Here in the United States of America there are many people who know very little about the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe being celebrated on Decmber 12 throughout the Americas but more in Latin America, especially in Latin America, intensely in Mexico and most of all at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac in the Federal District of Mexico City where millions of pilgrims are gathered today. However, we also had a gathering of hundreds of Hispanics and a few others to celebrate the feast of the Patroness ot the America’s in my home town last night. There were processions, a mass, a feast of foods, dances by Danzantes recalling Aztec dances as well as some with questionable provenance and intention that have long been part of the holiday. The Honoring of Our Lady of Guadalupe is extremely significant in numerous and diverse ways. From a linguistic and literary point of view it is an important tie to Abroiginal American language. The many serious narratives, songs, poems, marching chants and children’s stories which have been written about the apparitions of the Lady of Guadalupe (mostly in Spanish) are all directly or indirectly inspired by the Nican Mopohua, or Huei Tlamahuitzoltica, written in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, by the Indian scholar Antonio Valeriano in the early 1550s. There is brief collateral testimony in writing of seeing this work from almost the time it was written but no early manuscript has been found to survive to our time. The document referred to today is a printed copy that was first published in Nahuatl by Luis Lasso de la Vega in 1649.
In English this is the text:
Ten years after the seizure of the city of Mexico, war came to an end and there was peace amongst the people; in this manner faith started to bud, the understanding of the true God, for whom we live. At that time, in the year fifteen hundred and thirty one, in the early days of the month of December, it happened that there lived a poor Indian, named Juan Diego, said being a native of Cuautitlan. Of all things spiritually he belonged to Tlatilolco.
FIRST APPARITION On a Saturday just before dawn, he was on his way to pursue divine worship and to engage in his own errands. As he reached the base of the hill known as Tepeyac, came the break of day, and he heard singing atop the hill, resembling singing of varied beautiful birds.
Occasionally the voices of the songsters would cease, and it appeared as if the mount responded. The song, very mellow and delightful, excelled that of the coyoltototl and the tzinizcan and of other pretty singing birds. Juan Diego stopped to look and said to himself: “By fortune, am I worthy of what I hear? Maybe I dream? Am I awakening? Where am I? Perhaps I am now in the terrestrial paradise which our elders had told us about? Perhaps I am now in heaven?” He was looking toward the east, on top of the mound, from whence came the precious celestial chant; and then it suddenly ceased and there was silence. He then heard a voice from above the mount saying to him: “Juanito, Juan Dieguito.” Then he ventured and went to where he was called. He was not frightened in the least; on the contrary, overjoyed.
Then he climbed the hill, to see from were he was being called. When he reached the summit, he saw a Lady, who was standing there and told him to come hither. Approaching her presence, he marveled greatly at her superhuman grandeur; her garments were shining like the sun; the cliff where she rested her feet, pierced with glitter, resembling an anklet of precious stones, and the earth sparkled like the rainbow. The mezquites, nopales, and other different weeds, which grow there, appeared like emeralds, their foliage like turquoise, and their branches and thorns glistened like gold. He bowed before her and herd her word, tender and courteous, like someone who charms and steems you highly. She said: “Juanito, the most humble of my sons, where are you going?” He replied: “My Lady and Child, I have to reach your church in Mexico, Tlatilolco, to pursue things divine, taught and given to us by our priests, delegates of Our Lord.” She then spoke to him: “Know and understand well, you the most humble of my son, that I am the ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth. I wish that a temple be erected here quickly, so I may therein exhibit and give all my love, compassion, help, and protection, because I am your merciful mother, to you, and to all the inhabitants on this land and all the rest who love me, invoke and confide in me; listen there to their lamentations, and remedy all their miseries, afflictions and sorrows. And to accomplish what my clemency pretends, go to the palace of the bishop of Mexico, and you will say to him that I manifest my great desire, that here on this plain a temple be built to me; you will accurately relate all you have seen and admired, and what you have heard. Be assured that I will be most grateful and will reward you, because I will make you happy and worthy of recompense for the effort and fatigue in what you will obtain of what I have entrusted. Behold, you have heard my mandate, my humble son; go and put forth all your effort.” At this point he bowed before her and said: “My Lady, I am going to comply with your mandate; now I must part from you, I, your humble servant.” Then he descended to go to comply with the errand, and went by the avenue which runs directly into Mexico City.
