Claims against candidate for sainthood raise outcry

Retired abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe questions existence of a peasant believed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary.

"There are millions of people who owe all we have to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Just one person cannot change this."

--- DAVID CARRIZALES, of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, who is making a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe

By JAMES F. SMITH

AND MARGARET RAMIREZ

Los Angeles Times

MEXICO CITY --- From the pilgrims crawling on their knees toward the Basilica of Guadalupe in the Mexican capital to the Latino 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 might 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 last week provoked an uproar just days ahead of today's 468th anniversary of one of the most important events for Catholics in the Western Hemisphere --- the day when 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 Juan Diego will be canonized as a saint on May 21, 2000.

In this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the Virgin of Guadalupe is "the mother of all Mexicans," the most revered symbol of the union of the Catholic and indigenous faiths following the Spanish conquest.

Several million Catholics from all over Mexico will honor their belief in Juan Diego by making the annual pilgrimage today to the Basilica of Guadalupe, in the shadow of Tepeyac Hill in a rundown 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 the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

At the basilica Thursday, thousands of pilgrims arrived 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."

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

Church leaders, theologians and members of the Mexican community joined the outrage over the most recent attacks on Juan Diego.

Aside from her religious significance, Humberto Ramos, associate director of Hispanic Ministry for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, added that 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 in 1821. 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.

The campaign for sainthood of Juan Diego 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 didn't 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.

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

Father Jose Luis Guerrero, a member of the Mexican commission for the canonization of Juan Diego, said in an interview Friday 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."

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