Tear down the wall obscuring the mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe, demanded Faithful United, a group of about 20 mostly middle-aged Latino men and women who marched Tuesday to the closed doors of the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver Chancery Building.
The group has been asking for restoration of the mural for more than a year, since the Rev. Benito Hernandez, a relatively new pastor of Denver’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, constructed a wall in front of the depiction of Mary, mother of Jesus.
Hernandez said the parish council decided the painting “detracted from the central focus of the holy presence of the Blessed Sacrament in the altar.”
The mural is accessible for viewing behind the wall.
“The decision was not a denial of the mural’s value to the parish’s history or a rejection of the artist’s original intent,” he wrote.
However, the loss of the mural as sanctuary centerpiece after more than three decades was “a stab to the heart” of a community with pride in its Latino heritage and past history of social activism, said Faithful United organizer Mike Wilzoch. The church was founded in 1936 to serve Denver’s Spanish-speaking Catholics.
“These guys are dead wrong, and they don’t have the humility to admit it,” said Wilzoch, an experienced community organizer and former parishioner of the north Denver church.
Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to poor Juan Diego and delivered a message of peace in his native language, the group said in its letter to the archbishop. “And (her) telling the world that God does not speak only to the wealthy, who were treating Juan Diego and our ancestors with brutality, is a message that resonates today.”
Tuesday afternoon, Faithful United members were met outside by Monsignor Jorge de los Santos, the vicar for Hispanic Ministry, who told them: “I love you. I want to tell you I respect you a lot.”
But de los Santos said he could do nothing for them because the matter was decided by parish leadership and a majority of parishioners, not by the archbishop.
“We’ve just seen another wall,” Wilzoch said. “But we will continue our campaign until the wall comes down.”
Frank Castro, baptized in the church and a parishioner for 64 years, told de los Santos there hadn’t been a vote of parishioners or even minutes of a vote by the parish council.
“We will not go back to the days when we were expected to follow the church without question,” said Martha Urioste, an elder of the Guadalupana Society.
Other group members said this claim of a majority favoring mural removal was an attempt to divide the parish when most wanted its preservation.
Helen Giron-Mushfig, a visiting professor of Chicano studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver, said, “The church should not dictate to us how to worship.”