On April 12 1939, from his place of exile in San Antonio, Texas, José de Jesús Manríquez y Zárate, first bishop of Huejutla, Mexico, wrote a pastoral letter to his priests and people, exhorting them to work for the cause of Juan Diego’s beatification. This was the first effective step in the process of canonizing the indigenous peasant who in 1531 is said to have experienced the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The story of these apparitions has been the subject of intense controversy, especially with regard to their historical reality and the existence of Juan Diego.