SECOND APPARITION Having entered the city, and without delay, he went straight to the bishop’s palace, who was the recently arrived prelate named Father Juan de Zumarraga, a Franciscan religious. On arrival, he endeavored to see him; he pleaded with the servants to announce him; and after a long wait, he was called and advised that the bishop had ordered his admission. As he entered, he bowed, and on bended knees before him, he then delivered the message from the lady from heaven; he also told him all he had admired, seen, and heard. After having heard his chat and message, it appeared incredible; then he told him: “You will return, my son, and I will hear you at my pleasure. I will review it from the beginning and will give thought to the wishes and desires for which you have come.” He left and he seemed sad, because his message had not been realized in any of its forms.He returned on the same day. He came directly to the top of the hill, met the Lady from heaven, who was awaiting him, in the same spot where he saw her the first time. Seeing her, postrated before her, he said: “Lady, the least of my daughters, my Child, I went where you sent me to comply with your command. With difficulty I entered the prelate’s study. I saw him and exposed your message, just as you instructed me. He received me benevolently and listened attentively, but when he replied, it appeared that he did not believe me. He said: “You will return; I will hear you at my pleasure. I will review from the beginning the wish and desire which you have brought.” I perfectly understood by the manner he replied that he believes it to be an invention of mine that you wish that a temple be built here to you, and that it is not your order; for which I exceedingly beg, Lady and my Child, that you entrust the delivery of your message to someone of importance, well known, respected, and esteemed, so that they may believe in him; because I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf, and you, my Child, the least of my children, my Lady, you send me to a place where I never visit nor repose. Please excuse the great unpleasantness and let not fretfulness befall, my Lady and my All.”
The Blessed Virgin answered: “Hark, my son the least, you must understand that I have many servants and messengers, to whom I must entrust the delivery of my message, and carry my wish, but it is of precise detail that you yourself solicit and assist and that through your mediation my wish be complied. I earnestly implore, my son the least, and with sternness I command that you again go tomorrow and see the bishop. You go in my name, and make known my wish in its entirety that he has to start the erection of a temple which I ask of him. And again tell him that I, in person, the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God, sent you.” Juan Diego replied: “Lady, my Child, let me not cause you affliction. Gladly and willingly I will go to comply your mandate. Under no condition will I fail to do it, for not even the way is distressing. I will go to do your wish, but perhaps I will not be heard with liking, or if I am heard I might not be believed. Tomorrow afternoon, at sunset, I will come to bring you the result of your message with the prelate’s reply. I now take leave, my Child, the least, my Child and Lady. Rest in the meantime.” He then left to rest in his home.
