Maria of Guadalupe: Shaper of History, Shaper of Hearts

Mexico, December 9, 1531. Ten years after the Spaniards conquered this land, on a hill on the outskirts of the capital, something inconceivable happens to the Amerindian Juan Diego. At dawn a heavenly figure comes to meet him, revealing herself as "Mary, mother of all men." To confirm the first vision, the Lady not only entrusts him with several messages, but, in the final vision, leaves her portrait stamped on his tilma-the portrait of young woman looking downward, clothed in a dress figured with roses and a mantle figured with stars.

From the very beginning this event has moved people. However, because of the fascination with the image itself, doubts have been raised and some have rejected it altogether. Our Lady of Guadalupe, together with the Shroud of Jesus in Turin, has possibly become the most mysterious image on earth. And the more studies are made of the cloth, the more mysterious it becomes, for believers and scientists alike.

In a hands-on investigation, Paul Badde has been delving into this mystery from a historian's point of view, but also with the growing wonder of a journalist who has stumbled across a fabulous treasure.

In his heartfelt reporting, Paul Badde tells the fantastic story of the apparition that changed the history of the world. Without this mysterious event, one cannot explain why the inhabitants of Central and South American entered the Church in record time. Mary of Guadalupe was the person who inserted a whole continent into Western Culture.