Marian Cults and Apparitions in Latin America

Since the final decades of the 20th century, there has been an expressive proliferation of Marian [Page 747]manifestations in Catholic countries, especially in Latin America. They contain the structural patterns of older European phenomena recognized by the Church, such as messages, supernatural visions, and sanctuary building, but they also have new elements relating to their local and national contexts, characteristics of contemporary globalized Catholicism and the visionaries’ performance. This mixture of breaks with the past and historical continuity places the manifestations on a long diachronic line, which is being updated within traditional parameters while also revealing to devotees unknown aspects of the Virgin, since the Gospels and official documents tell us little about her.

The symbolic starting point of these Latin American phenomena is the apparitions ...