On 31 July 2002, Pope John Paul II canonised the Indian Juan Diego, in a ceremony at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The event put an end to efforts by those opposed to the canonisation on the grounds that Juan Diego's historical existence was doubtful. Among the most prominent voices raised in protest was that of Stafford Poole C. M., historian and expert on the Guadalupe question. In 1995, Poole had published Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, in which he argued that there was not enough documentation to support the thesis for the cult's existence prior to the 1648 publication of Miguel Sanchez's Imagen de la Virgen Maria. The tradition, according to Poole, was a ‘pious fiction’ of the seventeenth century, designed to further the cause of criollismo or ‘incipient Mexican nationalism’ by strengthening the identity of New Spain's creoles as legitimate children of the Virgin who had favoured their new home by appearing to a humble Indian on a hill in Tepeyac.

In his new work, Poole's main object is clearly to respond to the canonisation of Juan Diego. To this end, he devotes the first five chapters to trace the simmering controversy and its flare-ups, occurring in the late eighteenth century, the last quarter of the nineteenth century, as well as the last two decades of the twentieth. It is a fascinating read and Poole has not only mastered the confusing array of sources, but also succeeded in presenting the issues at stake and the protagonists' motivations in clear terms. Throughout the centuries, the Guadalupe question has moved a large number of clergy and scholars to the heights of passion; it has made and destroyed reputations, even pushed otherwise honest men to unethical action.

In Poole's view, the eighteenth century controversy rose from the Enlightenment's rationalistic thrust and the reactions of clergy and scholars clinging ‘to the Baroque approach to history’. In the late nineteenth century, the clash between a new generation of clergy, educated in Europe, and local ecclesiastics was exposed in the process that led to the coronation of Guadalupe. The church split into ‘apparitionists’ and ‘anti-apparitionists’, many of the former going to such lengths as to declare any expressions of doubt as to the apparition heresy, while the latter stooped to stealing a treatise on the matter by the famed historian Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta expressing his reservations on the matter. The historian, himself a devout Catholic, had only written the essay at the order of the Archbishop of Mexico, and of his own will kept it under lock and key. Icazbalceta was the most compelling victim of the second stage of the controversy.

The third stage was the period from the late 1970s, as the movement for the beatification of Juan Diego gathered force, culminating in the Vatican's recognition of his cult in 1990, and the subsequent campaign for his canonisation. It resulted in the Pope's visit to Mexico, and the canonisation of Juan Diego in 2002. A key figure in the controversy was the Abbot of Guadalupe, Monsignor Guillermo Schulenberg, who publicly claimed that there was not enough evidence to prove the beato's historical existence. It is at this stage that the author himself becomes a protagonist in the story as he joins the voices of protest. His book on Guadalupe was sent to Rome as evidence against the canonisation, and in 1998 he co-signed a letter to that effect to the Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints along with the churchmen Schulenberg, Estebean Martínez de la Serna, Carlos Warnholtz, and the historians Xavier Nogues and Rafael Tena.

In the chapter on the controversy surrounding the canonisation, the narrator unfolds his tale with engaging immediacy. He recounts the media furor as arguments and counter-arguments were hurled between the two camps, and points out the numerous flaws of the thesis for Juan Diego's historical existence. Indeed, in this process, the Vatican seems to have slackened considerably the rigorous examination standards normally applied to candidates for canonisation, and thus compromised its fundamental principles.

Poole's book is an important resource for students of the Guadalupe question for it provides a learned and accessible overview of a centuries' long debate among Mexicans on the historical foundations of the cult. But its weakness lies in the author's refusal to acknowledge the compelling nature of that very tradition. Poole presents strong arguments for not believing in the existence of a cult for which there is scant documentation from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But the reader cannot escape the sense that for this historian the intense devotion inspired since by the Virgin of Guadalupe, not only among Mexicans, but Latin Americans worldwide, is not proof enough of its spiritual value. Whether or not Guadalupe was a ‘pious fiction’ of the seventeenth century, the fact remains that her cult is among the great religious phenomena in the history of the Catholic Church. The reader leaves the book convinced of the myth's lack of historical foundation, but not at all certain that that very fact detracts in any way from its importance to Mexican history.