Brother priests applaud Cardinal George, joined by Cardinal Norberto Rivera, during a Mass at the Council Seminary of Mexico, at the start of the four-day pilgrimage.

The first-ever visit of an American cardinal to pray at Mexico City’s huge Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe captured the attention of media here, and in Chicago, and focused attention on the growing relationship between the two archdioceses.

Three major efforts will flow from the visit, which stems from Pope John Paul’s exhortation in his 1997 address to the Synod of Bishops for America, “Ecclesia in America” that builds a foundation in two separate, but connected in faith, areas of this hemisphere.

As reported in last week’s issue of The Catholic New World, Cardinal George and Cardinal Norberto Rivera signed an agreement to share some resources, including clergy, to—among other things—help minister to the Archdiocese of Chicago’s growing Hispanic Catholic population.

During a visit to the chapel of the Seminary of Santa Maria de Guadalupe, on the south side of Mexico City, both cardinals prayed solemnly before the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Then they went to the garden and planted a tree as a symbol of the strengthening of the solidarity and union between both archdioceses and as a sign of the desire to continue growing more vocations for priesthood.

On the pilgrimage’s first day, Cardinal George celebrated Mass in the Council Seminary of Mexico before a crowd of more than a thousand people, including the auxiliary bishops and pilgrims who accompanied him in the trip and seminarians. Also attending were representatives of the Catholics of Mexico City who, at the end of the celebration, offered tamales and hot atole (a corn flour drink) to chase the chill of that full moon-lit night.

During the visit, Cardinal George also unveiled the plaque naming a shelter for orphaned and abandoned children in his name. Father Michael Boland, Chicago Catholic Charities administrator, said the inauguration of the house is a another step forward in the fight for life, because fosters the culture of adoptions and that each child is a gift of God. Boland’s Mexico City counterpart, Father Manuel Zubillaga, agreed, thanking God because “all of us are adoptive children of (God) and because it is the charity and the love that makes us be one with our Lord.

Cardinal George also toured the Family and Community Health Center La Pasión, a parish-based health mission which he said may be attempted in Chicago.

Contributing: Beatriz Castro and Carmen Macias in Mexico City.