Church Autonomy after Our Lady of Guadalupe School: Too Broad? Or as Broad as it Needs to Be?

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the only Marian apparition tradition in the Americas—and indeed in all of Roman Catholicism—that inspired a sustained series of published theological analyses. Theologians in each successive epoch since the mid-seventeenth century have plumbed the meaning of Guadalupe for their times. Their theological works are grounded in two realities: the first is the relationship between Guadalupe and her faithful, and the second is her power to shape their lives and their world. Theologies of Guadalupe examines the way theologians have understood Guadalupe and sought to orient her impact in the lives of her devotees. It also examines Guadalupe’s meaning in everyday devotees’ lives and the spread of Guadalupan devotion over nearly half a millennium. Chapters of this study successively examine core theological topics in the Guadalupe tradition developed in response to major events of Mexican history: conquest, attempts to Christianize native peoples, society building, independence, and the demands for justice of marginalized groups. The successive chapters also narrate how, amid the plentiful miraculous images of Christ, Mary, and the saints that dotted the sacred landscape of colonial New Spain, the Guadalupe cult rose above all others and emerged from a local devotion to become a regional, national, and then international phenomenon. From patristic-based theological writings in the colonial era down to contemporary formulations shaped by the emergence of liberation theologies in Latin America, the theologies under study here reveal how Christian concepts and scriptures imported from Europe developed in dynamic interaction with the new contexts in which they took root.

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Centones gongorinos en Nueva España

(an)ecdótica ◽

10.19130/iifl.anec.2019.2.1146 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 11-46

Author(s):

Martha Lilia Tenorio

Keyword(s):

New Spain ◽

Poetic Form ◽

Our Lady Of Guadalupe ◽

Immaculate Conception

The poetic form known as cento, composed of sections or verses of other poems, represents a curious literary subgenre practiced since Classical times. In New Spain, we have examples of Virgilian centos, centos about Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Gongorian centos on the Immaculate Conception. This article contains both a brief introduction on this poetic form and the textual edition of the six Gongorian centos that were composed in New Spain.

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Surviving Secularization

California History ◽

10.1525/ch.2017.94.2.41 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 94 (2) ◽

pp. 41-57

Author(s):

Damian Bacich

Keyword(s):

Military Occupation ◽

The Political ◽

Our Lady Of Guadalupe ◽

Alta California

In 1833 a group of Mexican-born Franciscans from the College of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Zacatecas was sent to Alta California to replace their Spanish confreres in several of the northern missions. The Franciscan priests were not prepared, however, for the situation they would encounter as a result of mission secularization. With missions in decay and stripped of both their resources and their native inhabitants, these priests eventually found themselves marginalized in a society in which their Spanish predecessors had been protagonists. The political changes of the 1840s, from local insurrections against Mexican authorities and inter-Californio rivalries to the difficulties of U.S. military occupation, forced a shift in identity among some of these friars. No longer missionaries, they had to adapt to a hand-to-mouth existence and the lifestyle of an itinerant pastor, while seeking wherever possible to advocate for Native rights. Beginning with H. H. Bancroft, California historians often portrayed the priests' unorthodox lifestyles as the result of corruption and ignorance. A closer look at the life of one of these friars, José María Suárez del Real, helps contextualize their choices within the trying circumstances of years of upheaval and uncertainty.

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Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Politics of Cultural Interpretation

Mexican American Religions ◽

10.1215/9780822388951-010 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 153-179

Author(s):

Socorro Castañeda-Lile

Keyword(s):

Our Lady Of Guadalupe ◽

Cultural Interpretation

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Inculturation and the Guadalupana

Lumen et Vita ◽

10.6017/lv.v6i1.9146 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Henry Shea SJ

Keyword(s):

Potential Model ◽

Human Experience ◽

Our Lady Of Guadalupe ◽

Cultural Symbols ◽

Pope Francis ◽

Popular Piety ◽

Key Features ◽

Point Of Departure

In his recent Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis emphasizes “the importance of understanding evangelization as inculturation. Grace supposes culture,” he writes, “and God’s gift becomes flesh in the culture of those who receive it” (EG 115). Expressing themes that have recurred throughout his life and ministry, Francis proceeds to lauds the role of popular piety in the life of a people, maintaining that its accessible, incarnate features exemplify the embodiment of an evangelical faith in culture. Echoing Aparecida, Francis describes popular piety as a “spirituality incarnated in the culture of the lowly” and “the people’s mysticism” (EG 124).It would be difficult to find a more significant example of the convergence of these themes than the celebrated image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to which Francis himself expresses devotion. What is it about this symbol that has captivated the hearts of so many? Using Francis’ words in Evangelii Gaudium as a point of departure, this paper analyzes the Guadalupan image and event as a potential model for inculturation. It focuses upon three key features of the image from which can be gleaned broader principles for inculturation, namely: (1) its interlacing of cultural and revelational symbols in such a way that the cultural symbols are affirmed as well as transformed, (2) the use of inculturated symbol as a way of maximizing what Rahner refers to as “the overplus of meaning” communicated through “primordial” words and symbols that evoke deeper, transcendental aspects of human experience, and (3) finally the use of inculturated symbol to mediate interpersonal faith-encounters that can be shared through the renewed culture and the bonds of community.

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