THIRD APPARITION The next day, Sunday, before dawn, he left home on his way to Tlatilolco, to be instructed in things divine, and to be present for roll call, following which he had to see the prelate. Nearly at ten, and swiftly, after hearing Mass and being counted and the crowd had dispersed, he went. On the hour Juan Diego left for the palace of the bishop. Hardly had he arrived, he eagerly tried to see him. Again with much difficulty he was able to see him. He kneeled before his feet. He saddened and cried as he expounded the mandate of the Lady from heaven, which God grant he would believe his message, and the wish of the Immaculate, to erect her temple where she willed it to be. The bishop, to assure himself, asked many things, where he had seen her and how she looked; and he described everything perfectly to the bishop. Notwithstanding his precise explanation of her figure and all that he had seen and admired, which in itself reflected her as being the ever-virgin Holy Mother of the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, nevertheless, he did not give credence and said that not only for his request he had to do what he had asked; that, in addition, a sign was very necessary, so that he could be believed that he was sent by the true Lady from heaven. Therefore, he was heard, said Juan Diego to the bishop: “My lord, hark! what must be the sign that you ask? For I will go to ask the Lady from heaven who sent me here.” The bishop, seeing that he ratified everything without doubt and was not retracting anything, dismissed him. Immediately he ordered some persons of his household, in whom he could trust, to go and watch where he went and whom he saw and to whom he spoke. So it was done. Juan Diego went straight to the avenue. Those that followed him, as they crossed the ravine, near the bridge to Tepeyacac, lost sight of him. They searched everywhere, but he could not be seen. Thus they returned, not only because they were disgusted, but also because they were hindered in their intent, causing them anger. And that is what they informed the bishop, influencing him not to believe Juan Diego; they told him that he was being deceived; that Juan Diego was only forging what he was saying, or that he was simply dreaming what he said and asked. They finally schemed that if he ever returned, they would hold and punish him harshly, so that he would never lie or deceive again.In the meantime, Juan Diego was with the Blessed Virgin, relating the answer he was bringing from his lordship, the bishop. The lady, having heard, told him: “Well and good, my little dear, you will return here tomorrow, so you may take to the bishop the sign he has requested. With this he will believe you, and in this regard he will not doubt you nor will he be suspicious of you; and know, my little dear, that I will reward your solicitude and effort and fatigue spent of my behalf. Lo! go now. I will await you here tomorrow.”
FOURTH APPARITION On the following day, Monday, when Juan Diego was to carry a sign so he could be believed, he failed to return, because, when he reached his home, his uncle, named Juan Bernardino, had become sick, and was gravely ill. First he summoned a doctor who aided him; but it was too late, he was gravely ill. By nightfall, his uncle requested that by break of day he go to Tlatilolco and summon a priest, to prepare him and hear his confession, because he was certain it was time for him to die, and that he would not arise or get well.On Tuesday, before dawn, Juan Diego came from his home to Tlatilolco to summon a priest; and as he approached the road which joins the slope to Tepeyacac hilltop, toward the west, where he was accustomed to cross, said: “If I proceed forward, the Lady is bound to see me, and I may be detained, so I may take the sign to the prelate, as prearranged; that our first affliction must let us go hurriedly to call a priest, as my poor uncle certainly awaits him.” Then he rounded the hill, going around, so he could not be seen by her who sees well everywhere. He saw her descend from the top of the hill and was looking toward where they previously met. She approached him at the side of the hill and said to him: “What’s there, my son the least? Where are you going?” Was he grieved, or ashamed, or scared? He bowed before her. He saluted, saying: “My Child, the most tender of my daughters, Lady, God grant you are content. How are you this morning? Is your health good, Lady and my Child? I am going to cause you grief. Know, my Child, that a servant of yours is very sick, my uncle. He has contracted the plague, and is near death. I am hurrying to your house in Mexico to call one of your priests, beloved by our Lord, to hear his confession and absolve him, because, since we were born, we came to guard the work of our death. But if I go, I shall return here soon, so I may go to deliver your message. Lady and my Child, forgive me, be patient with me for the time being. I will not deceive you, the least of my daughters. Tomorrow I will come in all haste.”
