Letters to the editor – February 2026

To the Editor.

I just had to respond to Noris Binet´s article in the December 2025 issue entitledLa Virgen de Guadalupe: The Goddess of the People. I understand the desire to reinterpret the image in a new psychoanalytic sociologic modern method, but I think that it is fair to point out that it pulls the image and its interpretation away from the actual meaning. The image is one in a long line of images of the Blessed Virgin that in this case are moored to a Biblical image found in Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12:1. The Genesis image, according to most scholars today, was composed between the 9^th and 6^th centuries BCE and based on oral stories from a much earlier period. The Revelation passage was authored between 95 and 96 CE. The Guadalupe image in fact shows a pregnant woman with the moon under her feet. She wears the black waist sash that in the Aztec culture indicated her pregnancy and the round belly indicates the same. The crushing-the-snake image with its interpretation is not a pan cultural indigenous reference but is found within the iconography of the two ancient Christian Churches of the East and West based on the Revelation citation. The oldest known image still extant of this is found in the 12^th century´s encyclopedia Hortus Deliciarum. In Genesis the snake spoke and deceived. The fact that the bishop who first viewed the image recognized it as completely orthodox further indicates that the image was in no way seen as an image of a goddess. I might suggest that if you are really looking for strong, independent and well-educated women you might reference just two examples from history. Abbess Herrad of Landsberg who wrote the Hortus Deliciarum and Abbess Hildgard of Bingen (1098 – 1179).

James Flynn

trinitas03@gmail.com

Chapala