For decades, Stafford Poole has stood at the forefront of scholarship on the historicity of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an icon that serves as one of the most important formative religious and national symbols in the history of Mexico. Poole’s groundbreaking first edition of Our Lady of Guadalupe was the first ever to examine in depth every historical source of the Guadalupe apparitions. In this revised edition, Poole employs additional sources and commentary to further challenge common interpretations and assumptions about the Guadalupan tradition.

Reverend Stafford Poole, a member of the Congregation of the Mission of Saint Vincent de Paul (Vincentian Community), was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1956 and received his PhD in U.S. and Mexican history from Saint Louis University in 1961. A former president and rector of Saint John’s Seminary College, Poole is retired and a full-time research historian, focusing on the Catholic Church in sixteenth-century Mexico. Previous works include Pedro Moya de Contreras: Catholic Reform and Royal Power in New Spain, 1571–1591 and The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico.