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Today's date:
Thursday November 20, 2008 |
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California
Is Linked to Guadalupe
The Tidings · Los Angeles March 30, 1984
California Catholic Heritage Msgr. Francis J. Weber
In mid-1941 the Apostolic Delegate to Mexico invited Archbishop John J.
Cantwell to make a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The southland prelate was anxious to comply for many reasons, mostly because
“a visit by our people to the City of Mexico would be a gracious compliment
to the Hierarchy and Catholics of a country that has sent so many of its
children to California.”
A Solemn Pontifical Mass was celebrated at the shrine on Oct.12. It was
a gala event, attended by a military delegation representing the President
of Mexico. The entire diplomatic corps turned out to welcome the archbishop
and his party.
SPEAKING OVER the National Broadcasting System from Mexico, Cantwell observed
that “the missions built in California are our title deeds to show to the
newcomers that we of the Old Church are in California by the right of inheritance.”
He concluded by praying that “the traditions that made Mexico distinguished
and honorable in the past may be perpetuated in a fuller measure in years
to come, and that the glory of the days gone by may be surpassed” by the
pledge of the future.
The visit marked a thawing in the delicate relations then existing between
the Church and State in Mexico. From all indications the event was favorably
in all quarters.
FOLLOWING CANTWELL’S return to Los Angeles, Archbishop Luis Maria Martinez
of Mexico City proposed to the Canons of the National Basilica that a most
appropriate way of commemorating the visit would be to present a relic of
Juan Diego’s tilma to the Archbishop of Los Angeles. He pointed out that,
even then, Los Angeles boasted a larger Mexican population than any city
in the world outside of the Distrito Federal. The Canons agreed with the
proposal and delegated a “Father Gomez” to personally bring a small rectangular
piece of the famed tilma, encased in a silver reliquary to Los Angeles.
Cantwell was understandably pleased with the gesture and received the relic
with great devotion. Very likely it marked the first (and last) time a piece
of the tilma had ever left Mexican soil.
THE ARCHBISHOP entrusted the relic to Father Fidencio Esparza, a Mexican-born
priest from Guadalajara who had long been active among the southland’s Hispanic
community. Late in 1981, forty years after the historic trek to Mexico by
Cantwell, Cardinal Timothy Manning headed another pilgrimage to the National
Shrine. Upon his return to Los Angeles, Msgr. Esparza confided the relic
to His Eminence for final deposit. It was then placed on permanent display
in the Historical Museum attached to the Archival Center. The relic, the
only known segment ever detached from the original tilma, is draped over
an artistic 17th century statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And it is highly
significant that it be preserved in such surrounding. For beneath the tilma
of Our Lady, Fray Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno received Episcopal ordination
as the first bishop of Ambas Californias on Oct. 4, 1840. It all began for
modern California at Guadalupe. Reprinted with permission of The Tidings
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