LA's Archbishop Gomez shares devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe in pastoral letter
Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez has issued a pastoral letter, “Wonder of America,” inviting Catholics to prepare spiritually for the 500th anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparitions in 2031. Gomez reflects on his lifelong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, including childhood pilgrimages from Monterrey to the shrine in Mexico City. The letter recalls Mary’s 1531 apparitions to St. Juan Diego and the image left on his tilma, which remains enshrined in Mexico City. Gomez connects Guadalupe’s significance to the history of the Americas and the Church’s mission of evangelization.
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Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles has issued Wonder of America, a pastoral letter inviting Catholics to prepare for the 500th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2031. The letter combines his personal devotion to Mary with a call to renew the Church’s missionary work across the Americas.
Gomez recalls childhood pilgrimages with his family from Monterrey to the Guadalupe shrine in Mexico City. He writes that the story of Mary’s 1531 apparitions to the Indigenous convert Juan Diego shaped his faith and his sense of vocation, and describes Mary as guiding him toward her Son.
He presents the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as an “American icon” and a sign of Mary’s continuing presence among the peoples of the Americas. He also connects that devotion to Los Angeles, which he describes as both the city of Our Lady of the Angels and a city where images of Guadalupe are widely found.
Gomez calls the apparitions a major turning point in Western history and says they offer a way to understand the origins and purpose of the Americas, as well as the Church’s continuing mission there. He traces Southern California’s Catholic roots to the Guadalupan story and to missionary Junípero Serra, who founded Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in 1771 and Mission Basilica San Buenaventura in 1782.
The letter emphasizes Juan Diego’s role as an ordinary layman entrusted with carrying Mary’s message to the bishop. Gomez presents his calling as a reminder that people beyond political and religious elites can be chosen to help bring the Gospel to others.
Gomez says the Church faces the task of evangelizing in societies where belief in God is fading and secularization is growing. He also raises concerns about artificial intelligence, writing that it could affect how people understand truth, reality and what it means to be human. At the same time, he sees people—particularly young people—as searching for love, meaning and God.
He places this mission within a long history of holiness in the Americas, naming saints, martyrs, missionaries and advocates for the poor and human dignity. Their witness, he writes, shows that the mission associated with Guadalupe is ongoing and now belongs to the faithful today.
Gomez urges Catholics to carry the Gospel into homes, workplaces, schools and communities, invoking Serra’s call for “Missions and more missions!” He concludes by asking the faithful to entrust their prayers and missionary work to Mary and provides a prayer for the 500th anniversary, asking for her protection, guidance and help in bringing Jesus to those seeking God.
Marian devotion, cultural identity, and evangelization in the Americas
Marian devotion has been one of the most recognizable features of Catholic life in the Americas, but its significance is not merely that it provides a shared cultural symbol. In the Church’s understanding, Mary’s importance lies in leading people to Christ; devotion to her can also help the Gospel take root in distinct cultures and become part of a people’s historical identity. The example most strongly emphasized in the supplied teachings is Our Lady of Guadalupe, though the same Marian attachment appears under many local titles across the continent.
Catholic Marian devotion is meant to be Christ-centered. In John Paul II’s account, the pattern is present in the Gospel: at Cana, Mary directs the servants toward Jesus, telling them, “Do whatever he tells you.” The pope therefore calls Mary a sure path to meeting Christ—not because she replaces him, but because her maternal role directs people toward him and toward the life he teaches.
Devotion to the Mother of the Lord, when it is genuine, is always an impetus to a life guided by the spirit and values of the Gospel.
This provides an important test for Marian devotion. It is not measured simply by the number of images, processions, or prayers, but by whether it helps people live more faithfully according to the Gospel. In this account, Mary’s role is simultaneously devotional and evangelizing: she is loved as Mother, while directing her children toward communion with God through Christ.
