About Us

Mother of the Americas Institute (MAI) is a think tank assisting the universal Church and the Church in the United States in the New Evangelization.

MAI serves the new evangelization through theoretical and practical research, publishing, education and training. The results of research are applied through concrete strategies, methods and compelling approaches for expressing the faith.

Theoretical research in the areas of theology, philosophy, Church history, and pastoral practice are aimed at contributing to new methods and means of expression in the initial proclamation of the Gospel, more effective catechetical formation, and more fruitful pastoral care. 

Practical research in the areas of Church history, the missionary patrimony, experiences of contemporary evangelization apostolates and ecclesial movements, etc. are aimed at developing strategies, methods and means of expressions which contribute in a more immediate manner to the new evangelization.

Our strategies, methods, and effective manners of expression address the three main emphases of the new evangelization, namely the need for a newness in ardor, methods and expression of the faith. 

Education and training focus on strategies, methods and means of expressions to dioceses, parishes, seminaries, apostolates and individuals.

Mother of the Americas Institute is a 501c3 tax exempt non-profit corporation, incorporated in the State of Texas.

We are an association of fellow scholars, catechists and evangelists who are dedicated to using our gifts to serve the Church and her increasingly urgent call to a new evangelization.  We have taken seriously our Holy Father, Francis’s admonition that we must not be overly concerned for immediate results but must take the “long view" as well (see Evangelii gaudium, paragraphs 222-225).  Our efforts are certainly not exclusively looking at the long view, but neither is the lack of promise of immediate results a criterion for accepting or rejecting a particular project.  We are motivated primarily by seeking ways to help pastors, their associates and individuals to bring the truth of the Gospel to the world.

Mission: To assist the universal Church, and especially the Church in the United States, with the new evangelization through theoretical and practical research, and communication of important findings through publishing, teaching, speaking, broadcast media, and social media.

Vision: A Catholic Church in which the norm is for the average Catholic to be knowledgeable and zealous about living and sharing the faith.

“Mother of the Americas” refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary’s 16th-century apparition as Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Her patronage over the Americas, and especially over Latin America, since that apparition has been heralded by popes beginning with Pope Benedict XIV in the 18th century.  She was given the title, Mother of the Americas, by Saint John XXIII in 1961.  Saint John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America recalls this title and adds to it the Star of the first and the New Evangelization.  It seems most fitting then, to choose Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Mother of the Americas and the Star, by which Americans will come to know more profoundly their Lord Jesus Christ, as the patroness for this apostolate. 

We have adopted Our Lady of Guadalupe as the Patroness of MAI because she exemplifies our mission and its challenge.  At the time Our Lady appeared to St. Juan Diego on a hillock in central Mexico in December of 1531, Spanish attempts at evangelizing the native population had borne little fruit. In fact, there was little human reason to hope for Christianity taking root in the new world according to the newly appointed bishop of Mexico.  Within months of our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition to this humble Christian, millions were baptized and the faith would spread throughout the Americas among the native peoples.  While the faith still has deep roots among the people of Latin America, due to the rapid spread of a secularism intent on pushing God from public life throughout the Americas, human hope for a “new springtime” for Christianity here once again seems grim.  Yet, our hope is not in human efforts but in God’s fidelity; a trust and hope witnessed by our Blessed Mother.  MAI makes its own, this ending prayer from St. John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia in America invoking the aid of Our Lady of Guadalupe for the cause of the new evangelization:

We thank you, Lord Jesus, because the Gospel of the Father's love, with which you came to save the world, has been proclaimed far and wide in America as a gift of the Holy Spirit that fills us with gladness.

We thank you for the gift of your Life, which you have given us by loving us to the end: your Life makes us children of God, brothers and sisters to each other. Increase, O Lord, our faith and our love for you, present in all the tabernacles of the continent.

Grant us to be faithful witnesses to your Resurrection for the younger generation of Americans, so that, in knowing you, they may follow you and find in you their peace and joy. Only then will they know that they are brothers and sisters of all God's children scattered throughout the world.

You who, in becoming man, chose to belong to a human family, teach families the virtues which filled with light the family home of Nazareth.

May families always be united, as you and the Father are one, and may they be living witnesses to love, justice and solidarity; make them schools of respect, forgiveness and mutual help, so that the world may believe; help them to be the source of vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life, and all the other forms of firm Christian commitment.

Protect your Church and the Successor of Peter, to whom you, Good Shepherd, have entrusted the task of feeding your flock. Grant that the Church in America may flourish and grow richer in the fruits of holiness.

Teach us to love your Mother, Mary, as you loved her. Give us strength to proclaim your word with courage in the work of the new evangelization, so that the world may know new hope.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, pray for us!

Our logo is an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the left of our Apostolate's initials.  In the center of her outline is a magnification of the jasmine flower found on her mantle in San Juan Diego's tilma.  

The color of the logo is dark purple which is the color of the ribbon our Blessed Mother wears around her waist in the tilma.  The ribbon is worn low on her waist which for the Aztec culture of San Juan Diego's time indicates she is pregnant.  

The picture of Our Lady on the tilma is the only depiction we have of Mary during her pregnancy.  The purple color in our logo unites MAI's mission with that of Our Lady of Guadalupe's in her appearance at Tepeyac, to bring her Son to the peoples of the new world.  

The jasmine flower in our logo is oversized to emphasize its significance.  The jasmine flower appears on Our Lady's mantle only one time and this is over her womb.  In Aztec culture, the jasmine flower symbolized the true but unknown God.  The flower on the tilma revealed the divine nature of the child Mary bore, to the Aztec's of San Juan's time.  Like the purple color, our logo's magnified jasmine flower also represents her Son but here in the sense of the Magnificat; her soul magnifies Our LORD, Jesus Christ.  This is the mission of our apostolate and the new evangelization.  

The jasmine flower's representation on the tilma has also been noticed by some to resemble a Monstrance, with our Eucharistic LORD in its center.  MAI's logo encapsulates the reason Our Lady of Guadalupe was given to the Church as a gift and why MAI chooses her as our Patroness.  Under her patronage, we endeavor to reveal the beauty, the truth and the glory of her Son to the world once again.