Editing Our Lady of Guadalupe (section)

==Cultural significance==
[[File:Alegoría de la declaración pontifica del patronato Guadalupano sobre la Nueva España, anónimo novohispano, S. XVIII.jpg|thumb|250px|Allegory of the papal declaration in 1754 by pope [[Benedict XIV]] of Our Lady of Guadalupe patronage over New Spain in the presence of the viceroyal authorities. Anonymous (Mexican) author, 18th century.]]

Juan Diego's tilma has become Mexico's most popular religious and cultural symbol, and has received widespread ecclesiastical and popular veneration. In the 19th century it became the rallying cry of the Spaniards born in America, in what they denominated 'New Spain'. They said they considered the apparitions as legitimizing their own indigenous Mexican origin. They infused it with an almost messianic sense of mission and identity, thereby also justifying their armed rebellion against Spain.<ref name = "Poole">Poole, Stafford. ''Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797'' (1995)</ref><ref name = "Taylor">Taylor, William B., ''Shrines and Miraculous Images: Religious Life in Mexico Before the Reforma'' (2011)</ref>

===Symbol of Mexico===
[[File:Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg|thumb|left|[[Luis de Mena]], [[Virgin of Guadalupe]] and [[castas]], 1750, a frequently reproduced painting, uniquely uniting the image Virgin and a depiction of the [[casta]] system]]

''Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe'' became a recognized symbol of Catholic Mexicans. [[Miguel Sanchez (writer)|Miguel Sánchez]], the author in 1648 of the first published account of the vision, identified Guadalupe as ''Revelation's'' [[Woman of the Apocalypse]], and said:

<blockquote>... this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary&nbsp;... who had prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this, her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image.{{sfn|Brading|2001|p=58}}</blockquote>

Throughout the Mexican national history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Guadalupan name and image have been unifying national symbols; the first [[President of Mexico]] (1824–1829) changed his name from José Miguel Ramón Adaucto Fernández y Félix to [[Guadalupe Victoria]] in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.<ref name="krauze"/> Father [[Miguel Hidalgo]], in the [[Mexican War of Independence]] (1810), and [[Emiliano Zapata]], in the [[Mexican Revolution]] (1910), led their respective armed forces with Guadalupan [[flag]]s emblazoned with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Galeano |first=Eduardo |title=Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent |date=January 1997 |isbn=978-0853459910 |pages=46}}</ref> In 1999, the Church officially proclaimed her the ''Patroness of the Americas'', the ''Empress of Latin America'', and the ''Protectress of Unborn Children''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T9beDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT988|title=The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities|date=2016|isbn=9780190614171|publisher=Oxford University Press|editor1=Jonathan M. Dueck|editor2=Suzel Ana Reily|page=988}}</ref>

In 1810, [[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!" When Hidalgo's mestizo-indigenous army attacked [[Guanajuato]] and [[Morelia|Valladolid]], they placed "the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was the insignia of their enterprise, on sticks or on reeds painted different colors" and "they all wore a print of the Virgin on their hats."<ref name="krauze" >Krauze, Enrique. Mexico, Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico 1810–1996. HarperCollins: New York, 1997.</ref> After Hidalgo's death, leadership of the revolution fell to a [[mestizo]] priest named [[José María Morelos]], who led insurgent troops in the Mexican south. Morelos adopted the Virgin as the seal of his [[Congress of Chilpancingo]], inscribing her feast day into the [[Chilpancingo]] constitution and declaring that Guadalupe was the power behind his victories:

<blockquote>New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection.<ref name="krauze" /></blockquote>

[[Simón Bolívar]] noticed the Guadalupan theme in these uprisings, and shortly before Morelos's execution in 1815 wrote: "the leaders of the independence struggle have put [[fanaticism]] to use by proclaiming the famous Virgin of Guadalupe as the queen of the patriots, praying to her in times of hardship and displaying her on their flags... the [[veneration]] for this image in Mexico far exceeds the greatest reverence that the shrewdest prophet might inspire."{{sfn|Brading|2001|p=58}}