The Church presents Guadalupe as a particularly significant example of inculturation: the Gospel being expressed in forms that speak within a people’s culture, while also bringing that culture into contact with the Gospel. John Paul II describes the mestiza—mixed-race—face of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a sign of this process. He explains that authentic cultural values are transformed through integration into Christianity, while Christianity becomes rooted in the various cultures it encounters.
In Ecclesia in America, the pope likewise describes Guadalupe as a symbol and guide of Gospel inculturation. The Gospel should be proclaimed in the language and culture of its hearers, yet its reference point remains the Paschal Mystery of Christ—his death and resurrection—which is for all peoples and cultures. Thus inculturation is not simply adapting religious appearances to local taste, nor treating any existing culture as beyond judgment or transformation. It involves both cultural rootedness and fidelity to Christ.
John Paul II attributes particular importance to the Guadalupe tradition in the evangelization of Mexico and says its influence reached beyond Mexico to the wider continent. He presents Mary’s maternal and merciful image as a sign of God’s closeness, inviting people into communion with the Father and Christ. These are claims about the Church’s theological interpretation of Guadalupe’s evangelizing significance; the supplied sources do not offer a full historical account of the tradition or of all the diverse circumstances in which evangelization occurred.
Marian devotion has also helped express forms of shared identity. John Paul II observed that peoples across Latin America invoke Mary by affectionate local names, including Our Lady of Guadalupe, Aparecida, and Luján. He interpreted these devotions as signs of Mary’s presence in the life and history of different peoples, and as a spiritual bond among them.
Guadalupe holds a distinctive place in this account. The pope connected the Virgin’s mestiza image with the emergence of a new Christian cultural identity, and cited the view that the historical and cultural identity of Spanish America was luminously symbolized in the face of Mary of Guadalupe. That claim should be understood as a theological and cultural interpretation, not as a claim that every American people has the same history or identity. The sources themselves point to a wider range of national and local Marian titles, and Ecclesia in America describes the continent as a “melting-pot of peoples.”
Nor does a shared devotion require that local cultures become indistinguishable. The Church’s stated ideal is that authentic cultural values be integrated into Christian life and that the Gospel take root within diverse cultures. Guadalupe is presented as a striking example of that meeting, not as a reason to flatten the Americas’ diversity into a single cultural story.
Marian devotion is often part of popular religiosity: the faith expressed in the ordinary religious practices and traditions of a people. The supplied Church text describes devotion to Guadalupe, Aparecida, and other local or national titles as part of a wider pattern that includes patronal feasts, devotion to the saints, and attachment to the Church as a family. It calls this a precious treasure that the Church should protect and promote—and, where necessary, purify.
That last qualification matters. “Purify” does not mean dismissing popular devotion as inferior; it recognizes that religious customs need to be assessed by their relationship to the Gospel. The measure offered by Ecclesia in America is whether genuine devotion leads to a life shaped by Gospel values. The practical pastoral task, then, is neither to reject popular customs simply because they are popular nor to assume that every practice is automatically an adequate expression of Christian faith.
The same sources connect this pastoral task with evangelizing culture more broadly. John Paul II argues that the Gospel must be proclaimed within the language and culture of its hearers, while Christ remains the decisive reference point. He also describes the aim as allowing the Gospel to permeate cultures and transform them from within. Marian devotion can serve that mission when it carries people beyond cultural belonging alone toward encounter with Christ and a life formed by his Gospel.
The Catholic vision presented here holds together three realities: Mary is honored as Mother and intercessor; her devotion is authentic insofar as it leads to Christ and Gospel living; and Marian imagery can give the faith a culturally rooted expression. Guadalupe is the clearest example in the supplied texts, while other Marian titles show that the pattern is not confined to Mexico.
This account also has limits. The supplied materials emphasize the Church’s theological interpretation of Marian devotion and its evangelizing role; they do not provide a comprehensive history of evangelization across the Americas or examine in detail its conflicts, injustices, and differing experiences among Indigenous and other communities. The sources therefore support the conclusion that Marian devotion has been a major religious and cultural force, but not a claim that its historical effects were uniform or that it alone explains the formation of American identities.