Should Have Sent Nancy Pelosi

When I made reference yesterday to Our Lady of Guadalupe I had no idea that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (revered by Democrats as Our Lady of Roe v. Wade) had only just visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Thursday.

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 27, 2009 / 04:59 pm (CNA).- During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!” ("Hillary Clinton leaves flowers for Our Lady of Guadalupe, asks ‘Who painted it?’")

Some critics have blasted this as a diplomatic blunder. They say Secretary Clinton's staff should have done a better job prepping her as to the significance of the basilica and its famous image.

I think that's being too hard on Secretary Clinton. It assumes that any of the Catholics in her retinue knew enough about Guadalupe themselves to explain it to her. This seems very unlikely to me, not least because Our Lady is the Patroness of the Unborn, and the pre-eminent religious emblem of the Catholic pro-life movement. Catholic Clintonistas surely would be as unaquainted with Guadalupe as Obama's economists are with Adam Smith.

More likely is that the Catholics on Hillary's staff, whom we can safely presume endorse her moral vision, are of the same "ardent-Catholic," we're-Democrats-first school of catechesis as Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Joe Biden. This type of Catholic tends to shun, and has been taught to shun by the example of his parish leaders for forty years, most things miraculous (unless occultic), anything morally absolute, and certainly those unsophisticated religious practices identified with unschooled peasants and unschooled immigrants--practices just like veneration of Guadalupe--practices that might make those hard-to-please east-coast WASPs sneer down at Catholics as dumb hod-carriers and cobblers.

I still don't know what to make of the cosmico/karmic significance of what happened with Hillary next, as reported by CNA:

Leaving the basilica half an hour later, Mrs. Clinton told some of the Mexicans gathered outside to greet her, “you have a marvelous virgin!”

This evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America --the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization's founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston,Texas.