Mexico City – Basilica de Guadalupe

The Basilica of Guadalupe is the most venerated Christian site in all of Latin America. The Virgin Mary apparently appeared here about four times in total in the sixteenth century and was extremely helpful in the Catholic conversion of the nation.

The story goes, that in 1531, Juan Diego saw the Virgin Mary. The church initially didn’t believe him, but on the fourth visitation, a vision of the Virgin was burnt into his clothes. The church then agreed it was a miracle and built the church where the vision occurred.

Over time, the Virgin was given credit for all manner of miraculous events and for saving the Mexicans from various blights. On theory, is that the Virgin is being used in place of an indigenous rain goddess. Either way, the Virgin is extremely popular in Mexico and her image appears all over the country. She’s easy to spot, as she is always depicted with a little pointy sunburst surrounding her body.

The original basilica was built on top of an old Aztec pyramid. As is usually the case, the whole thing started to tilt and wobble and threatened to collapse. It has now been fixed and is no longer in danger of falling over, but in the meantime, a new basilica was built.

The new one is a rather modern grand looking building. It’s truly massive and can accommodate about 40,000 people. On the Saint’s feast day (December 12), the huge square outside is also full, so I can imagine the scene was be pretty frenetic.

In addition to all the churches, there’s also a few items from the Vatican. Pope JP2 canonised Juan Diego in 2002. For his visit, a special Popemobile was constructed, which is now on display at the site. In addition, there’s a rather massive statue of JP2 which towers over it. It makes him look a bit like King Kong, but everyone seems to want to have their photo taken in front of it.

I was a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience. The basilica is similar to many other attractions in Mexico City. It’s swarming with people, full of hawkers and presided over by very grumpy, angry look security staff. The locals seem to love it though!