Challenge to Sainthood Evokes Charges of Racism

MEXICO CITY — From the pilgrims crawling on their knees toward the Basilica of Guadalupe here in the Mexican capital to the Latino Roman Catholic parishes of Southern California, an outcry has arisen over a claim that a beloved Indian peasant believed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary in 1531 may never have existed.

The Vatican’s ambassador to Mexico, Justo Mullor, joined a chorus of angry voices attacking Guillermo Schulemburg, the 83-year-old retired abbot of the basilica, and two other prelates who wrote to Pope John Paul II challenging the existence of Juan Diego. The letter, written in September, called on the pope to withhold sainthood from Juan Diego, who would be North America’s first indigenous saint and could be canonized as soon as next year.

The disclosure of the letter by Mexican newspapers here last week provoked an uproar just days ahead of Sunday’s 468th anniversary of one of the most important events for Catholics in the Western Hemisphere--the day a dark-skinned Virgin Mary is believed to have left her image on Juan Diego’s cloak.

The challenge prompted countercharges by some Mexican and U.S. clerics that opponents of Juan Diego are guilty of Eurocentric racism in opposing the notion that an Aztec Indian peon could receive the Virgin’s apparition. Catholic leaders believe that Juan Diego will be canonized as a saint May 21.

In this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation, the Virgin of Guadalupe is “the mother of all Mexicans,” the most revered symbol of the union of the Catholic and indigenous faiths after Spain’s conquest.

Several million Catholics nationwide will honor their belief in Juan Diego by making the annual pilgrimage Sunday to the Basilica of Guadalupe, in the shadow of Tepeyac Hill in a suburb in northern Mexico City. That is where the Virgin’s apparition is believed to have appeared over four days in 1531, just 10 years after Spain’s conquest.

In Los Angeles today, church officials say up to 100,000 are expected to attend Mass in the Coliseum in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Juan Diego.

At the basilica itself Thursday, thousands of pilgrims began arriving on foot, by bicycle and in bus caravans. Some crawled on their knees the last few yards into the cone-shaped basilica or to the small hilltop chapel that overlooks the site. Others rode the slow-moving escalator that passes under the altar and allows visitors a close look upward at the framed original cloak bearing the Virgin’s image.

“Whatever [Schulemburg] says, we are not going to stop believing. And not just Mexicans but the whole Spanish-speaking world,” said David Carrizales, a 52-year-old pilgrim who said he was fulfilling a lifelong promise to visit the shrine from his home in Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border.

“There are millions of people who owe all we have to the Virgin of Guadalupe,” he said. “Just one person cannot change this.”

In Southern California and throughout the Southwest, devotion to Guadalupe has evolved to become the core of Latino Catholicism. As immigrants from Latin America settled in the U.S. Southwest, the Virgin emerged as a protector and liberator of the poor and marginalized, for whom Juan Diego became a powerful symbol.

In light of that significance, church leaders, theologians and members of the Mexican community joined in the outrage over the most recent attacks on Juan Diego.

Humberto Ramos, associate director of Hispanic Ministry for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, said Schulemburg’s attempts to halt the canonization of Juan Diego amount to racism. Despite the overwhelming Catholic population in Mexico, the country has only one saint: St. Felipe de Jesus. If canonized, Juan Diego would be Mexico’s second saint.

“It seems he’s trying to make it more difficult for a poor Mexican Indian to become a saint than a European,” Ramos said. “People are upset about it. They are asking: ‘Why? Why is he bringing this up? What’s behind it?’ ”

Aside from her religious significance, Ramos added, Guadalupe’s power as a political icon elevates her status among Mexicans.

“She is the essence of Mexican nationalism. It was her banner that Father Hidalgo raised for independence. . . . Her image is embedded in the psyche of Mexicans everywhere. So, desecrating her is desecrating Mexico’s most sacred icon,” he said.

The immense basilica, which opened in 1976, is the second-most-visited Catholic shrine in the world after St. Peter’s in the Vatican.

Father Victor Murillo, preaching at a Mass in the basilica for pilgrims from Veracruz state, captured the identification that Mexicans feel with the humble peasant to whom the Virgin is said to have appeared. Murillo noted in his sermon that “Juan Diego was a person like us. He wasn’t blue-eyed. He was my brother; he was an Indian. He is in my blood, in my body, in my way of thinking. It was me who was there, in front of our Blessed Mother, it was me to whom, in the person of Juan Diego, you spoke those words.”

The campaign for sainthood of Juan Diego officially began June 15, 1981, when the Conference of Mexican Bishops formally asked for his canonization. Juan Diego was beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 6, 1990, during his second visit to Mexico City.

Questions were raised within the church about Juan Diego’s authenticity as long ago as 1888. But the most recent controversy first surfaced in May 1996, when the Catholic magazine Ixtus published an article in which Schulemburg stated that Juan Diego did not exist. Five months later, on Oct. 31, Schulemburg resigned from his post as abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe, a position he had held since 1963.

At the Vatican, Jesuit priest Paolo Molinari, who until a few months ago was the official patron of the campaign for Juan Diego’s canonization, said he had been aware of the original complaint but had found Schulemburg to be “an untrustworthy person.” Molinari said the argument that Juan Diego never existed is “indignant, anti-historical and counterproductive. These are theories that have no basis, as has been demonstrated by historical analysis.”

The reclusive Schulemburg has declined public comment and refused all requests for interviews.

The top Catholic cleric in Mexico, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, and the head of the Bishops Conference, Luis Morales, joined the papal nuncio in public statements condemning Schulemburg and, in particular, his argument that “the pope would be ridiculed if he were to canonize a person before knowing with certainty of his existence.”

Many foes have alleged publicly that Schulemburg owns expensive homes and cars, implying that he may have gained his wealth improperly during his 33 years in the basilica’s hierarchy. Others note that he is only half-Mexican, the child of a Mexican mother and a German father said to be descended from nobles.

Schulemburg’s letter to the pope also was signed by Msgr. Carlos Warnholtz of the basilica and by Esteban Martinez, historian of the shrine. Their argument is based in part on the fact that the first written documents about the Virgin’s apparition date from well after the event. The letter also says that in 1556, a Franciscan priest claimed that the image had been painted by an Indian named Marcos.

Father Jose Luis Guerrero, a member of the Mexican Commission for the Canonization of Juan Diego, said Friday that the petition for sainthood “is not based solely on faith but on historical certainty, on the convergence of historical proofs.” He cited a series of carefully studied events recorded over the centuries that support the belief in Juan Diego’s existence.

“All the anti-apparitionists’ arguments have been tinged with racism,” he said. “But this [attack] will actually help strengthen our faith in the years ahead.”

Earlier this week, at the San Gabriel Mission, thousands of Catholics turned up to view a replica of Guadalupe’s image that is touring parishes throughout Southern California. Several came bearing red roses commemorating Juan Diego, who is believed to have gathered roses in his overcoat to take to Bishop Zumarraga as a sign from the Virgin. The roses became the Virgin’s image as he opened his apron and the petals fell to the floor.

As Father Jose Sanchez blessed bouquets of flowers and images of Guadalupe, he said Schulemburg’s protest matters little to him.

“The people who come to see her are mainly immigrants. She is a sign of hope and justice,” he said. “Here, they are very sure she exists.”

Others, like Norberto Corona, who had traveled from New Mexico to see the Guadalupe reproduction, were more adamant. Like other devotees of the Guadalupe, Corona credited the Virgin with seeing him through difficult times and granting him miracles.

“She revealed herself to him,” he said. “It had to have happened!”

*

Smith reported from Mexico City and Ramirez from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Rome contributed to this report.