***The Virgin of Guadelupe— known as "The Dark Madonna" and patron saint of poor Mexicans — is appearing to believers with greater frequency as the Pope prepares to visit to Mexico. Gemini News Service reports that the Virgin has revealed herself in some unique locations. John Ross writes from Mexico City.***

AS Pope John Paul II packs his bags for a midJanuary visit to Mexico to canonize the Indian Juan Diego, discoverer of the Virgin of Guadalupe, images of the Dark Madonna are suddenly epidemic across the land.

In recent months, the Virgin of Guadalupe has appeared on the side of a water drum in Tlanepantla. just north of Mexico City, and a palm tree in Cuautla Morelos where lovers spotted her after a spat.

She also appeared in a fruit shed near Jalapa Veracruz, where her shape was formed from the resins of newly-picked mangoes and mamays laid out upon a newspaper dated 12 December 1997 — the day on which all Mexico venerates the Brown Madonna. Quintin Lapez. the local priest, told reporters the sighting was the 20th in his parish in the past five years.

Apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the capital's public transportaUon system nave become routine events.

In June 1997. the Guadalupe appeared to a janitor at the busy Hidalgo metro staUon while she was mopping up a water leak seeping through the subway floor. The apparition disrupted operations at the busy station and police tried to forcibly keep the faithful away, but religious fervour was unquenchable. Now the Virgin of the Metro has her own niche built by the subway system and the Institute of Fine Arts.

Lodged at a station entrance, the shrine attracts a steady stream of petitioners who leave notes and tin milagro (miracle) medals and artificial flowers behind in gratitude. Juana Gomez who hawks lottery tickets from a nearby stand, comes every morning to bless her coupons. "La Virgencita has helped me to see many winning tickets." Gomez insists.

Despite her popular appeal, the Catholic Church is wary of the Virgin of the Metro. "Do me a favour,' Father Francisco Macido, vicar of the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, told well-wishers at the dfedication of the niche. "Please don't call this a miracle or else we'll all be in trouble."

"The Church has very vigorous criteria for the proof of miracles.'' explains Father Mario Gonzalez at San Hipolite Church across the street from the Hidalgo station.

Despite the Church's warnings. the Virgins of the Metro are multiplying. In May. a Virgin was sighted on the steps of the Valle Gomez station out by

the airport. She was crying, it is sign." a station attendant told reporters.

The Virgin has also shown up one stop down the blue line from the Hidalgo station at Revolution near the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled Mexico for 69 years. To the devoted. her image has been made manifest in gnarly whorls near the bottom of the trunk of a bedraggled tree, wedged between two grease-flesked taco stands. Blinking Christmas lights signal her presence, as do the usual tin milagros and notes scrawled on folded napkins.

Virgin sightings here have similar characteristics. The apparitions are generally first seen by poor people and attract many low-income visitors. The Catholic Church gently seeks to debunk what the "simple people" — as Padre Mario describes them — Interpret as a miracle, but the faith of the Guadalu-panas inevitably wins out.

Donations are collected and a niche or a chapel is built. Stalls hawking snacks and soft drinks, sun glasses, lottery tickets, and religious medals spring up around the shrine, which is usually protected by a guardian, often a person who claims to have made the original sighting.

Flower vender Maria Con-cepcion Vargas. "La Paloma", is the guardian of the Virgin of the Metro Hidalgo. Asked about other subway virgins. Dona Paloma emphatically questioned their authenticity. "Ours is the only true Virgin of the Metro." she says. "Those others are chafa (phony)".

Across the street at Father Mario's-church, popular religion flourishes. On the 28th of each month, worshippers line up for dawn-to-dusk masses to petition San Judas Tadeo for small favours. St. Jude's reputation for delivering miracles in difficult situations has a lot of appeal for Mexicans, thinks the parish priest. For people who Jive like us from one crisis to the next. Judas Tadeo is a necessity." reasons the powerfully built padre, suited up for a quick game of basketball in the churchyard.

The Virgin of the Hidalgo Metro has made life more difficult for the young Father. "We try to discourage religious hallucination. Us Mexicans have only one Virgin of Guadalupe and she is out at the Basilica. She is the only real miracle. These other sightings are just natural phenomena — the Virgin of the Metro was just a water

stain. But the people's hunger for God is great. They have the Brown Madonna stamped upon their hearts."

Spotting Virgins is a Mexican speciality. Not only is she imprinted upon their hearts but she is also imprinted upon their T-shirts, pens, watches, and key chains and sells everything from shoes to chocolates.

Researcher Jorge Ganzalez at the Autonomous University of Colima studies Virgin sightings. He attributes the epidemic of apparitions to a "cognitive cultural vector". Mexicans are trained from birth to identify shapes associated with the Virgin. "You see what you can name," Gonzalez suggests.

Social class is also a factor in the sightings — the Virgin of the Poor does not often appear in wealthy neighbourhoods. So is ethnic and gender identification. Indian women are particular devotees of the Virgincita as attested to by the number of in-digenas who pay daily visits to the Metro Hidalgo shrine.

More Virgin sightings are recorded in times of economic and social turmoil, concludes Gonzalez. Just prior to and during the shooting phase of the 1994 rebellion of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Chipapas, there were multiple sightings of the Santo Nino (Holy Child), and rayos lucentes (spectral lights) blazed in the highland forests. In Chiapas, there is a centuries-old tradition of such sightings, presaging Indian insurrections.

•Popular spirituality in Mexico is highly syncretic. Behind every saint and under every alter. one can discover Indian roots. The shrine of the Guadalupe was imposed atop Tepeyac hill upon that of To-nantzin. the Aztec earth mother. That's where Indian Juan Diego had paused to worship when the Brown Madonna made her debut appearance.

This charming legend, which became the cornerstone of the evangelization of Latin America, probably never happened. Despite the scheduled visit of Pope John Paul II to canonize Juan Diego, there is no historical evidence that he ever existed. The garment upon which the imprint of the Virgin miraculously appeared was actually hand painted, probably by an Indian artist whose Christian name was Marcos.

It is not a big step from revelation to revolution in Mexican history. Liberation from Spain was won behind the banner of the Guadalupe carried into battle by Padre Miguel Hidalgo’s brown and black rebels. A hundred years later, revolutionary martyr Emiliano Zapata carried the image of the Virgincita into battle. Cesar Chavez and Mexican farm workers marched with her to win justice in the California fields. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation honors Guadalupe every 12 December : its first public outpost was in village called Guadalupe Tepeyac.