The Grand Finale
The book with the most complete description in English of the incident was The Wonder of Guadalupe by Francis W Johnston.
Another English overview from Catholic World Report.
Several newspaper summaries in Spanish are from Excelsior and La Republica.
Plus a full newspaper article from El Informador from Nov 15, 1921, the day after the attack (pg 1, pg 6, pg 7).
Some clarifications on the story: first, there were injuries from the explosion. One cleric lost parts of two fingers. However, that was about the most severe that it got, which is incredible given the size of the explosion and the crowds.
Second, we were intentionally vague about the terrorist in the story. The truth is, we don’t know who was really responsible for the attack. The police appear to have bungled the investigation (perhaps intentionally, given the government of the time). One young man was arrested, but that may have been because he was the most suspicious person there and they needed to arrest someone. Other reports say there were three men, though apparently those reports conflict on the descriptions of the men. If they did exist, they were never apprehended.
El Santo Cristo del Atentado, the altar cross warped by the blast
The altar cross is still on display today at the Shrine of Guadalupe. John Peter saw some posters with a drawing of it and thought at first it was some modern art display.
Finally, why is Our Lady of Guadalupe such a big deal, especially compared to other Marian apparitions? Well, the Indian peoples of Mexico resisted conversion. A little while before the apparition, the bishop even sent some priests back to Spain since they weren’t needed for the small congregations. Within a decade of the apparition, around 9 million Indians had embraced the faith. The poor priests were totally overwhelmed by the onslaught of conversions. Never in history has a conversion like this occurred.
Empress of the Americas