After hearing Juan Diego’s chat, the Most Holy Virgin answered: “Hear me and understand well, my son the least, that nothing should frighten or grieve you. Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything. Do not be afflicted by the illness of your uncle, who will not die now of it. be assured that he is now cured.” (And then his uncle was cured, as it was later learned.)When Juan Diego heard these words from the Lady from heaven, he was greatly consoled. He was happy. He begged to be excused to be off to see the bishop, to take him the sign or proof, so that he might be believed. The Lady from heaven ordered to climb to the top of the hill, where they previously met. She told him: “Climb, my son the least, to the top of the hill; there where you saw me and I gave you orders, you will find different flowers. Cut them, gather them, assemble them, then come and bring them before my presence.” Immediately Juan Diego climbed the hill, and as he reached the summit, he was amazed that so many varieties of exquisite rosas de Castilla were blooming, long before the time when they are to bud, because, being out of season, they would freeze. They were very fragant and covered with dewdrops of the night, which resembled precious pearls. Immediately he started cutting them. He gathered them all and placed them in his tilma. The hilltop was no place for any kind of flowers to grow, because it had many crags, thistles, thorns, nopales and mezquites. Occasionally weeds would grow, but it was then the month of December, in which all vegetation is destroyed by freezing. He immediately went down the hill and brought the different roses which he had cut to the Lady from heaven, who, as she saw them, took them with her hand and again placed them back in the tilma, saying: “My son the least, this diversity of roses is the proof and the sign which you will take to the bishop. You will tell him in my name that he will see in them my wish and that he will have to comply to it. You are my ambassador, most worthy of all confidence. Rigorously I command you that only before the presence of the bishop will you unfold your mantle and disclose what you are carrying. You will relate all and well; you will tell that I ordered you to climb to the hilltop, to go and cut flowers; and all that you saw and admired, so you can induce the prelate to give his support, with the aim that a temple be built and erected as I have asked.”After the Lady from heaven had given her advice, he was on his way by the avenue that goes directly to Mexico; being happy and assured of success, carrying with great care what he bore in his tilma, being careful; that nothing would slip from his hands, and enjoying the fragrance of the variety of the beautiful flowers.
THE MIRACLE OF THE IMAGE When he reached the bishop’s palace, there came to meet him the majordomo and other servants of the prelate. He begged them to tell the bishop that he wished to see him, but none were willing, pretending not to hear him, probably because it was too early, or because they already knew him as being of the molesting type, because he was pestering them; and, moreover, they had been advised by their co-workers that they had lost sight of him, when they had followed him.
He waited a long time. When they saw that he had been there a long time, standing, crestfallen, doing nothing, waiting to be called, and appearing like he had something which he carried in his tilma, they came near him, to see what he had and to satisfy themselves. Juan Diego, seeing that he could not hide what he had, and on account of that he would be molested, pushed or mauled, uncovered his tilma a little, and there were the flowers; and upon seeing that they were all different rosas de Castilla, and out of season, they were thoroughly amazed, also because they were so fresh and in full bloom, so fragrant and so beautiful. They tried to seize and pull some out, but they were not successful the three times they dared to take them. They were not lucky because when then tried to get them, they were unable to see real flowers. Instead, they appeared painted or stamped or sewn on the cloth. Then they went to tell the bishop what they had seen and that the Indian who had come so many times wished to see him, and that he had reason enough so long anxiously eager to see him.Upon hearing, the bishop realized that what he carried was the proof, to confirm and comply with what the Indian requested. Immediately he ordered his admission. As he entered, Juan Diego knelt before him, as he was accustomed to do, and again related what he had seen and admired, also the message. He said: “Sir, I did what you ordered, to go forth and tell my Ama, the Lady from heaven, Holy Mary, precious Mother of God, that you asked for a sign so that you might believe me that you should build a temple where she asked it to be erected; also, I told her that I had given you my word that I would bring some sign and proof, which you requested, of her wish. She condescended to your request and graciously granted your request, some sign and proof to complement her wish. Early today she again sent me to see you; I asked for the sign so you might believe me, as she had said that she would give it, and she complied. She sent me to the top of the hill, where I was accustomed to see her, and to cut a variety of rosas de Castilla. After I had cut them, I brought them, she took them with her hand and placed them in my cloth, so that I bring them to you and deliver them to you in person. Even though I knew that the hilltop was no place where flowers would grow, because there are many crags, thistles, thorns, nopales and mezquites, I still had my doubts. As I approached the top of the hill, I saw that I was in paradise, where there was a great variety of exquisite rosas de Castilla, in brilliant dew, which I immediately cut. She had told me that I should bring them to you, and so I do it, so that you may see in them the sign which you asked of me and comply with her wish; also, to make clear the veracity of my word and my message. Behold. Receive them.”