In 1912, [[Emiliano Zapata]]'s peasant army rose out of the south against the government of [[Francisco Madero]]. Though Zapata's rebel forces were primarily interested in [[land reform]]—"tierra y libertad" ('land and liberty') was the [[slogan]] of the uprising—when his peasant troops penetrated [[Mexico City]], they carried Guadalupan banners.<ref>Documentary footage of Zapata and Pancho Villa's armies entering Mexico City can be seen at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_wAoEqeHKU YouTube.com], Zapata's men can be seen carrying the flag of the Guadalupana about 38 seconds in.</ref> More recently, the contemporary Zapatista National Liberation Army ([[EZLN]]) named their "mobile city" in honor of the Virgin: it is called Guadalupe Tepeyac. EZLN spokesperson [[Subcomandante Marcos]] wrote a humorous letter in 1995 describing the EZLN bickering over what to do with a Guadalupe statue they had received as a gift.<ref>Subcomandante Marcos, [https://web.archive.org/web/20000523012900/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/marcos_virgin_mar95.html Flag.blackened.net], "Zapatistas Guadalupanos and the Virgin of Guadalupe" March 24, 1995, accessed December 11, 2006.</ref>

===Mexican culture===
[[File:Virgen de Guadalupe Notre Dame Paris Francia.JPG|thumb|200px|left|Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the cathedral of [[Notre-Dame de Paris]], [[Paris]], France]]
[[File:LA Cathedral Lady of Guadalupe statue.jpg|right|150px|thumb| Reliquary in the [[Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels]] in [[Los Angeles]], United States, containing a fragment of the tilma of [[Juan Diego]]]]

Harringon argues that: The Aztecs... had an elaborate, coherent symbolic system for making sense of their lives. When this was destroyed by the Spaniards, something new was needed to fill the void and make sense of New Spain&nbsp;... the image of Guadalupe served that purpose.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harrington |first1=Patricia |title=Mother of Death, Mother of Rebirth: The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |date=1988 |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=25–50 |doi=10.1093/jaarel/LVI.1.25 |jstor=1464830 }}</ref>

According to the traditional account, the name of Guadalupe, as the name was heard or understood by Spaniards, was chosen by the Virgin herself when she appeared on the hill outside Mexico City in 1531, ten years after the Conquest.<ref>[http://www.sancta.org/nameguad.html Sancta.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071029110356/http://www.sancta.org/nameguad.html |date=October 29, 2007 }}, "Why the name 'of Guadalupe'?", accessed November 30, 2006</ref>

Guadalupe continues to be a mixture of the cultures which blended to form Mexico, both racially and religiously,<ref name="guide">Elizondo, Virgil. [http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Dec1999/feature2.asp AmericanCatholic.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071026060338/http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Dec1999/feature2.asp |date=October 26, 2007 }}, "Our Lady of Guadalupe. A Guide for the New Millennium" St. Anthony Messenger Magazine Online. December 1999; accessed December 3, 2006.</ref> "the first [[mestiza]]",<ref>Lopez, Lydia. "'Undocumented Virgin.' Guadalupe Narrative Crosses Borders for New Understanding." Episcopal News Service. December 10, 2004.</ref> or "the first Mexican",<ref name="king"/> "bringing together people of distinct cultural heritages, while at the same time affirming their distinctness."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Connor |first1=Mary |title=The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior |journal=Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion |date=1989 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=105–119 |doi=10.2307/1387053 |jstor=1387053 }}</ref> As [[Jacques Lafaye]] wrote in ''Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe'', "as the Christians built their first churches with the rubble and the columns of the ancient [[Paganism|pagan]] temples, so they often borrowed pagan customs for their own [[cult]] purposes."<ref name="lafay" >Lafaye, Jacques. ''Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe. The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1976</ref> The author Judy King asserts that Guadalupe is a "common denominator" uniting Mexicans. Writing that Mexico is composed of a vast patchwork of differences—linguistic, ethnic, and class-based—King says "The Virgin of Guadalupe is the rubber band that binds this disparate nation into a whole."<ref name="king" >{{cite news |last1=King |first1=Judy |title=La Virgen de Guadalupe - Mother of all Mexico |url=https://www.mexconnect.com/articles/1404-la-virgen-de-guadalupe-mother-of-all-mexico/ |work=MexConnect |date=May 29, 2020 }}</ref>
The Mexican novelist, [[Carlos Fuentes]], once said that "you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe."<ref>Demarest, Donald. "Guadalupe Cult&nbsp;... In the Lives of Mexicans." p. 114 in ''A Handbook on Guadalupe'', Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, eds. Waite Park MN: Park Press Inc, 1996</ref> [[Nobel Prize in Literature|Nobel Literature laureate]] [[Octavio Paz]] wrote in 1974 that "The Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments and defeats, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the [[National Lottery for Public Assistance|National Lottery]]."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Paz |first1=Octavio |chapter=Foreword |pages=ix–xxii |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWJJua4aoGcC&pg=PR9 |editor1-last=Lafaye |editor1-first=Jacques |title=Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1531–1813 |date=1987 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-46788-7 }}</ref>