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 GUADALUPE

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GUADALUPE

Juan Cruz Ruiz de Cabanas, rector of the seminary of Burgos (Spain), became Bishop of Nicaragua in 1794, and of Guadalajara in 1796. He gave new con- stitutions to the seminary and founded there new classes, also the clerical college and the hospice for the poor, established moral conferences for the clergy, fostered agriculture and the fine arts, and was instru- mental in popularizing the practice of vaccination. It was he who crowned Iturbitie emperor in 1S24.

Pedro Espinosa, born in 1793, was rector of the seminary and of the university, and a dignitary of the cathedral, became Bishop of Guadalajara in ISo-i, and archbishop in lS(i3. He was persecuted on account of his vigorous defence of the rights of the Church, being banished for that reason by the Liberal Government. He placed the charitable institutions under the care of the Sisters of Charity. Pedro Loza, Bishop of Sonora in 1852, became Archbishop of Guadalajara in 1868, assisted at the Council of the Vatican, and died in 1898. He was the initiator of the system of free paro- chial primary schools; he improved the seminary to a remarkalile degree, gave it its present building, or- dained 536 priests, and built the churches of Xuestra Seiiora de los Dolores and San Jose.

The population of the diocese is about 1,200,000; it contains S3 parishes, 5 of which are in the episcopal city. The once numerous convents of Franciscans, Dominicans, Mercedarians, Augustinians, Carmehtes, and Oratorians were suppressed by the Liberals; the Government, assviming the rights of ownership of the conventual buildings, converted most of them into bar- racks and afterwards alienated the remainder. Some of the Franciscan, .\ugustinian, and Mercedarian rehg- ious remained as chaplains of the churches that had been their own. In the ancient convent building of the Friars Minor at Zapopan there is a college for young men under the direction of Franciscans. The Jesuits, expelled by Charles III of Spain (1767), did not return until 1906, when they founded a college in the city of Guadalajara. The Religious of the Sacred Heart have for some years carried on a girls' school. The seminary, having, in consequence of Liberal legis- lation, lost its own building, acquired the old convent of Santa Monica, which .\rchbishop Loza began to re- build in 1891. Besides many other illustrious eccle- siastics, no fewer than thirty-one bishops have been trained in this establishment, which has now (1908) 1000 students. In the cities of Zapotlan and San Juan de los Lagos there are auxiliary seminaries. Free primary instruction is established in all the parishes of the archdiocese. At Guadalajara there is a female normal school under ecclesiastical supervision, also several hospitals and orphan asylums supported by charity. The hospital and endowments of S. Miguel de Belen and the hospice for the poor, foundations of former bishops, were seized by the Liberals.

Vera, Cateci.'^mo Geogrdfico-Hi-storico-Esladiittisco de la Iglesia Mexicana (.\mecameca, 18S1); Lorenzaxa, Coiicilios Provin- ciates Primeio It Segundo celehrados en la Ciudad de Mexico (Mex- ico, 1769); Santoscot, Memoria presentada en el Concurso Literario y Artistico, can que se celebTo el primer Centenario de la muerte del Ilmo. Sr. D. Fray Antonio Alcalde (Guadalajara, 1893): Idem, Catdlogo biogrdfico de los Prelados que kan regido la Iglesia de Guadalajara, de los que han side sus hijos 6 sus domi- eiliados, y de las Didcesis que ha producido (Guadalajara); Verdia. Vida del Ilmo. Sr. Alcalde {Guadalajara, 1892); Trosla- cidn de los restos del Umo. Sr. Espinosa, y oraciones junebres (Guadalajara, 1876); Santoscoy, Exequias y Biografia del Ilmo. Sr. Arzbpo. D. Pedro Loza (Guadalajara, 1S9S); Padilla, His- toria de Provincia de la Nucva Galicia (Mexico. 1870); Tello, Cronica Miscelanea de la Santa Pronncia de Xalisco (Guadala- jara, 1S91); Smith. Guadalajara: The Pearl of the West in The Messenger (New York, 1900), 499-50.5.

D.^NIEL R. LOWEREE.

Guadalupe, Shrine of. — Guadalupe is strictly the name of a pictiu-e, but was extended to the church containing the picture and to the town that grew up around. The word is Spanish-.\rabic, but in Mexico it may represent certain Aztec sounds. The place — • styled Guadalupe-Hidalgo since 1822, as in our 1848

treaty — is three miles north-east of Mexico City. Pil- grimages have been made to this shrine almost uninter- ruptedly since 1531-32. In the latter year there was a shrine at the foot of Tepe.yac tiill which served for ninety years, and still, in part, forms the parochial sacristy. In 1622 a rich shrine was erected; a new one, much richer, in 1709. Other structures of the eighteenth century connected with it are a parish church, a convent and church for Capuchin nuns, a well chapel, and a hill chapel. About 1750 the shrine got the title of collegiate, a canonry and choir service being established. It was aggregated to St. John Lateran in 1754; and, finally, in 1904 it was created a basilica. The presiding ecclesiastic is called abbot. The greatest recent change in the slirine itself has been its complete interior renovation in gorgeous Byzantine, presenting a striking illustration of Gua- dalupan history.

The picture really constitutes Guadalupe. It makes the shrine: it occasions the devotion. It is taken as representing the Immaculate Conception, being the lone figure of the woman with the sun, moon, and star accompaniments of the great apocalyptic sign, and in addition a supporting angel under the crescent. Its tradition is, as the new Breviary lessons declare, "long-standing and constant". Oral and WTitten, Indian and Spanish, the account is unwavering. To a neophj'te, fifty-five years old, named Juan Diego, who was hurrying down Tepeyac hill to hear Mass in Mexico City, on Saturday, 9 December, 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared and sent him to Bishop Zumarraga to have a temple built where she stood. She was at the same place that evening and Sunday evening to get the bishop's answer. He had not immediately beheved the mes- senger; having cross-questioned him and had him watched, he finally bade him ask a sign of the lady who said she was the mother of the true God. The neophyte agreed so readily to ask any sign desired, that the bishop was impressed and left the sign to the apparition. Juan was occupied all Monday with Bernardino, an uncle, who seemed dying of fever. Indian specifics failed; so at daybreak on Tuesday, 12 December, the grieved nephew was running to the St. James's convent for a priest. To avoid the appa- rition and untimely message to the bishop, he slipped round where the well chapel now stands. But the Blessed Virgin crossed down to meet him and said: " What road is this thou takest, son? " .A. tender dia- logue ensued. Reassuring Juan about his uncle — whom at that instant she cured, appearing to him also and calling herself Holy Mary of Guadalup^^ she bade him go again to the bishop. Without hesi- tating he joyously asked the sign. She told him to go up to the rocks and gather roses. He knew it was neither the time nor the place for roses, but he went and found them. Gathering many into the lap of his tilma — a long cloak or wrapper used by Mexican Indians — he came back. The Holy Jlother, re- arranging the roses, bade him keep them untouched and unseen till he reached the bishop. Having got to the presence of Zumarraga, Juan offered the sign. .\s he unfolded his cloak the roses fell out, and he was startled to see the bishop and his attendants kneeling before him: the life-size figure of the Virgin Mother, just as he had described her, was glowing on the poor tilma. A great mural decoration in the renovated basilica commemorates the scene. The picture was venerated, guarded in the bishop's chapel, and soon after carried processionally to the preliminarj' shrine.

The coarsely woven stuff which bears the picture is as thin and open as poor sacking. It is made of vegetable fibre, probably maguey. It consists of two strips, about seventy inches long by eighteen wide, held together by weak stitching. The seam is visible up the middle of the figure, turning aside from the