He unfolded his white cloth, where he had the flowers; and when they scattered on the floor, all the different varieties of rosas de Castilla, suddenly there appeared the drawing of the precious Image of the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God, in the manner as she is today kept in the temple at Tepeyacac, which is named Guadalupe.
When the bishop saw the image, he and all who were present fell to their knees. She was greatly admired. They arose to see her; they shuddered and, with sorrow, they demonstrated that they contemplated her with their hearts and minds. The bishop, with sorrowful tears, prayed and begged forgiveness for not having attended her wish and request. When he rose to his feet, he untied from Juan Diego’s neck the cloth on which appeared the Image of the Lady from heaven. Then he took it to be placed in his chapel. Juan Diego remained one more day in the bishop’s house, at his request.The following day he told him: Well! show us where the Lady from heaven wished her temple be erected.” Immediately, he invited all those present to go.
APPARITION TO JUAN BERNARDINO As Juan Diego pointed out the spot where the lady from heaven wanted her temple built, he begged to be excused. He wished to go home to see his uncle Juan Bernardino, who was gravely ill when he left him to go to Tlatilolco to summon a priest, to hear his confession and absolve him. The Lady from heaven had told him that he had been cured. But they did not let him go alone, and accompanied him to his home.
As they arrived, they saw that his uncle was very happy and nothing ailed him. He was greatly amazed to see his nephew so accompanied and honored, asking the reason of such honors conferred upon him. His nephew answered that when he went to summon a priest to hear his confession and to absolve him, the Lady from heaven appeared to him at Tepeyacac, telling him not to be afflicted, that his uncle was well, for which he was greatly consoled, and she sent him to Mexico, to see the bishop, to build her a house in Tepeyacac.
Then the uncle manifested that it was true that on that occasion he became well and that he had seen her in the same manner as she had appeared to his nephew, knowing through her that she had sent him to Mexico to see the bishop. Also, the Lady told him that when he would go to see the bishop, to reveal to him what he had seen and to explain the miraculous manner in which she had cured him, and that she would properly be named, and known as the blessed Image, the ever-virgin Holy Mary of Guadalupe.
Juan Bernardino was brought before the presence of the bishop to inform and testify before him. Both he and his nephew were the guests of the bishop in his home for some days, until the temple dedicated to the Queen of Tepeyacac was erected where Juan Diego had seen her.The bishop transferred the sacred Image of the lovely lady from heaven to the main church, taking her from his private chapel where it was, so that the people would see and admire her blessed Image. The entire city was aroused; they came to see and admire the devout Image, and to pray. They marveled at the fact that she appeared as did her divine miracle, because no living person of this world had painted her precious Image.
This image was part of a great transitional joining of two civilizations into a third new Mexican and Ibero-American Civilization. This was the start of a long series of events which would weave the story of the image and aparition into the heart of Mexican History. One common way in which public art in Mexico and private homes in Mexico show the iconic image is at the head of the army of Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costillas. This Catholic priest was an early hero of the Mexican cause against the Spanish Empire. Once he had built up enough of a following to see that his recent uprising against a series of perceived serious wrongs was becoming an army on the march, Padre Hidalgo made it an early priority to stop at the Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Atotonilco. Entering the church with a combination of priestly reverence and military bluster Padre Hidalgo affixed an image of the Virgin to a lance and bore it out as the banner to go ahead of his army. As quickly as possible he organized a campaign to acquire exsiting good copies of the image and also to have others quickly and less perfectly produced to serve as battle flags. These were modifed by the addition of a slogan before the were fully authorized as his troops’ flags: “Long live religion! Long live our most Holy Mother of Guadalupe! Long live Ferdinand VII! Long live America and death to bad government!”
