Fray Servando Teresa De Mier: Writings on Ancient Christianity and Spain’s Evangelism of Mexico

By Gary Bowen

Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (1763-1827) was a 31-year old ordained priest of the Catholic Dominican Order with a Doctorate of Theology, when he was invited by the Mexico City Council to offer a sermon December 12, 1794 at the Collegiate Church of Guadalupe, to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe tradition. Fray Servando Teresa de Mier: Writings on Ancient Christianity and Spain's Evangelism of Mexico translates Fray Mier's Spanish writings published in 1876 by Mexico's State of Nuevo Leon and the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon.  The primary text is Fray Mier's "Apologia," his defense of his Guadalupe Sermon with speeches to Mexico's First Constituent Congress. Dr. Mier states in his "Apologia" that his Sermon set forth two propositions: 1st that the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached in America centuries before Spain's conquest by Saint Thomas, whom the Indians called Santo Tomé, or Quetzacoatl in the Mexican language; and 2nd that the image of Tonantzin, Mother of the True God, given to be known to the Indians by Santo Tomé, was identical to that of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Sermon caused Fray Mier to be accused of denying the Virgin of Guadalupe tradition, which triggered removal of his Doctor degree, Ecclesiastical suspension of his license to preach, imprisonment, exile, and Inquisitions for 27 years.

Fray Mier's writings are authentic Mexican history. Sadly, it is hidden history that when cited, without research, has been called Christian myth. This is the first publication in English of Fray Mier's "Apologia," in which he writes: "If these things appear deliriums, they do not appear so much to those who have studied our antiquities."  Let's begin to study Mexican Christian antiquities!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Bowen
• Release date: Mar 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393229261

Gary Bowen

Gary Bowen resides in the country 15 miles north of Harrisburg, PA, with his wife Eilene on three acres of land beside Susquehanna River. They attend Bible Fellowship church in Dauphin. Gary and his first wife Rose; raised four boys, and one daughter in their home by the river. Gary and Rose divorced, and Gary remarried his present wife Eilene. Having worked six years in the county prison, he knew what Jonathan faced while he was incarcerated. Gary wrote letters to Jonathan and tried to help him turn his life around. As a born again Christian, Gary felt burdened to show Jon how to restore the love of Christ in Jonathan’s heart, and wrote John letters weekly. The letters were to encourage Jon, while he was incarcerated, and show him how to make changes, and lead Jon closer to the Lord. The letters became the pages of the book. Many letters were written, and some of them aren’t contained in this book. Gary’s prayer is for other’s to know the love of the Lord and develop a personal relationship with him.

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FRAY SERVANDO

TERESA DE MIER

Writings on Ancient Christianity and Spain’s Evangelism of Mexico

––––––––

Translated from Spanish and Notes by

Gary Bowen

FRAY SERVANDO TERESA DE MIER: Writings on Ancient Christianity and Spain’s Evangelism of Mexico

© 2020, A. Gary Bowen

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Printed in the United States of America

ISBN:   978-1513655772

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Preface

SECTION  I

DR. MIER’S APOLOGIA

Chapter 1

Apologia by Dr. Mier Introduction¹

Chapter 2

Antecedents and Consequences of the Sermon up to the Opening of the Process

Chapter 3

The Passions Conspire Together for Prosecuting Innocence

Chapter 4

The Passions under the Disguise of Censors Slander Innocence

Chapter 5

The Passions Defame Innocence with a Libel Called Episcopal Edict

Chapter 6

The Passions Incriminate Innocence with a Public Prosecutor’s Indictment that the Same was Nothing but a Horrific Crime.  And They Condemned It with a Sentence Worthy of Such a Tribunal; but with the Cruel Derision of Calling the Most Absurd and Atrocious Penalty, Piety and Clemency

Chapter 7

Confidential Reports Sent to the King, to the General of my Order, and to the Prior of Las Caldas

SECTION  II

Introduction

Chapter 8

Dr. Mier Fights for Liberty and Equality

Chapter 9

Dr. Mier’s Speech the Day He Takes His Seat in the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico’s First Constituent Congress, July 15, 1822 ³

Chapter 10

Prophecy of Doctor Mier on the Mexican Federation

Chapter 11

Honors and Memorials to Fray Servando Teresa de Mier by Governor José Eleuterio González

