Our Lady of Guadalupe shouldn't be viewed as just a Mexican tradition

Friday, Dec. 04, 2015

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been a religious and cultural hallmark for Mexican Catholics for centuries, but the custom received little attention from Anglo Catholics in the United States before the last few decades.

With the growing Latino population in the U.S., the presence of  Hispanics has steadily increased in Catholic churches throughout the country,  creating a greater awareness of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the  Americas.

Catholic scholars say the significance of her feast day, Dec. 12, has  risen beyond the Americas with the emergence of the Latin American Church on the  world stage.

The dark-skinned image of Mary, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, has been identified by leaders of the universal  Church as the face  of the new evangelization.

The story of how Mary appeared to a poor Aztec Indian  in 1531 near present-day Mexico City brought more than 6 million indigenous people into the Catholic faith within a decade.

Latinos living in the U.S.  celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with zeal.

 Their fervor for the  feast day is a great example for Anglo Catholics, attracting more of them to the  celebrations, said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Our Lady of Guadalupe is really for everybody, certainly the people of the Americas,” and not just Hispanic Catholics, said Bishop Peter F. Christensen of Boise, Idaho, a statewide diocese where Latinos now make up the majority of Catholics.

National Geographic magazine featured the Virgin Mary in its December cover story. The author, Maureen Orth, visited several countries and interviewed dozens of people with strong devotional ties to the Mary.

Orth said what made the biggest impression on her was Mary’s universal appeal across diverse cultures. “It was a huge journey all over the world,” she said, adding that Mary is the “hope and solace of so many people, including Muslims.”