This was powerful political and military cause which moved masses of insurgents and was most weakened by the constant rushing forward which did not allow for much development of the ideals of a Mexican nationalist, Catholic, Constitutional Monarchy to be negotiated at arms with the Spanish Emperor who would remain their Head of State. For the rank and file in this movement the Virgin was the perfect symbol that expressed an intense and truly Mexican religious sensibility.
Padre Hidalgo and his chief ally Allende had left the early rallying point of Dolores with about 800 men, about 400 on horseback. They built up a much larger army in the skirmishes before reaching the shrine where he took the banner. There were moments of glory and lectures of imprtance whose words have been lost. Hidalgo first went marched and wandered wildly both at once through the resource rich and fully peopled province of Guanajuato. He led a force which was no joke at all but he lost the battle to integrate Christian codes of conduct, Allendes efforts at military discipline and Mexican nationalism . On 21 September 1810, Hidalgo was proclaimed general and supreme commander after arriving to Celaya. At this point, Hidalgo’s army numbered about 50,000. This movement continued with marches, victories and defeats as well as devlopment of popular culture for quite some time. Each step along the way they became more of a scandal to the gospel, less of an army andby murdering so many Spanish and Creoles in regular fashion if not exactly in cold blood they defeated any real chance of a negotiated autonomous polity under Spanish constitutional monarchy. They more or less governed Michoacan but never fully organized themselves before deciding to try for the wole of Mexico by siezing the capital city. They succeeded in coming as close to Mexico City as Monte de las Cruces, between the Valley of Toluca and the Valley of Mexico. However, Hidalgo’s ideals were not mostly bad and his efforts were not without some lon-lasting good results. It is more true to say that he was one of the worst commanders-in-chief known to human history than to say he was a very bad man or lead a very bad movement.
The role, function and significance of the Basilica and the image of our Lady of Guadalupe would expand and develop over time for the next hundred years after Hidalgo but they would next find expression in a battlefield situation which was far more regular disciplined and responsible to Christian standards than the collapsing period of Hidalgo’s cause. Many people have written about the Cristeros in Spanish but not so many in English. One writer whose work is partly available on the web and in English is Louis Siqueira Campos and he is among those who have recollected the great significance of the Guadalupe devotion to the Guerra Cristera, or War of the Cristeros. The people and especially men known as Cristeros are more completely styled guerreros Cristeros or “warriors for Christ”. These were Mexican Catholic men who fought mostly on horseback with simple firearms against mechanized infantry and other troops when President Calles and the Federal Army’s revolutionaries were killing priests and nuns, closing churches and creating many forms of persecution and repression. The surviving Cristeros and their wives and widows were old men and women who filled my teenage years with songs, books, stories and faded photographs that have shaped my ideas and life ever since.
The armed conflict that took place in the 1920s -1930s as a battlefield struggle between Church and State in Mexico was nothing like the mad rush that Hidalgo had failed to stand in front of in such a big way except that he was carried along in front of it and had some of his inner fabric washed away in the flood. These fighters were really representing a mixed and diverse group of people throughout Mexican society who had engaged in discipliened dialogue and political development that ultimately goes back to five articles of the 1917 Constitution. This was an agresssive constitutional reform: Article 3 mandated secular education in the schools; Article 5 abolished and criminalized monastic orders; Article 24 forbade the public worship outside the confines of churches which was the very life of so much of Mexican festivity piety and culture and Article 27 confiscated much and severely restricted other property owned by any religious organization. Most hateful to Catholics was Article 130, depriving priests of all basic rights and making them in something between criminals and second-class citizens. Priests and nuns were denied the right to wear clerical attire, to vote, to criticize government officials or to comment onpublic affairs in religious periodicals. Much of the country’s map was either entirely renamed or slightly renamed to reduce Catholic heritage. Also the earlier names often had a blend of Catholic and indigenous names such as “San Pedro Atzcapozaltongo” but the renaming that began then would continue for decades and would separate Catholic and indigenous interests. The town where I lived still called by its old name by my friends above would in time become Villa Nicolas Romero. This would allow future secularists to turn Catholic and Indianist elements against eachother by erasing the vast official records of there collaboration.
