The church's one identity

We've been reading about the Mexican conquest in the theology course I teach, the better to understand the context of La Virgen de Guadalupe. More than one student has expressed puzzlement at Spanish imperialism. "I don't get it," one wrote in a reflection paper. "Why would you want to smash someone's culture and religion?"

Because, my dear students, some people are just born assholes.

That's a gloss, of course. The Spanish program of cultural genocide against the Nahuatl had much to do with the insecurity of the Spaniards' own identity. Columbus famously sailed in the same year the Reconquista of Spain ended with Muslims and Jews being expelled from the reclaimed kingdom. There was a terror within Spanish culture of anything foreign, especially religions other than Christianity. By the time Guadalupe showed herself to Juan Diego, the Protestant Reformation was in full swing, and the Spanish doubled down on a rigid Catholic puritanism. The Aztec Empire and culture were founded on pagan beliefs, which had to be destroyed as literal works of the devil.