Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City marks the site where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on Tepeyac Hill in December 1531. Speaking to him in his native Nahuatl, she asked that a church be built there. When Juan Diego presented roses miraculously gathered in winter to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, his tilma — a cloak made of cactus fiber — revealed the now-famous image of the Virgin, which has been venerated ever since.

The original chapel built in 1533 was replaced by successive churches; the Old Basilica dates from 1709. Because the earlier structure was sinking into the soft lakebed soil and becoming structurally unsafe, a vast modern basilica was constructed adjacent to it between 1974 and 1976, designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez to hold up to 10,000 worshippers. The tilma of Juan Diego is displayed above the main altar, where moving walkways carry pilgrims past it.

Pope John Paul II canonized Juan Diego in 2002. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of Mexico, of the Americas, and of the unborn.

The Basilica of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, drawing an estimated 20 million pilgrims annually — with peaks of 10 million during the December 12 feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe alone. The site is the spiritual heart of Mexican Catholicism and of Latino Catholic identity worldwide, and represents the indigenous face of Marian devotion in the Americas.