December 12 marks the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, honoring the series of Marian apparitions in modern-day Mexico that sparked mass conversions to Catholicism across the continent and the most visited Marian shrine in the world.
In 1999, Pope John Paul II named Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of the Americas.
This year, on the feast day, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco announced the launch of Project Guadalupe 2031, a new initiative to encourage devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe and prepare for the upcoming 500th anniversary of the apparition.
Cordileone spoke with The Pillar about the initiative, his personal devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and what he sees as her message of unity for America today.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You are coordinating something called Project Guadalupe 2031. What is it?
Yes. The initiative came about from the call of Pope Francis for a nine-year novena to prepare for the 500th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2031.
He called for that in a homily he gave back in 2022. But it hasn't really become known here in North America. Now, I understand that the homily was never translated into English - that might be part of the reason, although the Vatican News Service did cover the story in English and quoted from the homily in English.
Maybe a year ago, I was speaking to a Mexican cleric, telling me about the preparation they were doing with this nine-year novena. This is such a significant event in the history of the Church, especially in our hemisphere, I thought we should do something to promote awareness of it and foster greater devotion to Our Lady.
So we have the Mass of the Americas, which premiered in our cathedral six years ago, this Marian unity Mass. So we’re scheduling, throughout next year and beyond, celebrations of this Mass of the Americas in different venues around the country, especially ones that are dedicated to our Lady of Guadalupe.
The National Shrine Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dallas will be hosting it next year on her feast day, and also the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse will be hosting it on August 5th next year. And there are a number of other scheduled venues for celebration of it. Most of the dates haven't been set yet, but there's going to be a number of other celebrations of that Mass.
We've also scheduled it for the basilica in Mexico City on October 7th of next year, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
So this is a way of responding to this call of Pope Francis to mark this nine-year novena preparation for Our Lady of Guadalupe and to make it more well known in this part of the continent.
You commissioned the Mass of the Americas, which premiered back in 2018. Why?
We were having archdiocesan-wide celebrations to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe. I thought, Our Lady unifies us, it doesn't matter what language we come from or culture or which side of the border or where in the world, we all love Our Lady. So I thought we could use this as a force for unity.
I asked the composer Frank La Rocca to compose this Mass that incorporates the popular Mexican songs to Our Lady of Guadalupe, but within the context of sacred music, to sort of elevate it.
I told him, the people aren't used to this kind of music at Mass, but I want them to feel at home. And he managed to accomplish that. So it's this effort for unity and using beauty, sacred beauty - that's our heritage, to use sacred beauty to unify.
What has it been like for you to celebrate the Mass of the Americas?
It's been very personal. I had this sort of inspiration, I guess I would call it, and our composer, Frank La Rocca, is truly brilliant. He accomplished exactly what I had in mind in a very powerful way.
Most of the Mass itself is in Latin, but some parts are in Spanish. There are a couple of parts in English. And then he composed a communion meditation, the Hail Mary, in Nahuatl - the language of the Aztec people - because he wanted to sacralize the language that Our Lady spoke to Juan Diego in. And it's very mystical. It's a soprano solo, so it touches me very profoundly. Every time I celebrate that Mass, or even hear it sung, it gives me goosebumps.
Do you have a personal devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Oh yes, it's a great devotion that I have. I first learned about her, actually, after I entered the seminary. Of course, I've always had a love for Our Lady. I wasn't as aware of her apparition in Guadalupe as some other ones, but I certainly learned a lot more about that.
And then for four years, I was a pastor of a parish on the Mexican border - the church itself was four blocks from the Mexican border. So that certainly got me more deeply into the Guadalupe devotion. It's a very big part of who I am. I have so much love for her and what God did for our continent - the mother of his son appearing there and uniting the Spaniards and the Indigenous people with what they saw, with her image on the tilma and what the Aztecs understood in their folklore and mythology, what the Spaniards understood and being the great defenders of the Immaculate Conception, as that doctrine was still being debated.
They all saw images that connected with what they had in their minds. It was all to bring them to her son.
The whole history of it and the meaning of it is a very deep part of who I am.
As we approach the 500th anniversary of the Guadalupe apparitions, what message do you think Our Lady of Guadalupe offers to the Church in America today?
Well, she's been a force under different titles of the Star of the New Evangelization and the Mother of Life. And these are certainly two major issues we're facing in our time, with decline in religious affiliation and any kind of Christian sense. We look to her for a new evangelization, she always brings new disciples to her son.
And then for the defense of the sanctity of human life, she came to unite these two peoples, to put an end to bloodshed, the bloodshed that conquistadores were shedding of the indigenous people and then the human sacrifices of the Aztec people, to put an end to that and bring about peace and reconciliation. And we see new attacks on human life in our own time and a new sort of bloodshed. So we need to turn to her to seek that peace and reconciliation and build some mutual understanding so we could better defend human life and put an end to the bloodshed that's staining our country at this time.
Earlier you mentioned Our Lady of Guadalupe as a powerful force for unity. Is that important today, in a culture divided over issues like immigration?
Yes, especially immigration, but a lot of other things as well. Everyone's lamenting about how polarized we're becoming, but I see very little effort to really try to overcome that, where people honestly listen to each other and try to understand the other. People nowadays, it seems to me, feel threatened by that, as if something's going to be taken away from them if they try to understand someone else's point of view.
So I think yes, we certainly need her as a force for unity, and I think tapping into this heritage we have of sacred beauty helps to do that, because beauty has a way of healing and unifying, and when it's to honor Our Lady, all the more so.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Mother of Life. Do you see a connection between her role in defending the human dignity of the unborn and that of immigrants?
Yes, I believe in the consistent ethic of life, and it certainly applies to the plight of immigrants, the conditions that they're fleeing from, and then them being victimized also by others. There's this huge problem with human trafficking and drug trafficking.
We need to weed out those who are perpetrating crimes, but we also need to welcome those who are fleeing for legitimate reasons, and I think Our Lady will sensitize us to the plight of those who are easy to be invisible to us, such as in immigrants fleeing in this country for some kind of safety and security - as well as others, the unborn, the incarcerated, the homeless.
These parts of the population are easy to be invisible to us, but I think if we truly love Our Lady, she’ll give us the vision to see them and embrace their humanity.
How can Catholics increase their devotion to our Lady of Guadalupe in their families or in their homes?
Another part of our Project Guadalupe is a home enthronement. We’re going to be encouraging people, similar to the enthronement of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart, to have a little ritual for the enthronement of our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes and have that image present in the home.
