Archbishop Gómez: Guadalupe Is America's True Origin Story
Dated Sept. 8, the 20,000-word letter summons Catholics to five years of renewal and a renewed commitment to the continental mission.
Archbishop José H. Gómez of Los Angeles released a 20,000-word pastoral letter on October 22, 2026, titled “The Wonder of America,” preparing the faithful for the 500th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2031.
Dated September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the letter presents those events as “the true origin story for the United States and the nations of the Americas,” holding “the key to understanding God’s original intentions for these continents” and the Church’s continuing mission. The title itself draws from the words of the eighteenth-century painter Don Miguel Cabrera, who described the tilma as the “American Marvel.”
A Shepherd’s Devotion and the Story of a Continent
Archbishop Gómez writes from a lifelong personal devotion. He recalls childhood pilgrimages with his family from Monterrey to the shrine in Mexico City and a lasting sense of belonging to Our Lady’s story. He also recounts formative experiences, including documenting a visit by St. Josemaría Escrivá and a decisive moment as a young bishop in Denver. Los Angeles, he notes, is both the city of Our Lady of the Angels and of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose image is found throughout the city.
The letter holds up St. Juan Diego as an ordinary indigenous layman chosen for mission and draws on the traditional account of the apparitions. While acknowledging the Spanish conquest, Archbishop Gómez praises missionaries such as St. Junípero Serra, who defended the rights of indigenous peoples and helped lay foundations for international law.
Fruits of Guadalupe and a Call to Mission
He presents a long line of American saints and holy figures as fruits of the Guadalupe miracle, among them St. Rose of Lima, St. Teresa of the Andes, St. Junípero Serra, St. John Neumann, St. Peter Claver, St. Martín de Porres, St. Marianne Cope, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Blessed Miguel Pro, St. Óscar Romero, and St. José Sánchez del Río.
With five years remaining until 2031, the archbishop frames the period as an opportunity for spiritual renewal, deeper prayer and study, and renewed evangelization amid secularization and challenges such as artificial intelligence. He urges a “new commitment to the continental mission” and quotes St. Junípero Serra: “Missions and more missions! That is still what our country needs.”
This is Archbishop Gómez’s third pastoral letter since his arrival in Los Angeles in 2010, following “Witness to the New World of Faith” in 2012 and “For Greater Things You Were Born” in 2017. An English edition has been published, with a Spanish version forthcoming.