APPENDICES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

About the Author

Introduction

The President of Mexico (1824-1829), Don Guadalupe Victoria, assigned Fray Servando Teresa de Mier a very decent abode in the National Palace, where he went to live the remaining years of his life. Three years of a peaceful and tranquil life loved and respected, in contact with the best society of Mexico and in relations with the most notable men of the nation. He had three years of rest after thirty years of outrageous persecutions, jails, labors, and sufferings. He was very highly respected by President Victoria and his Vice President Don Nicolas Bravo who consulted with him on their gravest concerns. From all the States, inquiries were directed to him, and he came in this time to be the most popular man in Mexico. Two centuries later Fray Mier is unknown even in his native Mexico.

Gary Bowen married Herlinda Briones-Vega de Bowen resident of Los Mochis, Mexico, in 1964. Three years later visiting family in Los Mochis and shopping in a bookstore, Herlinda slapped a book in Gary’s hand, declaring: We have to buy this. I studied it in school. Thus, began Bowen’s study of: "Servando Teresa de Mier, Escritos y Memorias," Ediciones de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma, Mexico, 1945.

Twenty years later Bowen came to know a Deputy in the lower house of Mexico’s Congress, the Chamber of Deputies. Bowen spoke of Mier in his conversations with the Congressional Deputy, only to learn that an educated Mexican politician had never heard of this most popular man in Mexico. Today, no knowledge of Fray Mier is common, even in Mexico. Two years after their first meeting, the Deputy phoned Bowen to tell him of a political conference he had attended in Monterrey, Mexico, Fray Mier’s hometown. The Deputy’s Monterrey colleagues recommended a book, of which the Deputy bought two copies, one for himself and one he mailed to Bowen. Thus, Bowen came in possession of: Biografia del benemérito mexicano D. Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra, by José Eleuterio González, 1876, Commemorative Edition 1977, published by the State of Nuevo Leon and the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

Early 1990’s, Bowen attended a class at a Catholic Jesuit University in Mexico. His introduction to the University faculty of Jesuit Priests included this: Gary studies the writings of some silly guy Fray Mier. Have any of you ever hear of Fray Mier? There was a silent nodding of their heads, by the Jesuit Faculty. The teacher asked, Really, how do you know him? The Jesuits unanimously responded: We studied Fray Mier and his writings when we were preparing to become Jesuit Priests. The Fray Mier topic was immediately dropped by the class instructor.

The source of Bowen’s translated writings by Fray Mier are published by respected public Universities of Mexico and honored by Mexican Jesuit Priests. Bowen study of Fray Mier has led him to conclude that Fray Mier’s life and writings are knowingly and willfully hidden from common view. Fray Mier’s life and writings are true, authentic history that deserve to be studied.

Preface

Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (1763-1827) was a 31-year old ordained priest of the Dominican Order of the Roman Catholic Church with a Doctor of Theology when he was invited by Mexico City’s Council to deliver a sermon December 12, 1794 at the Collegiate Church of Guadalupe, honoring the tradition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s Patron Saint. His Virgin of Guadalupe Sermon caused a notorious scandal. Fray Mier was accused of denying the tradition of the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe triggering removal of his Doctorate of Theology, an ecclesiastical suspension of his license to preach, imprisonment, exile, and his Catholic Church Inquisition for the next 27 years of his life.

Fray Mier’s Apologia defends his innocence of the accusations and judicial proceedings incited by his December 12, 1794 Guadalupe Sermon and strongly declares the Gospel of Jesus Christ was preached in America before Spain’s conquest. He abridges the few surviving records of the ancient people of Anáhuac (Mexico), and the many records of the Catholic missionaries of New Spain as evidence of the truth of his Sermon. Dr. Mier’s, Apologia, written in Spanish with a stilted Latin grammar, reads like a doctoral thesis written for a PhD, or a legal deposition to be filed with a court of justice for legal judgement. Neither the Spanish nor the translated English text is a quick read. Dr. Mier’s details of how he came to know the propositions he preached in his 1794 Guadalupe Sermon provide due diligence to the truth of his Sermon.

