Land of the Immaculata: Our Lady’s Patronage of the Americas

The American continents are mysteriously united under Our Lady’s care, with the entire continents having been placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the United States under the Immaculate Conception.

John Grondelski recently reflected on the fittingness of the United State’s patroness as the Immaculate Conception. He argues that the doctrine provides an important corrective for our culture which undermines conception, personhood, and our God-given identity. I do not deny the importance of these points, but it made me think of the historical significance of the United States bishops making this choice in 1846. In my mind, there is something almost mystical in the connection between the America’s and Our Lady, particularly in her title as the Immaculate Conception. She has been guiding the missionary impulse in the Americas very directly, despite the manifold human sins involved in colonization, and has worked to overcome them through her immaculate grace. The new beginning, a great turning point in history, that came with the discovery of America, found a natural patroness in the Immaculate one, whose conception without transmission of original sin marked a new beginning for humanity.

Even in grade school, we memorize Columbus’s three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Columbus personally changed the name of his flagship, from a less edifying title, to the full name of “Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception.” It was on important Spanish feast, Our Lady of the Pillar, that Columbus made landfall on the Bahamas. St. John Paul II, visiting Santo Domingo for the 500th anniversary of this discovery, made a strong connection to Our Lady: “The arrival of the Gospel of Christ in the Americas bears the seal of the Virgin Mary. His name and image stood out on the caravel of Christopher Columbus, the ‘Santa Maria,’ which five centuries ago landed in the New World. She was the ‘Star of the sea’ in the risky and providential crossing of the Ocean that opened unexpected horizons to humanity. The crew of the three caravels, at the dawn of the day of discovery, invoked her with the singing of the Salve Regina.” On Columbus’s second voyage, Fr. Juan Perez, a Franciscan who had supported him before Queen Isabella, celebrated the first Mass in America on the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1493 at Point Conception in Haiti. The first Franciscan missions in Mexico would operate under patronage of the Immaculata, while building hospitals and commissioning art in her honor.

Columbus’s choice for his flagship’s title was not a random or even simply personal choice. Spain was the center of devotion to the Immaculate Conception for centuries, with an ancient feast day observed there from the 7th century and devotion gaining in popularity by the 15th. Churches, confraternities, patronages of particular cities and regions were all placed under her patronage, such as the newly erected Diocese of Manilla in in 1578. The great artists of the Spanish Golden Age all produced masterpieces in her honor: Velazquez, Murillo, Zurbaran, and Tiepolo (while painting in Madrid). The Popes had given Spain permission for this strong devotion, a precedent that Bl. Pope Pius IX invoked and confirmed in his Bull, Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the dogma in 1854:

Therefore, accepting the petitions and supplications presented to Us by the said Bishops, by the chapters of their churches, and by King Philip and his kingdoms, We renew the constitutions and decrees issued by Our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs, and especially by Sixtus IV, Paul V, and Gregory XV, in defense of the sentence which holds that the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in her creation and infusion into the body, had the gift of the grace of the Holy Spirit and was preserved from original sin, and in favor of the feast and cult of the conception of the same Virgin Mother of God, understood according to the pious sentence above set forth, and We order that these constitutions and decrees be observed in their entirety, under pain of incurring the censures and other penalties provided for in these constitutions.

Our Lady herself cemented the connection between the Americas and her Immaculate Conception when she appeared to Juan Diego on December 9, 1531, the day following the feast but also one that served as a longstanding alternate date (and the Conception of Anne is still celebrated on this day in the East). She would intervene in this land dedicated to her honor, calling herself by the name of Guadalupe, the monastery shrine in Spain where Ferdinand and Isabella had signed the documents to authorize Columbus’s first voyage and where the explorer returned to give thanks. She herself would draw new children to her son, seeking to unite peoples through faith. The conquistadors committed many heinous crimes, but the Spanish would come to recognize Our Lady as La Conquistadora, the one who conquers hearts, and the oldest statue of Our Lady in the United States in the cathedral of Sante Fe, New Mexico bears this title.

The Immaculate Conception features in French voyages of discovery as well. Fr. Jacques Marquette, who mapped the Great Lakes region and beyond with Joliet, named the Mississippi the river of the Immaculate Conception in 1673, and then established a church in Kaskaskia, Illinois dedicated to the Immaculate Conception to serve as a missionary center. The poet, James Matthew Wilson, who wrote a seven part poem “The River of the Immaculate Conception,” notes: “They set out on their canoes entrusting themselves entirely to God’s grace, entrusting themselves entirely to Mary as the Immaculate Conception, and they didn’t seek to build lasting monuments to their conquests or to plant flags. . . . They sought primarily to enter as agents of grace among the Indians and to live with them, preach to them, and enter into communion with them.” The Mississippi itself symbolizes the grace of the Immaculate Conception running right through North America.

The Mexican painter, Baltasar de Echave Ibía’s The lmmaculate Conception, from the early 17th century, evokes this sense of the spread of the faith across the water. Mary’s spiritual triumph over evil straddles land on both sides of the water with a tower of ivory uniting them. It opens a passage for an army of spiritual forces to spread the Kingdom of God throughout the world.

When the US Bishops made their choice to name the Immaculate Conception our patronness, they were following a long tradition. Charles III of Spain had petitioned Pope Clement XIII in 1760 to name the Immaculate Conception patronness of Spain and all her territories, which he did in the bull Quntum Ornamenti. This proclamation would have reached to the Philippines, large parts of Latin America, and territory within the Continental United States. Even earlier, the King John IV proclaimed the Immaculate Conception Queen of Portugal in 1646, which would have extended to Brazil, and in 1650 the Irish Catholic Confederation declared the Immaculate Conception patroness of Ireland, which, though defeated by Cromwell, would send many sons to the Americas.

With this background, how could we have any other patron in America? In a Pastoral Letter explaining their decision at the sixth Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1846, the United States bishops explained: “We take this occasion to communicate to you the determination, unanimously adopted by us, to place ourselves and all entrusted to our charge throughout the United States, under the special patronage of the holy Mother of God, whose Immaculate Conception is venerated by the piety of the faithful throughout the Catholic Church. By the aid of her prayers, we entertain the confident hope that we will be strengthened to perform the arduous duties of our ministry, and that you will be enabled to practice the sublime virtues, of which her life presents the most perfect example.” We should continue to invoke Our Lady as the Immaculata that she may lead us back to the purity and grace of her Son, who will restore all things. May he restore our sanity and holiness in this land dedicated to his Mother.