According to tradition, Mary appeared to Juan Diego, who was an Aztec convert to Christianity, on December 9 and again on December 12, 1531. During her first apparition she requested that a shrine to her be built on the spot where she appeared, Tepeyac Hill (now in a suburb of Mexico City). The bishop demanded a sign before he would approve construction of a church, however. Mary then appeared a second time to Juan Diego and ordered him to collect roses. In a second audience with the bishop, Juan Diego opened his cloak, letting dozens of roses fall to the floor and revealing the image of Mary imprinted on the inside of the cloak—the image that is now venerated in the Basilica of Guadalupe.
The Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe, officially called Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe (in English: Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) is a basilica of the Catholic Church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary in her invocation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located at the foot of the Hill of Tepeyac in the Gustavo A. Madero borough of Mexico City. It belongs to the Primate Archdiocese of Mexico through the Guadalupana Vicariate, which since November 4, 2018, is in the care of Monsignor Efraín Hernández Díaz, who has the title of general and episcopal vicar of Guadalupe and abbot of the basilica.
Every year some twenty million pilgrims visit the sanctuary, of which about nine million do so in the days around December 12, the day on which Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated.[3][4][5][6] Annually, the Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe has at least twice as many visitors as the best-known Marian shrines, making it an outstanding social and cultural phenomenon
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