Two saintly women are stirring trouble, through no fault of their own, in this small Eastern New Mexico town of 3,000 people in Guadalupe County.
One is Santa Rosa, the patroness of the Americas, whom the town is named after. The other is Our Lady of Guadalupe, the county’s namesake.
They are powerful symbols of Hispanic Catholic culture and history in the region, and some residents of the town are pushing for acknowledgment of their significance with visual displays on government property — a painting of Santa Rosa and a 20-foot-tall monument to Our Lady. But the proposed initiatives have drawn opposition, even from Catholics who say religious icons don’t belong in public spaces.
Santa Rosa resident Herman Baca donated the painting, by a Peruvian artist, to City Hall — where it hung for about 24 hours in the spring before calls to take it down prompted its removal.
He also hopes to donate a massive tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Baca would like to see the monument, which could stretch 30 feet wide, erected on a city-owned lawn surrounding the Guadalupe County courthouse about a block from City Hall. It could serve as a tourist attraction, he said, drawing motorists off nearby Interstate 40 and into the downtown area, where they could eat, stop at local businesses and perhaps spend the night — boosting a local economy that could use…
