculations that it was an attempt by Spaniards to make sense of Nahuatl sounds incomprehensible to them. But Poole nowhere uses this Nahuatl phonology argument to dispute the historicity of Juan Diego.
Specifically, Poole does not (contrary to Wowconia's edit) cite Juan Diego's alleged "use" of Guadalupe on p. 31 or anywhere. Nothing in the standard account of the apparitions has the Virgin telling Juan Diego that she wanted to be known as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Nothing in the standard account even puts Guadalupe into his mouth. Poole neither states nor implies the contrary. The Nahuatl phonology argument does not touch Juan Diego, let alone his historicity.
So much for WP:UNDUE. I now add WP:RELIABLE. Disregarding the Poole material, the section hangs exclusively on Wills' 2002 book Why I am a Catholic. Wills (a) is not an expert on New Spain or Nahuatl, (b) does not propound his theory in a scholarly work on either topic but in a personal apologia (with 200 pages on the history of the Papacy), and (c) dedicated, at most, two pages to Juan Diego, with a sentence or two on Nahuatl phonology. Wills' primary interest in the historicity argument would seem to be that the 2002 canonisation offered a fresh opportunity to take cheap shot at John Paul II. Ridiculus mus (talk) 17:57, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
The entire section is premissed on Juan Diego's use of the name Guadalupe. Although I have entered a citation request, I am satisfied one cannot be given, since (as I have explained above) the entire theory is bogus - nowhere in the standard apparitions account is Juan Diego said to have used the name Guadalupe. After this has sunk in (and allowing Wowaconia time to try to provide the needed citation), I shall take steps to delete the section. I am also posting this comment at Wowaconia talk. Thank you. Ridiculus mus (talk) 15:51, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Although I wasn't actually participating in this discussion, I agree that this is a bad addition to a very long article and doesn't belong as part of Juan Diego's biography, not to mention anywhere else. See WP:FRINGE. Shii (tock) 16:39, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

To Shii's point Poole isn't Fringe, and the question of historicity remains. Ridiculus mus' point is better made as the popular retelling have Diego say the name, but he is correct in pointing us to the original accounts which upon examination only have his uncle say the name, so that might be a factor for an article on his uncle but is too strained to be worthy of inclusion here so I will delete it. Thank you for your input. --Wowaconia (talk) 16:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

"Indian" vs indigenous

Evidently in Mexico "indigenous peoples" is preferred - except of course in a translation. So, "indigenous person"? Doug Weller talk 07:34, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Merger of sections

Should the sections of Historicity debate and Historicity arguments be merged? They seem as if they are the same topic of questioning the historicity of the event and therefore should be merged because the two sections are basically the same topic in my opinion. Doing so would make an easier and clearer read for the viewer. Inter&anthro (talk) 01:07, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Why isn't the section on "Earliest published narrative sources" in the Our Lady of Guadalupe article, rather than this one?

I can see the relevance of the two "Historicity" sections, I guess, but it seems like the long discussion of published narratives relates more to the overall Guadalupe cult and less to Juan Diego himself, and therefore should be in the other article with maybe a brief summary here.

I'm open to having someone explain to me why the section is here rather than there, though...TheBlinkster (talk) 17:31, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I suppose they are so interconnected that by talking about one you're also talking about the other. The emphasis does seem to be on Our Lady of Guadalupe rather than Juan Diego though. I would not be opposed to a merging, although the text here seems to be quite detailed so I'd hate to see that content be lost. Sizeofint (talk) 00:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. Yes, I agree it's very detailed, I am not in a rush to merge it. I just happened to look at these pages to read up on the feast which was yesterday, and got quite lost in the maze of detail which seemed to go more to the apparition than to Juan Diego himself, so I wasn't sure I was fully understanding the situation. If I have a chance to look at it in more detail down the road, maybe I will; otherwise if anyone else reads this and is moved to attempt some better organization, please feel free :) TheBlinkster (talk) 20:24, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
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