Canonization Spotlights Mexico’s Indians

Pope John Paul II proclaimed Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin the Roman Catholic Church’s first indigenous American saint Wednesday and, in a colorful Mass blending Aztec and European traditions, challenged Mexico to end the racism and neglect that mire its Indian minority in poverty.

In a Spanish-language homily televised live in much of the Western Hemisphere, John Paul urged his hosts to build “a better Mexico, with greater justice and solidarity,” and to support Indians’ “legitimate aspirations, respecting and defending the authentic values of each ethnic group.”

“Mexico needs its indigenous people, and these peoples need Mexico,” he said.

President Vicente Fox joined the 10,000 worshipers inside Mexico City’s Basilica of Guadalupe, becoming the first Mexican chief executive to attend a papal Mass.

Hundreds of thousands of jubilant believers lined John Paul’s route to the shrine and watched the ceremony on giant TV screens set up in the middle of closed-off boulevards.

A dozen Indians in multicolored plumed headdresses danced up the central aisle of the basilica as a portrait of the new saint was borne to the altar through a cloud of incense. Three Indians blew on conch shells, and people throughout the congregation shook maracas.

Priests read from the Bible in Spanish and in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs.

The pope’s message and the indigenous flavor of the high-profile Mass could weigh heavily on two conflicts within Mexico and Catholicism.

Mexico and its dominant church are struggling to come to terms with an Indian rights movement led by Zapatista rebels, who staged an armed uprising in the mid-1990s, as well as with demands by indigenous lay Catholics for a bigger role in administering their parishes.

More broadly, the billion-member church is divided by controversy over how far to stretch its liturgy and traditions to accommodate non-European converts.

According to legend, Juan Diego was a Chichimeca Indian convert to Catholicism in 1531, a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, when the mother of Jesus appeared before him as the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe. After the local Spanish bishop demanded proof of the apparition, the virgin miraculously imprinted her image on his cloak.

Spanish missionaries spread the story to help convert indigenous people throughout Latin America, making it the most populous Catholic region in the world. The Guadalupe basilica, built on the site of the reported apparition, is the second-most visited Catholic shrine after St. Peter’s in Rome.

Today, Mexicans are overwhelmingly Catholic and mestizo, of mixed Indian and Spanish blood. But about 10% of Mexico’s 100 million people are Indians who cling to their ancestral language and culture.

Many of them feel alienated from the church and are defecting to Protestant faiths.

In retelling Juan Diego’s story, the pope asserted that Catholicism needs to launch a “new evangelization.” He came down on the side of openness to indigenous rituals and language--and against Vatican traditionalists.

The Virgin of Guadalupe and Juan Diego, the pontiff said in his homily, are “a model of perfectly inculturated evangelization,” in which the church of five centuries ago showed how to adapt to Indian ways.

John Paul, 82, ignored Vatican advice to avoid this journey because of his frail health. He slumped in a gilded chair during the three-hour Mass, straining to raise his head before speaking.

In a weary but firm voice, he brushed off doubts by some scholars that Juan Diego really existed. He was, John Paul said, “a good Christian Indian, whom simple people have always considered a saint.”

“In accepting the Christian message without forgoing his indigenous identity, Juan Diego discovered the profound truth of the new humanity, in which all are called to be children of God,” the pope added. “Thus he facilitated the fruitful meeting of two worlds and became the catalyst for the new Mexican identity.”

Ronaldo Cruz, executive director of the Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, said the pope delivered a “powerful message” to traditionalists who resist bending Eurocentric Catholic liturgy.

“Part of the ‘new evangelization’ requires us to understand that this diversity God has given us is an integral part of our identity as Catholics, and we must celebrate that difference,” he said.

“We are struggling with that idea in the United States as our parishes become bombarded with immigrants,” he said.

The pope drew loud applause when he insisted that Juan Diego’s life should be a model for “encouraging brotherhood among all [Mexico’s] children and ever helping to reconcile Mexico with its origins, values and traditions.”

Indigenous leaders took that as an endorsement of their struggle for equality.

Antonio Vazquez, a Nahua leader who wore a straw hat and a loose white cotton suit to Mass, said he did not believe that another armed struggle like the Zapatista rebellion was necessary. Instead, he repeated the pope’s advice to behave like the humble, respectful Juan Diego--but he added that he would pray to the new saint for a miracle.

Indians want a stronger version of the Indian rights bill passed last year by Mexico’s Congress. The law leaves implementation up to state governments, which have been slow to act.

“What the pope is telling us is that our weapon should be the Gospel, hope and faith,” said Vazquez, president of an impoverished 7,000-member Nahua community in Tuxpan, near Guadalajara. “Today we have hope in our president, hope that Juan Diego will illuminate Mr. Vicente Fox on the urgency of our demands.”

Fox later discussed Indian rights, poverty and other issues with the pope during what the president’s office called a 20-minute courtesy visit at the papal nuncio’s residence in Mexico City.

Martha Sahagun de Fox, the president’s wife, attended the meeting, but there was no indication that any personal issues came up.

Fox and his wife, both practicing Catholics, are seeking annulments of their first marriages to gain church recognition for their marriage to each other last year.

Fox’s election two years ago ended seven decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party and helped warm church-state relations.

For the pope’s visit, more than 35,000 police and 1,600 doctors were put on special duty to help with crowds, and brigades of government workers planted flowers.

Police arrested a 14-year-old boy for firing an air gun from the roof of his house shortly before the pope passed by on his way from the cathedral. They said John Paul was not the target.

Faithful hordes climbed trees, hung from balconies and perched on rooftops to get a glimpse of John Paul, who waved from his vehicle through bulletproof glass that was partially lowered to give the crowds a better view.

“This is the first pope to recognize an Indian, a humble Indian!” said Maria Socorro Dominguez, a 48-year-old lawyer.

Thousands of Mexican Americans, including about 150 from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, traveled here for the ceremony.

Father Vicente Lopez, a priest at Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church in South-Central Los Angeles, said Juan Diego’s canonization had special significance for Mexican Americans.

“If a man from the lowliest caste in Mexico can be recognized as a saint, then there’s hope for those on the bottom,” he said. “A lot of Latinos who migrated north see themselves in Juan Diego. They see that what the Indians suffer in Mexico is pretty much what they suffer in the United States.”