Don Fray Alonso de Montúfar, Second Archbishop of Mexico, and the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe

Abstract

Fifty years ago all Mexico assembled at the feet of the ancient and venerated image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and in token of their loving submission to the Queen of Heaven, an imperial crown was placed on the head of the Blessed Mother of God. Her spiritual empire had been extended from the day when she had first appeared to the Indian Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeaca. The holy friar and first Archbishop of Mexico, the Franciscan Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga, was proud to have been among the first to kneel before the holy Image. Our Lady had won the hearts of all Mexicans. Tireless missionaries had taught the story of Guadalupe to their neophytes in far-off lands, and in this year of grace 1945, when all the American continent claims her as their Queen, the Chapter of the Basilica of Guadalupe, the Archbishops and Bishops of Mexico, and the hierarchy of all the Americas joined in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Coronation of Our Lady of Guadalupe.