Fray Servando Teresa de Mier: Writings on Ancient Christianity and Spain’s Evangelism of Mexico." is a translation from Spanish of Fray Mier’s writings with biography and comments by Mexico’s State of Nuevo Leon Governor José Eleuterio González (1813-1888). Governor González published Biografía del benemérito mexicano D. Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra ("Biography of the Distinguished Mexican Don Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra"), 1876 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. A Commemorative Edition, Facsimile of the Original, was republished by the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico and the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon upon the Sesquicentennial of the Death of Father Mier, 1977. The Biography’s primary focus is Fray Mier’s Apologia, with additional writings, and speeches to Mexico’s Constituent Congress. Fray Mier’s writings are an academic historical labyrinth in defense of his December 12, 1794 Guadalupe Sermon.

This is well documented Mexican history, which is sadly hidden and occasionally classified as Christian myth. Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Writings on Ancient Christianity and Spain’s Evangelism of Mexico." is the first publication in English of Fray Mier’s original Spanish writings. Quoting Fray Servando Teresa de Mier from his Apologia: If these things appear deliriums, they do not appear so much to those who have studied our antiquities.

─Gary Bowen─

SECTION  I

DR. MIER’S APOLOGIA

(1794-1821)

WRITTEN IN DEFENSE OF HIS GUADALUPE SERMON,

RECITED IN THE SANCTUARY OF TEPEYACAC,

THE 12th DAY OF DECEMBER 1794.

PROPOSITION ONE

"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:

them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice;

and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."

The Bible, St. John 10:16

PROPOSITION TWO

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven;

a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet,

and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered."

The Bible, Revelations 12:1-2

Chapter 1

Apologia

by Dr. Mier Introduction¹

Powerful and sinners are synonymous in the language of the scriptures, because power fills them with pride and envy, it facilitates their means of oppression, and ensures their impunity. Thus, the Archbishop of Mexico, Don Alonso Nuñez de Haro achieved it in the persecution by which he ruined me for the Guadalupe Sermon that then being a monk of the Order of Preachers,² I recited in the Sanctuary of Tepeyacac the 12th day of December 1794.

But: I saw the unrighteous man exalted on high and lifted like the cedars of Lebanon. And I passed by, and behold he was not.³ It is time to instruct the posterity upon the truth of everything that happened in this affair, in order that you might judge with your accustomed impartiality that you might take advantage and do justice to my memory, since this Apologia, cannot now serve me in this life that naturally is near its end at my age of fifty-six years. I owe it to my very noble family in Spain and in America, to my Mexican University, to the Order to which I belong, to my character, to my Religion and to the native land, whose glory was the object that I had proposed in the sermon.

I will follow in the Apologia the same order of the events. I will first tell for your intelligence what preceded the sermon and followed it up to the opening of the process.  I will then prove that I did not deny the tradition of Guadalupe in the sermon; I will explain it with some proofs, and it will be seen that far from contradicting it, its theme was all calculated to sustain it against the arguments, if it were possible; and if not for that it takes away from the native land a glory more solid and greater without comparison. From there the passions appeared in a conspiracy prosecuting the innocent, slandering it under the disguise of censors, defaming it with a libel called Pastoral Edict, incriminating it with a public prosecutor’s indictment that the same is no more than a horrific crime, and condemning it with a sentence worthy of such a tribunal; but with the cruel derision of naming the most absurd and atrocious penalty, piety and clemency.  And I left for exile, but always under the tremendous escort of the false testimonies disguised with the title of confidential reports. Always the oppression accompanied me, always the intrigue, and I found nothing in all my resources but venality, corruption and injustice. Even with twenty-four years of persecution I have acquired the talent of painting monsters; the discussion will show that I do no more here than copy the originals. I have nothing now against who bloodied me; all my enemies disappeared from this world. They have already given their account to the Eternal; I desire that He has pardoned them.⁴

