The Empress of the Americas: Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 8th marked the solemnity of the patroness of the United States of America, the Immaculate Conception, fitting for "a new nation, conceived in liberty." Another Marian feast with special meaning for our country falls on December 12th, when the Church commemorates Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas.

On that date in 1531, a decade after one of the greatest clashes of civilizations the world has ever seen, Mary, the Mother of God, appeared to Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on Tepeyac Hill outside of Tenochtitlán, now Mexico City. The Holy Mother was brown-skinned, like the Aztecs recently subjugated by the Spanish conquistadors. Her apparition led to the conversion of a people of a great civilization whose insatiable death cult had demanded the blood of human sacrifices only a few years earlier. Through her intercession during the subsequent five centuries of war, revolution, and persecution, the Mexican Church has remained "siempre fiel."

North of the border, devotion to her has been steadily growing, and not only due to the unprecedented migration of Mexicans seeking a better life in el norte. Our Lady of Guadalupe's non-Mexican following grew phenomenally after her being named Patroness of the Unborn in 1990. The United States is nearing the 50,000,000 mark in the number of children murdered by abortion since Roe v. Wade, and we desperately need Our Lady of Guadalupe's intercession to end this holocaust and our own death cult.

Now, Catholics whose ancestors asked for the intercessions of Our Lady of Knock or Our Lady of Czêstochowa now also ask for the intercessions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And it is not only among Anglos or other Americans of European descent that one can find new guadalupanos. An LA Times article dated December 3rd of this year reports on the "ethnic Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Tongan and Vietnamese" Angelinos who took part in a 10,000-strong procession in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Those fearing a clash of civilizations among the various ethnic groups residing within our borders would be wise to ask for her intercession.

Our Lady of Guadalupe was named patroness of the Americas in 1999. Recognition of our common patronage under the Empress of the Americas might do much to improve America's relationship with her sister republics to the south, which has been troubled from the days of Mr. Polk's War. Dozens and dozens of interventions have subsequently taken place, the most recent one being the Clintonian attempt at nation-building in Haiti. Rather than American paternalism, recognition of the maternalism of our common patroness will do much to promote regional cooperation, peace, and stability.

Finally, America now finds herself in what some see as a mortal struggle against Islam. What could the Mexican Virgin possibly have to say in this matter?

When Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin asked her her name, she responded, "Te Quatlasupe." In the Nahautl language, this means, "I will crush the serpent." To Spanish ears, this sounded like "Guadalupe," an Arabic name by which a revered Madonna in Spain was already known, referring to a town named Wad-al-hub ("River of Love") by the Moors. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has her standing on a crescent, the symbol of Islam. Could Islam be conquered not by the sword but by a river of love?

"The Qu'ran... has many passages concerning the Blessed Virgin [and] believes in her Immaculate Conception, and also in her Virgin Birth," noted Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. He went on to prophesy that "Moslems... will eventually be converted to Christianity... through a summoning of the Moslems to a veneration of the Mother of God."

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.