Toto

This story has many familiar elements.

The Virgin Mary, as the Virgin of Guadelupe, allegedly appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego in 1531. The Virgin of Guadelupe became Mexico's patron saint and protector and national symbol.

Now a German-born cleric alleges that Juan Diego never existed. There are no contemporary records, there is no clear idea of what he looked like.

<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020419/ap_on_re/religion_in_the_news_15" target="_blank">Juan Diego - man or myth?</a>

(snip)
"We believe in his sainthood, because it is part of our faith," said Tomasa Contreras, 54, standing before the basilica after a five-day pilgrimage from Tepexi, a Mixtec Indian village. "If those men don't believe, it's because they lack faith, and that's sad."

For skeptics, further doubts were raised by the big hole in the documentary record for Juan Diego. The church says it knows he was born in 1474 and where he lived, where he is buried and some scant details of his life. But most of that is based on oral tradition; the first written reference to Juan Diego didn't appear until 1648.

The delay was fairly natural, given the times, said anthropologist Jose Luis Gonzalez.

"Church officials initially expressed mistrust of the new vision" as they watched Indians streaming to worship the Virgin at a former pagan site, he said. They suspected it was a cover for continued pagan worship.

Eventually, however, the church did encourage belief in the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe appearing before the humble Indian, using the Virgin as a symbol of Catholicism in Mexico and as a way to smother the Indians' worship of Tonantzin.
(end snip)

<a href="http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/012502/012502d.htm" target="_blank">from the National Catholic Reporter</a>

Also: <a href="http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/guadalupe.htm#FRAUD" target="_blank">Positive Atheism page</a>

SmashingIdols

Isn't it strange that these miraculous people are always revealed after their death?

I think Juan Diego was a propagandist tool, created to attract natives to christianity. Thereafter, he was heavily mythologized by numerous groups for different reasons.

The best part of building upon fictional characters is there is no historical evidence to contradict the stories and legends which may be created! You can say virtually anything you want to grow upon the currently accepted story, promoting any agenda you desire, with no factual contradiction in sight.

Pretty soon, he will be walking on water, raising the dead, and ascending into heaven, promoting ____. That's the way these myths always seem to end, at least.

I know the leader of a large vegetarian movement who is lately eschewing Jesus as a vegetarian. I told him "Doesn't it matter to you to cut through the mythos, and get to the truth? There is a strong chance this person never existed, at least not in any current context." His reply was "Why would you want to stand in the way of me doing something that could convince a large number of people to become vegetarian, or even vegan?"

From such aspirations the invisible man is dressed in the cloth of mythos.

Toto

Just to update this:

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/20/national/20BELI.html" target="_blank">Proof (or Not) of Saintly Existence</a>

On July 31, Pope John Paul II is scheduled to declare Juan Diego Cuauhtlahtoatzin, a humble Aztec better known simply as Juan Diego, to be a saint, in spite of the fact that there is no evidence he existed.