Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Juan Diego: The Historical Evidence (review)

The campaign for the canonization of Juan Diego, the visionary of the Guadalupe tradition, between 1995 and 2002, revived a long-standing controversy over the authenticity of the tradition and the reality of Juan Diego himself. During that time a small group of scholars, including both priests and laity, tried to dissuade the Vatican from canonizing a person whose existence was at best questionable, while proponents of the cause sought the opposite with vigor and success. The campaign was marked by vitriol and virulence, quite similar to the previous Guadalupan controversy of 1880-1896.

One of the principal advocates of the canonization was Father Eduardo Chávez, a founding member and currently rector of the Instituto Superior de Estudios Guadalupanos. He was postulator of the cause from 2001 until the canonization in 2002. He is a founding member of the Instituto Superior de Estudios Guadalupanos, an honorary canon of the basilica of Guadalupe, and first rector of the Catholic University Lumen Gentium of the Archdiocese of Mexico. Currently he is rector of the Pontifical College of Mexico. Father Chávez has impressive credentials for writing a book on the historical evidence for both the apparitions and the figure of Juan Diego. This makes the present volume all the more disappointing.

The title and the jacket note give the impression that this is an historical study of the questions surrounding the apparitions of Guadalupe and the reality of Juan Diego based on available evidence. A large part of the book, however, is actually devotional and exegetical rather than historical. The sections that deal with history contain significant gaps, and so the work is notable as much for what it omits as for what it presents. Chávez repeats some of the standard apparitionist arguments but without noting the many difficulties involved.

The author makes the fundamental error of assuming that any reference to Guadalupe prior to 1648 authenticates the apparition tradition, even though nothing is said about the apparitions. He does not distinguish between the shrine at Guadalupe, which was established about 1555-1556, and the apparition story, which was not attached to the shrine until 1648. Thus, in chapter 8 he cites numerous wills and testaments, even though these say nothing about Juan Diego or the apparitions.

He accepts a number of ideas that are not supportable in the light of current research: the mass conversion of Indians after 1531; the total destruction caused by the Spanish conquest; Antonio Valeriano's authorship of the first native-language account of the apparitions; the preservation of the image as a sign of its supernatural origin, despite the fact that in 1982 an investigation shows signs of extensive deterioration. He fails to address the inconsistent tradition of whether Juan Diego's wife died before or after the apparitions or whether they had issue.

The book is not helped by a translation that is simultaneously awkward and inaccurate. It appears to have been done by persons with a limited knowledge of English and of the various technical terms in colonial and modern Spanish. What is one to make of "She requested through Juan Diego to be constructed in that place, a house, home for all" (p. xxi)? Or: "The historian must not say something that is false, but must reminded either hide something that is true. . . ." (p. xviii)? Examples abound, for example, Ermita is translated throughout as "hermitage," though it actually means a rural chapel of ease. "[B]eggar-bishops controversy" is presumably the conflict between the bishops and the mendicants (p. 86).

The notes on the back cover quote Sister Rosa Maria Icaza of the Mexican American Cultural Center as saying, "If there was any doubt about the historicity of the event or about the identity of Saint Juan Diego, this...