The Cristeros emerged in a context political of challenge-and-response. There were many political organizations and well organized meetings before the first shot was fired in anger among these were the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth (ACJM)from 1913, the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty (Spanish acronym LNDLR), from 1924 on and the Popular Union (UP), a true political party started in 1925 which more or less dominated politics in the intensely Catholic west-central region of Mexico. When the shooting war got going the ACJM and UP would furnish the Cristeros with a cadre of young officers. Before the war the Catholics had found a strident secularist with whom they could negotiate and more less worked out a slow political process of Compromise with Venustiano Carranza. However, he was replaced by Calles about whom rumors of unofficial rape, murder and robbery were already common and believable before he held the reigns of power.
Enraged by the Calles Law calling for force to bring about the strictest enforcement even in the most Catholic areas for the most objectionable constitutional provisions , the Mexican Episcopate voted for interdict on July 11, 1926 which suspended all public worship in Mexico, the suspension to take place August 1. Later after mettig with lay leaders and priests in delegations from both parts of the Catholic forces (Bishops and non-episcopal Catholics) it was on July 14 that the bishops endorsed the LNDLR’s plan for an economic boycott to humble or check the government. In many regions, Catholics stopped attending movies and plays, riding on buses or street cars and Catholic teachers refused to serve in secular schools.
A number of rich Catholics of all sub ethnic groups supported the Cristeros admirably but the coallition found the richer members of the coallition very resistant to the boycott. Rich Catholics began to be resented by many in the movement. I heard a story from one Cristero which I cannot confirm that one man was called the Burro de Oro “Golden Ass” or “Donkey of Gold” necause he had encouraged resistance to the government and resisted taxes on the one hand but then failed to support the boycott or the new army on the other. When a number of Cristeros called on hime to make good earlier pledges he rolled up American Dollar and Mexican Peso bills of high denominations around fine tobacco and smoked this cigarette saying that was the money they had come for. He also incurred anger by admitting to paying the federal army for protection and having earlier called on police to break up the boycotters’ picket lines. The Cristeros went and defeated the approaching Federals and then in an unusual act of iregularity came back and lynched the man. But his property went to his heirs and his family was not harmed. These Cristeros soon saw many songs developed to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe. I know many of these songs and once led a group of singers and marchers in Mexico where we wre threatened by descendants of the opposite side repeatedly.
Louis Siqueira Campos describes the battlefield side of the devotion:
Viva Cristo Rey! Viva la Vírgen de Guadalupe! “Long live Christ the King! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!” These battle cries gave unity and force to the Mexican Cristeros to enter into combat, to resist torture or to defy death.Viva el Demonio! “Long live the Devil!” was shouted in response by their opponents, the soldiers of the Federal army of Mexico, dominated by atheistic officers.
Still today, after almost 80 years since the Cristiada – the epic fight of the Mexican Catholic Cristeros for their faith in the fields and hills of Jalisco, Mijoacan and other States across Mexico – it is astonishing to see the degree of hatred shown by the enemies of the Holy Church in those dire days. To understand such a hatred, we must recall the words of God the Father to the Serpent in Genesis: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shall lie in wait for her heel” (3:15)Not only then, not only in Mexico, but in every time and place when Catholics are truly devoted to the Mother of God, the Devil and his cohorts try to destroy them. But in the case of the Mexican Cristiada, an explanation of the name Guadalupe can explain the particular ferocity of this hatred against the Church. In 1531, twelve years after the landing of Cortez, and ten years after the Conquest, the Franciscans could report the baptisms of about 200,000 Indians, only a small fraction of the whole population.” The siege of Mexico City in 1521 marked the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. But the spiritual conquest still remained, and this was a task too great for mere men, even the fervent Franciscans who began the evangelization of Mexico. The small group faced multiple obstacles: the bad example of many of the Spaniards moved by greed, power and lust was certainly one. But another less perceptible but more profound barrier was the feeling of many Indians that Catholicism was the white man’s religion, that it did not really belong to them.
