By Luis Yerovi Jr.

The indigenous Mexican, Juan Diego, whose Native American name was Cuauhtlatoatzin ("Eagle that talks"), was canonized today by Pope John Paul II. Juan Diego was born in the village of Cuautitlan in 1474 and died in 1548. By all accounts, he lived the life of a humble peasant in servitude of his Spanish overseers. It is said that Juan Diego, along with thousands of other native people, helped build the Cathedral of Guadalupe in Mexico City by carrying the bricks and stones used in its construction on his back.

Diego was canonized for having purportedly seen an apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1531 on Mt. Tepeyac, grounds considered holy by the Aztecs. "Since the Indian Juan Diego spoke to the sweet Lady of Tepeyac, You, Mother of Guadalupe, entered determinedly into the life of the Mexican pueblo," said the Pope in declaring December 9th the Day of Juan Diego.

However, what does this declaration really mean and is there an ulterior motive- conscious or unconscious? The truth is that the grips of the Catholic faith among the indigenous in Mexico and all Latin America is slowly loosening, and native religions promise a resurgence. Is the Pope's gesture just a means to appease the native people in an indirect effort to reign in the Vatican's flock?

The Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano, in his novel Memory of Fire, describes the moment in history when Juan Diego "sees" the Virgin of Guadalupe in a different light from the official church doctrine:

"That light, does it rise from the earth or fall from the sky? Is it lightning bug or bright star? It doesn't want to leave the slopes of Tepeyac and in dead of night persists, shining on the stones and entangling itself in the branches. Hallucinating, inspired, the naked Indian Juan Diego sees it: The light of lights opens up for him, breaks into golden and ruby pieces, and in its glowing heart appears that most luminous of Mexican women, she who says to him in the Nahuatl language: 'I am the mother of God.'

Bishop Zumarraga listens and doubts. The bishop is the Indians' official protector, appointed by the emperor, and also guardian of the branding iron that stamps on the Indians' faces the names of their proprietors. He threw the Aztec codices into the fire, papers painted by the hand of Satan, and destroyed five hundred temples and twenty thousand idols. Bishop Zumarraga well knows that the goddess of earth, Tonantzin, and her sanctuary high on the slopes of Tepeyac and that the Indians used to make pilgrimages there to worship our mother, as they called that woman clad in snakes and hearts and hands.

The bishop is doubtful and decides that the Indian Juan Diego has seen the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Virgin born in Estremadura darkened by the suns of Spain, has come to the valley of the Aztecs to be the mother of the vanquished."

I think the Pope could have done better in Mexico City. In a world torn apart by religious myths, he should have used this moment to be magnanimous and apologize to the indigenous people for the grievous wrongs committed against them in the name of the church. Pope John Paul could have used the "miracle" on Mt. Tepeyac to celebrate the profound mystery of life and exalt the human qualities of love, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness.

The gesture to sanctify the Native American Juan Diego is, in the final analysis, no more than another example that in our confused world, where the powerful claim and want the masses to believe that we/they live by the rule of law, the real mantra is to the victor belongs the spoils, even the rights to rewrite history and maintain the status quo at any cost.