7-year evangelization of Our Lady of Guadalupe planned by Phoenix diocese

The Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, John Dolan, this week announced a seven-year evangelization plan in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe ahead of the 500th anniversary of the saint’s first apparition.

The diocese released a video and letter Monday featuring Dolan explaining how the plan’s January start coincides with the Roman Catholic Church’s Jubilee of 2025. The quarter-century celebration calls clergy and faithful to the Vatican.

Dolan also reminded Phoenix Catholics how Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patron saint of the diocese.

“There is no love like a mother’s. A mother who cares tenderly, anticipates our needs, leads us along the way, and is a safe place to land through all the ups and downs,” Dolan said in the letter. “In the Diocese of Phoenix, we have a magnificent patron saint, who is Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is this mother for each of us.”

The Diocese of Phoenix’s plan will culminate on December 9, 2031, 500 years since the reported appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 9, 1531 to a Nahuatl man, Juan Diego, on the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico City. Believers celebrate the Virgin on her feast day on December 12th. That is the date in 1531 that the Roman Catholic Church claims that a Spanish bishop saw his image materialize on Juan Diego’s cloak, known as a tilma, after carrying out-of-season flowers on it to prove his appearance.

This account of Our Lady of Guadalupe led several million indigenous people to convert to Catholicism during Spanish colonial rule in the region. More than five million visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe near the site of her apparition in the days leading up to her feast day in 2023, according to estimates shared by the Associated Press.

In his letter, Dolan called la Virgen “the greatest evangelizer in the Americas.”

The name of Dolan’s initiative is a Spanish acronym for tilma: “Testifica, o Iglesia, a la Luz del Misterio del Amor,” which in English means “to testify, O church, in light of the mystery of love.”

Dolan listed seven diocesan churches as jubilee sites in 2025:

Saints Simon and Jude in downtown Phoenix near Maryvale
St. Mary’s Basilica in downtown Phoenix
Saint Anthony in the Gila River Indian Community
St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Kingman
Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Parish
Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona

Each year, until 2031, will have a different theme, most of them related to the apparition. More details about the evangelization efforts will be available on an upcoming web page.

The English video accompanied the bishop’s first pastoral letter since being installed in August 2022. A pastoral letter is a way in which bishops address clergy and the faithful. The letter was also published in Spanish.

Dolan mentioned that there will be subsequent letters instructing the faithful about evangelism, which will lean on the Hispanic and Latino communities.

“We will also turn in particular to our Hispanic and Latino brothers and sisters, who are a great gift to the Church and their example of deep devotion, rich traditions and family love,” Dolan said in the letter.