/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-MEXICO: Religious Tourism Gets a Boost

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Pilar Franco

MEXICO CITY, Jan 8 2002 (IPS) - The Mexican capital is set to transform the Basilica of Guadalupe, a historical and cultural emblem of the nation, into a centre of both religious expression and tourism, similar to the grottos of Lourdes in France and of Fatima in Portugal.

The decision of the Mexico City Legislative Assembly to remodel the church’s atrium, built between 1695 and 1709, is the focal point of the project presented nearly three years ago and aimed at making the site an international tourist destination.

The basilica in honour of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who the Vatican declared patroness of the Americas, receives some 15 million visitors each year. The remodeling project, approved in December, takes into account the important role of what is known as religious tourism.

The expanded atrium of the ‘Virgen María’, with its budget of 50 million dollars, is to hold 20 sculptures of the Virgin Mary that have been revered by Roman Catholics in other parts of the Americas. Work is to begin this month under the supervision of the Guadalupe Trusteeship, made up of delegates from the Mexico City government, the Mexican Catholic Church and civil society.

But the finalisation of the project largely falls on the capacity of the figure of the Holy Virgin to bring together the Mexican people, who see her as “mother”. Their veneration of her forms part of Mexico’s national identity.

The Basilica of Guadalupe, one of the world’s most-visited Catholic churches, attracts seven to nine million “pilgrims” every Dec 12, the date that, according to tradition, the image of ‘la guadalupana’ was infused upon the ‘ayate’ (cloak) of an indigenous man named Juan Diego – 470 years ago.

The ayate, woven from fibres of the ‘maguey’, a cactus that flourishes in the region, was used by many of the native peoples to protect themselves from the cold.

The apparitions of the Virgin before Juan Diego, who the Catholic Church is planning to name as a saint in 2002, continue to be the subject of heated controversy.

Nevertheless, there is broad agreement that the true miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe is that she has contributed to the massive evangelisation of the Catholic faith among the Mexican people. Approximately 95 percent of the population professes Catholicism.

The sanctuary of the Mexicans’ patroness, who has been honoured by 24 popes and recognised by Catholics throughout the Western Hemisphere, was the focus of the first visit to the country by John Paul II in January 1979. On bended knee before the image of the Virgin, the pope referred to her as “mother of the Americas”.

The remodeling project includes developing the adjoining plaza and museum, as well as the construction of commercial and food vending areas, a cemetery with 80,000 crypts and a parking lot.

The work, slated for completion in December 2003, entails a security plan for the atrium and its surroundings and is entrusted to the national government’s Secretariat of Interior, the capital’s public safety office and to the Archbishopric of Mexico.

Security measures include a closed-circuit video surveillance system operated jointly by several different police forces in a bid to ensure tranquillity for visitors in this city known for its relatively high crime rates.

The transformation of the basilica is an effort to boost the historic site at the international level and will be financed through private donations. The Mexico City government will donate some 32,000 square metres to a foundation that is entrusted with overhauling the neighbouring plaza.

The Basilica of Guadalupe, erected on the slopes of Tepeyac hill, where the Virgin reportedly spoke to Juan Diego in the native Nahuatl language, includes the old church designed by architect Pedro de Arrieta.

The physical deterioration of the structure and the gradual sinking of Mexico City forced the basilica to close its doors for 24 years, until May 2000. It was reopened after being rehabilitated to ensure that it was safe to utilise the site.

The so-called New Basilica was built in 1974-1976, designed by architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez, with the capacity to hold 40,500 worshippers.

The drive to turn the Basilica of Guadalupe into a global religious tourism destination coincides with the sanctification of the already beatified Juan Diego.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera maintains that the project to turn the Guadalupe church into a sanctuary like those of Lourdes and Fatima is motivated by much more than tourism interests.

Rivera Carrera says it is important to promote the symbolic nature of the story in the efforts to attract believers to the Basilica of Guadalupe because it forms part of the soul of Mexico itself.