There are no many symbols more linked with Mexico as she it is the Virgin of Guadeloupe. A real ritual surrounds the celebrations in his honor on December 12. In Mexico and in many cities of the world where big Mexican communities exist there are masses, processions, dances and canticles, even fireworks in some places. But what many people perhaps do not know is that she is not only "Queen of Mexico," but "Boss of America". Or that if you are a Catholic and live in this continent, she is his boss also.

Of course the Catholic Church wanted to take advantage of his magnetism to attract more faithful of the continent. But anyone that has been the reason, has devoted himself to raise his image and his name per centuries. I hope that it should not be a sacrilege to say this, but I believe that the Pope Juan Pablo Segundo was obsessed by the Virgin of Guadeloupe. Since it did his first trip to Mexico in 1979, the first one on the outside like Pope, he declared his admiration for "The Brown Virgin".

His history goes something like that. One day when a Mexican native of name Juan Diego was crossing a desert hill in the direction of mass, was stopped suddenly by a brilliant light. Before him there appeared a beautiful woman of dark skin who promised to be like Virgin Mary. She asked him to say to the bishop that she wanted that a temple was constructed in his honor in the hill of the Tepeyac. It happened on December 9, 1531.

When Juan Diego fulfilled the request, the incredulous bishop asked him to return with a test of the appearance. On December 12 Juan Diego returned to the hill and again it saw the woman and said to him what the demand of the bishop was. She asked him then to gather some flowers of the desolate hill in his cloak and that one will take them to the bishop like test of his existence. When Juan Diego came where the bishop and it opened his layer to drop the roses, an image met perfectly clear of the Virgin. The temple was constructed and then replaced by the bigger one. The Vatican recognized the miracle more than 200 years later.

For centuries this history has been a symbol of the cultural and spiritual history of Mexico, but during the same time it has been questioned and investigated repeatedly. The Holy Father Juan Pablo did all the possible from clearing doubts. It beatified the Indian Juan Diego in 1990 and dedicated a chapel in the Basilica of San Pedro to the Virgin of Guadeloupe in 1992. In 1999, it named her "a Boss of America" and Juan Diego finally was canonized in 2002 in an elaborated ceremony that attracted million persons of the whole world.
In the middle of the process, part of the opposition to the consecration of Juan Diego came from an improbable source. Guillermo Schulenberg, the abbot of the Basilica of Guadeloupe during more than 25 years, doubted the history of Juan Diego and hence the existence of the Virgin of Guadeloupe. He suggested that Juan Diego was more a cult than reality. One month after his polemic comments it was forced to resign.

The Virgin of Guadeloupe is, literally, supernatural. It is more than a religious figure, it is a cultural icon. The Basilica of Guadeloupe is the second catholic center most visited in the world after The Vatican. His image has been commercialized in all forms, from paintings and stamps up to clothes and jewels. You can see her hanging or identical with the rear glass of a vehicle or tattooed with the arm of a person. His image is even idolized in the most merciless groups. In Los Angeles, California, for example, some business has murals of the Virgin of Guadeloupe identical with his walls to prevent hooligans from drawing graffiti in them.

Some of them believe that the Virgin of Guadeloupe can do miracles. In an apparent attempt for attracting Hispanic voters, the republican presidential ex-candidate John McCain visited the Basilica of Guadeloupe during a trip to Mexico in last July. Perhaps him this time did not work, but just in case it is not a bad idea to support the virgencita of his side.

(c) 2008 by Maria Helen Salinas.