Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed an unforgivable gaffe on Friday when she insinuated that a painting in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe was painted by a human being as opposed to, say, God. (No, seriously.) Her questions regarding who painted the image of the Virgin Mary were met with the simple, one-word answer: “”God!””

Catholic mythology holds that the image was miraculously imprinted on the cloak of St. Juan Diego, a Mexican native who converted to Catholicism upon seeing the Virgin Mary in 1531. Of course, despite this miracle and its alleged impact in converting native Mexicans to Catholicism, no one saw fit to mention it in writing until Luis Laso de la Vega wrote the Nican Mopohua in 1649. It’s okay, though. We can take the Catholic Church’s word on this one – it’s not as though they have ever been deceived by obviously fraudulent relics like the Shroud of Turin before.

I’ll give credit to Catholics, though – they haven’t gotten up in arms about Clinton’s ignorance of Catholic history (not yet, at least). Then again, a mere gaffe like this isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like she encouraged a teenage girl to abort a pregnancy to save her own life or stole a Eucharist wafer or anything like that.

– Taylor Kessinger is a senior majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology.