The Pope in Mexico: Syncretism in Public Ritual

Pope John Paul II's canonization, in 2002, of Juan Diego, the Indian to whom the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared, was variously interpreted by sections of Mexican society as an acknowledgement of the indigenous element in Mexican Catholicism and thus a restitution of past wrongs; conversely, as a final domestication of the Indian; and as an evangelical move against a resurgent Latin American Protestantism. The canonization rites were nested within political ceremonies staged, controversially, to anoint a new presidency. This broader political message was in turn challenged in the media and on the streets. In this article, I show how a major public event can articulate the life of a complex, culturally diverse society. I identify a syncretic effect produced by the struggle for ritual control. And I take a comparative view of syncretism, drawing on Javanese ethnography to suggest common mechanisms of meaning making.