Juan Diego
The indigenous Mexican to whom, according to the Nican Mopohua, the Virgin Mary appeared at Tepeyac in December 1531. The Catholic Church canonized him in 2002.
The Nican Mopohua, printed in 1649, calls Juan Diego a poor commoner who lived at Cuauhtitlan and belonged to the church at Tlatelolco, and tells how the Virgin Mary appeared to him on the hill of Tepeyac early in December 1531 (Nican Mopohua lines i–ii, 3–5); the story is told under Our Lady of Guadalupe.
What else is said of him comes from the tradition the Catholic Church accepts. The biography issued by the Holy See gives his native name as Cuauhtlatoatzin, the years 1474 and 1548 for his birth and death, and says that he lived his last years as a hermit beside the chapel at Tepeyac; it records that John Paul II beatified him on 6 May 1990 (Holy See, Biography of Juan Diego paragraphs 2–5). The same pope declared him a saint on 31 July 2002 and called him the first indigenous saint of the American continent (John Paul II, Homily at the canonization of Juan Diego 1). Historians who doubt that the apparition tradition goes back to the 1530s are cited in the dating note of the event.
In the timeline
- 1531, traditional dateOur Lady of Guadalupe
A Nahuatl account printed in 1649 tells how the Virgin Mary appeared in December 1531 to Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac and left her image on his cloak. The Catholic Church has approved the devotion and in 2002 declared Juan Diego a saint.