Chapter 1, Notes

1.  Memorias del Dr. Servando Teresa de Mier. Published for the first time by Manuel Payno en: Vida, aventuras, escritos y viajes del Dr. Servando Teresa de Mier. Mexico City, Imprenta Abadiano 1856. Reprinted in a Father Mier Biography written by José Eleuterio Gonzáles, Monterrey, Mexico. 1876. Published again, in part, by Nicolás Rangel in the Antología del Centenario, Vol. II. Mexico City. 1910. A Fourth Edition, with Prologue by Alfonso Reyes, published in Madrid, Ediciones América, Colección Ayacucho. 3 Vol. Finally, parts of these Memories were published in El pensamiento del Padre Mier by Alessio Robles, Biblioteca Enciclopédica Popular. No. 16. Mexico City. 1944. The bibliographical provenance of this footnote is from Edmundo O’Gorman, op. cit. page XLIII. Chapter 1, Dr. Mier’s Apologia, is translated from the José Eleuterio Gonzáles Biography cited above by O’Gorman, republished 1977 as a Commemorative Edition, Facsimile of the Original, by the Government of the State of Nuevo Leon, and the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, on the Sesquicentennial of the Death of Father Mier, 1827-1977, pp. 9-142.

2.  The Order of Preachers is more commonly known as the Dominican Order, or Dominicans, of which Fray Mier was a member.

3.  The First Epistle of Saint Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, Chapter 14: 5 written circa 80-140 A.D. was translated by Charles H. Hoole, 1885.

4.  The preceding is Dr. Mier’s Introduction to his Apologia. -Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are Dr. Mier’s complete Apologia.

Chapter 2

Antecedents and Consequences of the Sermon up to the Opening of the Process

Some seventeen days before that of Guadalupe, the Councilman Rodriguez assigned me the Sermon for the fiesta of the Sanctuary; and as a practiced orator, and that I had already preached three times on the same image with applause, quickly I made up my theme, and it was checked, when the Father Mateos Domínico told me that a Lawyer had told him some curious things about Our Lady of Guadalupe, that had delayed him the entire afternoon. I began listening to him in curiosity, and he himself led me to the home of Licentiate Borunda, who told me: "I think that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is from the time of the preaching in this kingdom of Saint Thomas who the Indians called Quetzalcóhuatl. I was not surprised by this preaching that since a child I learned from the mouth of my wise father. Everything I have later studied, has confirmed it to me. I believe that there is no instructed American who is ignorant of it or that doubts it. But against being of that time, the image of Our Lady opposes the tradition. It does not contradict my opinion, he responded, because according to the image was already painted when the Virgin sent it to [Bishop] Zumárraga. It would not be, I retorted, on the cape of Juan Diego that then did not exist. It is not an Indian’s cape, he told me; I rather believe that it is on the cape of the same Saint Thomas who would give it to the Indians as a symbol of the faith, written in his way, since it is a Mexican hieroglyphic from those that they call composed, that encrypts it and contains it. Then the painting would not be supernatural. Earlier in my system it can only be tested. Doctor Bartolache has ruined all the basic essentials that the painters had in one thousand six hundred sixty-six; but the hieroglyphics that I see in the image are linked to the most refined little phrases of the Nahuatl language, with such skill and delicacy, that it appears impossible that the neophyte Indians at the time of Saint Thomas, as after the conquest, could encrypt the articles of faith in such a sublime manner. Even the conservation of the image can only be miraculous in the passage of so many centuries. And if it is that it is damaged, as it already was in one thousand six hundred sixty-six, it could come from the assault of the apostates, during the persecution of Huemac, King of Tula, against Saint Thomas and his disciples. And this can perhaps allude to the allegory of the flaying of Tetehuinan, so celebrated in Mexican histories. The Christians would hide it and the Virgin was sent to the Bishop with Juan Diego etc. according to the current tradition."

This is the result that Borunda told me, and it is also the analysis of my sermon.  He proceeded like this: "I more than being a Nahuatl language native, I have most of thirty years studying its composed and figurative sense, from reading manuscripts, confronting traditions, examining monuments, with travels to that end, training myself in deciphering hieroglyphics, that I believe to have encountered the key; and what I have said about the image of Guadalupe, is the result of my studies. All is disclosed in the volume of a folio, titled Clave general de jeroglícos americanos ¹ that I have written in honor of the Royal order, with that request from the Royal Historical Academy I was invited to write upon our antiquities, and with the occasion of three manuscripts excavated in the Plaza Mayor. 

