Allowing pagan deities, rituals and theologies was NOT the way the Apostles went about evangelizing the masses. We are warned: Dear friend, who are you to question how God works to bring about a conversion of heart? Consider, for instance, the appearance of the Blessed Mother, to Juan Diego, an Indian convert. She left her image behind, on the Indian's tilma. It is handwoven from the fibers of the Maguey cactus, a fabric which has a life span of little more than thirty years. This authentic portrait of the Virgin Mary has remained fresh and lovely for nearly five centuries,
The Sacred Image is a pictograph or picture writing; every detail symbolic. She is brighter than the sun; her foot rests upon the moon; the stars on her mantle are in the same relative configurations as the stars in the heavens on the morning of December 12, 1531; the northern constellations on her right - the southern constellations on her left. Further, the golden filigree over her rose colored gown matches the topography of the Mexican lands once ruled by the Aztecs.
Despite more than twenty-two languages and almost fifty dialects spoken at that time, all were able to read and understand all that is contained in this Sacred Image. So it was in this manner eight million natives were converted to Christianity in the incredibly short span of seven years.
Romans 15:20-21
Don't blame me for quoting the Scriptures concerning this issue. If the Holy Spirit commands us to have NOTHING to do with the "unfruitful works of darkness", I'd say He meant it. God doesn't
need demonic false religions to touch a heart with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As for the Juan Diego tilma, it appears that this supposed "miracle" may be little more than a hoax or myth that simple peasants were easily duped by. From Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery.:
Guillermo Schulenburg, the Basílica's abbot for over 30 years, declared in 1996 Juan Diego as a symbol and myth, a constructed character made to conquer the hearts of the native people and seize their religiosity in order to redirect it to the Vatican's will. He also commissioned a serious study, "out of sheer love for truth", which demonstrates the Lady of Guadalupe as a man-made painting, with no supernatural elements whatsoever. There is ample evidence of a 16th century shrine to Guadalupe at Tepeyac: however skeptics contend that this shrine was dedicated to the Spanish icon Our Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura. Guadalupe is often considered a mixture of the cultures which blend to form Mexico, both racially and religiously Guadalupe is sometimes called the "first mestiza" or "the first Mexican". In the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Mary O'Connor writes that Guadalupe "bring[s] together people of distinct cultural heritages, while at the same time affirming their distinctness." One theory is that the Virgin of Guadalupe was presented to the Aztecs as a sort of "Christianized" Tonantzin, necessary for the clergymen to convert the Indians to their True Faith. As Jacques Lafaye wrote in Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe, "...as the Christians built their first churches with the rubble and the columns of the ancient pagan temples, so they often borrowed pagan customs for their own cult purposes." An alternate view is that Guadalupe-Tonantzin gave the native Americans a hidden method to continue worshipping their own goddess in a Christianized form; similar patterns of syncretic worship can be seen throughout the Catholic Americas (e.g. Vodun, Santería). Guadalupan religious syncretism is both lauded and disparaged as demonic.
Many writers, including Patricia Harrington and Virgil Elizondo, describe the image as containing coded messages for the indigenous people of Mexico. "The Aztecs...had an elaborate, coherent symbolic system for making sense of their lives. When this was destroyed by the Spaniards, something new was needed to fill the void and make sense of New Spain...the image of Guadalupe served that purpose."
Her blue-green mantle was described as the color once reserved for the divine couple Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl; her belt is read as a sign of pregnancy; and a cross-shaped image symbolizing the cosmos and called nahui-ollin is said to be inscribed beneath the image's sash.
Yet another interpretation of the image is offered by the historian William B. Taylor, who recounted that Guadalupe has also been "acclaimed goddess of the maguey [agave]" and pulque was drunk on her feast day. A 1772 report described the rays of light around Guadalupe as maguey spines.
People can believe what they want about these so-called miracles of the Virgin Mary. That there is an inordinate amount of glory and worship afforded Mary with nary a mention of Jesus Christ - who IS the true Savior - I stand by my contention that God doesn't need pagan elements inculturated into the Gospel to win hearts to Christ. Flee the unfruitful works of darkness.