A Response to Stafford Poole

Abstract

I am grateful to editors of The Catholic Historical Review and to Stafford Poole, C.M., for his willingness to engage in this exchange. Space does not permit me to comment on every item explicated by Father Poole. So I will attempt to delineate our major point of agreement, three major points on which I think Father Poole and I need to to disagree, and some concluding remarks on what I contend are important considerations for ongoing research on origins and early development of Guadalupe tradition.Father Poole and I concur on an important distinction that needs to be kept in mind in this debate-namely difference between practice of Guadalupan devotion and belief in an apparitions narrative. The fact that Spaniards and natives venerated Guadalupe does not demonstrate that they had knowledge of an apparition story. Father Poole actually claims that I do not concur with him on this point:Failing to observe this distinction, Professor Matovina cites as evidence of native devotion efforts of Archbishop Moya de Contreras and Jesuit Superior General Everard Mercurian to secure a plenary indulgence for pilgrims to Tepeyac (1576). Yet should be noted that neither one mentioned anything about miracles, apparitions, or special devotion by Spaniards or Indians at that location, (p. 273)However, I do make distinction between devotional practice and belief in apparitions at outset of my essay:[D]id reports of Juan Diego's encounters with Guadalupe and her miraculous appearance on his tilma (cloak) initiate chapel and its devotion, or is apparition narrative a later invention that provided a mythical origin for an already existing image and pious tradition? (p. 244)Moreover, I present documentation concerning 1576 plenary indulgence as a primary source about indigenous devotion, and I make no claim that source provides evidence for belief in apparitions or other miracles. As I wrote in my essay, source states the indigenous people's 'eminent devotion' to Guadalupe had induced conversion of numerous natives 'to faith in Christ' (p. 255). Thus Father Poole and I agree that Guadalupan devotion and belief in Guadalupe apparitions are separate elements of Guadalupe tradition; existence of one does not necessarily imply existence of other.One point of disagreement is weight of from silence. The disagreement is not that I claim to have nullified all significance of this argument. Rather, my contention is that arguments from silence are weakened to degree that an event or tradition is less prominent during a particular source's lifetime and therefore less likely to be mentioned in their written records (p. 250). Thus fact that Guadalupan devotion was decidedly local during its first century of development is an important consideration in assessing relative weight of from silence about it. Father Poole demonstrates in Our Lady of Guadalupe that Guadalupan devotion had a relatively limited sphere of influence during its first century of development, but nonetheless contends that sixteenth-century sources should be expected to mention it. My point is that, since Guadalupe's rise to national fame was gradual-claims that her reported apparitions were a prodigious event in Mexican history began only in seventeenth century-it is not surprising that earlier sources are less likely to take note of tradition.I conclude that[ajlthough this inconsistency does not completely invalidate Poole's argument, extent to which he is correct about gradual increase of a local devotion undermines his argument from silence among those he asserts historians should reasonably expect to have spoken, (p. 253)Father Poole responds that the local character does not explain silences of persons who would logically have been expected to comment on it (p. 282). …