They have been explained there, alluding to the ancient superstitions attributed in all to the Indians; but there is not such a thing: what they contain are the dates of the principal events of the Christian writing and religion. Then, I interrupted; They are precious monuments to your credit, because the incredulous could not say that we have feigned the Christians. This should be printed. Borunda continued, "I protested at the time in the literary Gazeta; but I have lacked the funds for the printing. If you wished to give notice to the public in your sermon to excite the curiosity, perhaps that would attain what is necessary for the printing. I responded; I would gladly do it, but it is necessary that I have certainty of the essentials, and you already see that I do not have time to examine your work. I believe that only nine or ten days were lacking until the sermon.  He told me; Oh! the proofs are incontestable, only that they do need extension to present their strength. This can be remedied, exhibiting only some light, adaptable proofs to a sermon, remitting them to a public discussion, in which they are all exhibited, and there is no fear. I have reviewed my work with the Minister President Luengo de San Agustin, and I also took it to the Canon Uribe, who told me that his occupations did not give him time to examine it, but he did not condemn it."

These recommendations were good: neither could I imagine that a lawyer, acting for the Royal Court, had damaged brains as the Canons censors pretended. I am also simple; I have liked this pension from the great geniuses, even if I do not have it. I saw a system favorable to the religion, I saw the native land was assured of an Apostle, a glory that all nations crave, and especially Spain, that being a tiny county, it is not content with less than three Apostles of the first order, even though all dispute it: I finally saw, that without harm to the fundamentals of the tradition, the image and the Sanctuary were exalted, and above all that it opened a way for responding to the arguments against the history of Guadalupe, otherwise irresolvable in my opinion. The religion, the glory of the native land, of the image, of the Sanctuary, fills me with enthusiasm, and this upset me, if it is that I could be upset. Huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpæ ("Perchance, I might have succumbed to this one weakness"). ²

I retired to my convent cell after having heard Borunda. I meditated two or three days on all that he had told me. I reduced it to four propositions, I traced some proofs, and once the outline became apparent, I returned to filling it out and gathering all that was necessary. It is true that some propositions given to me were of little weight; but I already believed according to the antecedent that substantial evidence remained in the depth of the work. I asked especially for notes on the explanation of the Mexican hieroglyphics that Borunda believed to see in the image, because my knowledge on this genre is very superficial; and he dictated them to me, either by speaking or reading from his work.

With this material I returned to work, and as I had to prove four propositions, to link the proofs, give all the oratorical tone, and since I did not possess the material, I scribbled (Most of it was thrown out to scribble as all speakers do, before putting together a perfect piece). It turns out that my scribbles, with Borunda’s notes, amounted to eighteen pages in the judicial decree, even though the sermon only has five.

When there were then no more than two or three days before the sermon, having achieved a draft such that is legible for me, I went to read it to Borunda, who approved it.  I likewise read it to various doctor friends: no one found it theologically reprehensible; no one believed that it denied the Guadalupe tradition, all judged it ingenious, and some participated in my enthusiasm, even offering me their pens to appear in my favor in the literary fray that it provoked.

I confess nevertheless, that my enthusiasm had diminished with time, and that to have had two days more to do another sermon, I would not have preached the same.  But the urgency of the time, the vote of my friends, the incontestable proofs that Borunda said he had, and some not exactly worthless that I found in the depth of my research, and upon which I will establish later in my defense, they made me dive into the water.

The sermon preached, I had as always what they call praises, and there was no lack among the Canons of the Collegiate Church who asked me to archive it, as an erudite piece that did honor to America. However, among the individuals of the Municipality of the City there were those who counseled me not to give it, because it would be printed. I even had to preach in the Capuchin of Mexico to the nuns, and I had no sermon (because at the end I had not finished composing, except the first part). I preferred to walk by the more public places and to visit various respectable homes to observe the impression that my sermon had made. I found nothing scandalous, save among some the notice that I had preached a new kind of sermon.

But miserabile dictum ("Miserable to relate")! the Señor Archbishop sent an order to the Churches that Sunday, the sixth festival day, must formally be preached against me for having denied the Guadalupe tradition, affirming that the image was painted on the cape of Saint Thomas and not on that of the Indian Juan Diego. And, as for this day, almost all the Guadalupe Fiestas in Mexico are reserved for the people being occupied this primary day of pilgrimage to the Sanctuary, and by consequence the speakers are many, and their declamation simultaneous and heated, immediately and necessarily produced a terrible scandal. The purpose to stir the populace against me and to begin an inquiry, was so infallible, that before it was proven (since at eight-thirty in the morning of the same Sunday even though no sermon had been preached), already he asked me for mine through my Provincial, so that I had the simplicity to hand it over as I had it in a rough draft, and he intimated to me the suspension of preaching, at the same time that I was to do it in the Capuchin.