Louis Siqueira sees as I do the role of our Lady of Guadalupe in creating an authentic American Christianity and the struggle of the Cristeros to preserve the synthesis Catholic and Indianist elements had been building. This war was in favor of the integration of civilizations that had produced millions of American Indian conversions after the Apparition. It is also important to note that the Hebrew ethnicity of old conversos families was still part of the Cristeros union as well as the Indians and Mestizos and mainline Spaniards. The secualrist, atheists and Masons who made up the heart and bulk of the Federal Army and regime s hadn’t counted on men and women with no military background turning out to be military geniuses. This would be an era which would harken back to Joan of Arc who was a peasant girl in the Catholic tradition. History has this theme recurring outside of Catholic heritage as well but it surely occurred here in the Cristeros. Jesús Degollado was a great warrior who had been a druggist, Aristeo Pedroza and José Reyes Vega were both successful fighting priests and Victoriano Ramírez was an illiterate ranch hand. All economic classes fought on both sides but land reformers were among the poor rank and file under calles who wished to break the big haciendas up. Some among the Cristeros sought a true and improved version of the complexity of Christian manorialsim and others favored modern capitalism with some Indian restorations while others had no strong opinions on the subject. The land reformers were called “agraristas”. On February 23, 1927, the Cristeros defeated a sizable combined Army-agrarista force at San Francisco del Rincón in the state of Guanajuato. This was followed by two more victories; the second, at San Julián, Jalisco, was gained by the Cristeros over an elite cavalry unit supported with small but expensive logisitcs and mechanized infantry forces in reserve.
Throughout 1928, the Cristeros continued to whip the tyrants in the field. By early 1929, the increasingly unpopular government’s problems were made worse by a revolt within the Army but the Cristeros rejoicing was fleeting as the Federal Army’s internal rebellion was crushed. On June 2, 1929 a Cristero leader Gorostieta died in an ambush. But despite the fact that the Cristeros had over 50,000 men at arms and were a superb force theCristero Rebellion was horribly failed by the compromises at the bargaining table by the Mexican Bishops under enormous pressure from international diplomacy and especially US Freemasons despite some countervailing pressure by the US Knights of Columbus. The Cristeros devotions to Our Lady of Guadalupe continue and new events have enriched the tradtion . On May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 25 mostly martyred saints arising from the Mexican Cristero War. Most of these were Roman Catholic priest executed for regular ministry or chaplaincy to the Cristeros despite the President Plutarco Elias Calles’s intense persecution. Actual fighting priests were not canonized. These saints share the feast day of May 21 but almost all were fervent observers of the Dcember 12 Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The vast majority of the Guadalupe tradtiion is till drawing from the rich history described here. That has been enriched by truly Christian Lebanese- Mexicans who form part of the culture. However among the Lebanese wave in Mexico have been many secret Moslems who have created constant attacks on Jewish and Conversos families, hate towards Cristero and Knights of Colombus Heritage and antipathy between whites, mestizos and Indians. These are active in making Indians with negro blood more authentic than those with only white and indian blood and perpetuate hate against the US in our own Mexican ethnic groups. These people are committed to destroying America in the larges sense and brining about the secret caliphate. Ninety percent or much more of Guadalupe’s devotees are opposed to these ideas but have been beat up by history. The other forces are sophisticared an persuasive in the cultural vacuum which is enveloping the Americas. I feel that I live in the last gasp of what I call civilization and often feel sorry for myself. For me the Guadlupe tradition is the remainder and reminder of a long struggle for something that could have been much better than the hell in which live much of my life.
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