Who Painted the Virgin of Guadalupe?

GetReligion.org notes the latest State Department gaffe at the top: Secretary of State Clinton visiting Mexico asks a cleric who is showing her the Virgin of Guadalupe a bad question, at least bad if you are supposed to represent the United States to various nations and would like to know a little bit about the culture of those nations ahead of time. Not knowing about Mexico and the Virgin of Guadalupe is sort of like visit Vatican City and asking, "Who started the Papacy?" Or asking an imam in Saudi Arabia  "Who wrote the Koran?"

Comments

[Michael D. Harmon]

I liked the priest's response: "God!" But she probably thought it was an expletive.

[Richard]

Well, considering the weakness of the official answer, the question is valid. Who painted it? Someone comes off this story sounding foolish and it's not Hillary!

[maria horvath]

Richard:

". . . considering the weakness of the official answer, the question is valid."

Please explain.

Maria

[Rchard]

Some human painted that. The question is therefore valid.

[Michael D. Harmon]

Now I'm curious, Richard. How do you know that?

[Jim]

The point is not who painted it but that Secretary Clinton did not know that the pious in Mexico believe it is a miraculously painted "icon," if you will. Had she known that, she would not have raised the question at all, even if, as is likely, she did not believe the story herself.

[Benighted Savage]

>>> Someone comes off this story sounding foolish and it's not Hillary! <<<

Thus spake Saints Spinoza and Hume!

And, of course, only FOOLISH folks would criticize SecState Clinton for receiving on 27 March "the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America — the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization’s founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas."

[Rchard]

Whoa, whoa, there, Benighted Savage. All I wrote is that in this particular instance those who actually believe the official story come off as foolish (not unlike Benny Hinn devotees, really!)while the one who asked the obvious question doesn't. I said nothing of Mrs. Clinton's pro-choice views (foolish indeed!).

@Jim: I understand. As Sec. of State she could have been briefed better about local superstitions.

[Benighted Savage]

>>> All I wrote is that in this particular instance those who actually believe the official story come off as foolish (not unlike Benny Hinn devotees, really!)while the one who asked the obvious question doesn't. <<<

Well, I did mention Spinoza and Hume, too. Is your argument that miracles per se don't occur, or that in this instance a miracle didn't occur? Given the Modernist and Enlightenment critiques of Christian doctrine and belief, it would also be interesting if you would explain what you mean by "local superstitions." Who is being foolish here -- Mexicans? Catholics? Christians?

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

They might have given Mrs Clinton an answer like this:

In 1979 Philip Serna Callahan studied the icon in (The Tilma under Infra-red Radiation) with infrared light. He stated that the portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no paintbrush strokes. Another study was commissioned in 1999 to Leoncio Garza-Valdés, professor of Microbiology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, by the Archbishop of Mexico, Norberto Rivera Carrera in hopes of proving the age of the cloth. Garza-Valdés had previously done similar studies to the Shroud of Turin. Garza-Valdés states in an interview in Proceso that he found three distinct layers in the painting, with the first layer showing a signature; M.A. and a date, 1556. He also states that in the first painting the virgin had a child on her left arm and was lighter skinned. The original painting shows striking similarities to the original Lady of Guadalupe found in Extremadura Spain. A second virgin was painted over the first one and this portrait shows facial features of strong native american origin; and is painted 15 cm to the right of the current depiction. Apparently this second virgin was painted by Juan de Arrue around 1625. Garza-Valdés also found the fabric to be made of hemp and linen, not agave fibers, as popular wisdom holds.

Source.

Despite Mrs Clinton's egregiously awful and criticism-worthy policies, she hardly needs to be criticized for asking a legitimate question regarding who painted a painting.

I remember hearing years ago that the original tilma had been destroyed, and that the venerated one is a reproduction of sorts. That may or may not be correct, though the above quotation indicates that it's likely.

[Rchard]

What Kevin said.

[Art Deco]

They might have given Mrs Clinton an answer like this:

Why would they have made use of the site of an organization called "Global Oneness" ("co-creating a happy world") as a source, in an article which quotes Joe Nickell as an authority?

[Michael D. Harmon]

I wasn't so much asking Richard for documentation such as Kevin provided as jogging his elbow about a response that seemed to me to be saying that God could not, as a matter of plain, easily understood fact, have produced a painting such as the one in question by miraculous means if He had wanted to – that it was not within His power to do so.

And that, of course, is a far more foolish belief than the one that the painting is miraculous.