Consider a similar proclamation in a people so lively as the Mexicans that only the sight of an Aurora Borealis a few days before, had been taken as a sign of the day of judgement, and so excited by the image of Guadalupe, that nevertheless believing that the celestial fire came from the north, all night the people flocked upon Tepeyácac to die burned, they said, with our Lady. Hic dies primus laeti, primusque malorum &c. ("Here is the first joyful day, and the beginning of evil, etc.") ³If I did not perish, victim of the popular indignation, perhaps I owe it to the prudence of keeping myself a prisoner in my convent. My community believed itself exposed, and the Provincial warned him, when they marched in the procession of images of the Virgin of Los Remedios to do so with utmost care, to avoid the insults of the mob. Especially outstanding, it was known among the educated people of Mexico that the Archbishop did not believe the Guadalupe tradition, and that he himself when I was preaching, was saying to his companions that it was hardly believable; and this uproar was no more than a maneuver to begin an investigation of me, to take from me the trust that the people had in me, and lose me by envy, or for his notorious hatred against everything American. But even had he believed the tradition, and had my sermon been scandalous, it was not he who ought to judge me, because his proclamation was even so. And in the end, unjust in every sense, because certainly I had not thought to deny so great a tradition as Guadalupe. The good Shepherd of the Gospel looked for the sheep that had strayed. He lifted it lovingly upon his shoulders to bring it back to the fold, and did not lash out at it, throw it to the dogs, nor did he disturb the flock. And, had I denied the tradition of Guadalupe? It had not even passed through my imagination. 

It was easy that I deceived myself in my own cause, but the same Guadalupe Collegiate Church who ought to consider itself the most interested, having seen the scandal provoked the fourteenth day of December, the grey-haired met, the sixteenth, and after having agreed on that which I had preached was most glorious to the native land, to the image and to the Sanctuary, than that which they had, they said that their opinion had been turned over to four or five chapter members to convene with me; and if it turned out established as probable what I had preached, it would invite me with a sermon that could be preached as true; and if not, that I could recant it. But that His Illuminate had taken up the cause to himself. The Canon of Guadalupe Gamboa was the same day by night in my convent cell to advise me on it, and the Canon Leyva, Secretary of the Church Chapter, later confirmed it to me. Both marveled that I could have delivered the sermon, knowing the antipathy of the Archbishop against Creoles and their glories. This opinion, thus as proof that the Archbishop proceeded to give his proclamation without the petition of the party, thus it proves that the Canons had not believed that I had denied the tradition, nor was there in the sermon anything worthy of censure or a theological note, still they did not want that I preach it as true, if it were established.

It is evident from the judicial decrees and certainly in verbo sacerdotis ("On the word of the priest) ⁴ that from the beginning of the sermon I offered this protest: I warn that I do not deny the appearance of Most Holy Mary to Juan Diego and Juan Bernardino; on the contrary to deny them appears reprehensible to me. Neither do I deny the miraculous painting of our image, on the contrary I have to prove it in a plausible way. I later warned that nothing denied how much I was thinking about the tradition being genuine and legitimate. Such ought to consider those rites of the Sacred Congregation, after the accustomed examination, whether it served to express itself in the prayer’s lessons. To the end of the third of the second night, after having spoken of the woman of Apocalypse clothed with the sun and having the moon under her feet, ⁵ it goes on: In this figure, they almost tell what appeared in Mexico the year 1531―an image marvelously painted of the Virgin Mary, who they say appointed a pious neophyte there near the city with a wonder, the place where she wanted a temple consecrated to her." I do not say more in the entire official letter. Have I denied some of this? On the contrary I have admitted more, as one sees by the protest; nor with it said could I substitute the complexity of my sermon. Later I did not deny in it the tradition of Guadalupe.

It is true that I added one or another detail, to exalt as I already said, the native land and the image, and suppressed some circumstances, likewise not admitted by the Congregation of Rites, not essential to the tradition, and necessary in my judgement of omitting to save the tradition from insuperable difficulties. Nevertheless, from the sermon’s introduction, I