With a 13-year investigation, journalists
Nunzia Locatelli and Cintia Suárez
managed to reconstruct the story of María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, better known as
Mama Antula
, the secular Argentine who from the age of 15 decided to serve the most humble and capture the spirit of the Jesuits.
Due to her actions, this February 11 she will be proclaimed
the first saint of Argentina
.
“Our role was to make it known like no one else did
,” he told
Clarín
from Rome.
Locatelli, Italian journalist and writer, declared outstanding personality of the Culture of the City of Buenos Aires and the city of Santiago del Estero in 2023 for
her research on Mama Antula
.
Mother Antonia or in Quechua Mama Antula was the name given to her by the humble people whom she had helped since her adolescence.
She was born in 1730 in the city of Santiago del Estero into a wealthy family of encomenderos.
At the age of 15, she decided to leave her family to become a
consecrated laywoman with the Society of Jesus
and dedicate herself to helping the poorest.
“Her idea was always to help the Jesuits, to learn the spiritual exercises,” says Locatelli.
After the Jesuits were expelled from America in 1767, Mama Antula did not follow the orders of King Carlos III and continued the Jesuit legacy, "
she decided to go ahead alone
, open houses, continue spreading this activity prohibited at that time."
She decided to reopen the Exercise Houses, and she also walked barefoot from Santiago del Estero to Buenos Aires to return with the spiritual exercises.
She also
founded the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises of Buenos Aires
and there she was in contact with heroes such as Saavedra and Moreno.
That is why she is called
“Spiritual Mother of the Homeland
. ”
Waiting for canonization.
Nunzia Locatelli (right) and Cinthia Suárez at a press conference at the Sala Stampa Vaticana, in Rome.
In colonial times, Mama Antula's attitude, that of an empowered woman, was rarely seen; she was generally oppressed due to the sexist idiosyncrasy that existed.
“She was
a woman of action
, she was not one of prayer, she was of action, of organizing, of doing, of walking, of going,” highlights Locatelli, who together with Suárez managed to reconstruct the story of Mama Antula based on manuscripts and letters found. in the Archivio di Stato di Roma.
Locatelli narrates that in 2019 he went to the archive to look for news about exiled Jesuits, hoping to find some information about Mama Antula, but he was unable to do so.
After going to the canonization of Pope John Paul I, about which they also wrote a book, they went to the archive again and this time they were able to find what they were looking for: a person from the archive who was
passionate about the blessed women helped them
.
The book in which the findings of the investigation into Mama Antula were captured.
“Mama Antula was a saint because she was the person who worked in the beguinage
helping the most disadvantaged
,” he noted.
In 2022 they managed to obtain the letters that are relics, since they are texts written by Mama Antula herself, Father Gaspar Juárez who was a Jesuit, and they tell about the activities and life of the one who will now be proclaimed a saint in the Vatican.
Among the written anecdotes is that Mama Antula
always provided food for everyone
.
She took the ladle and the food multiplied, and she also had the ability to be in two places at the same time, according to the texts found.
“Everyone in the convents wanted to know what she was doing on the other side of the ocean,” he remarks, while commenting that in another of the letters they found that a Jesuit priest said that he wanted to stay with Mama Antula because he wanted to dedicate his life to help the humble in the region.
Mama Antula died at the age of 69 in the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises and her remains are in the Basilica of La Piedad, in CABA.
The canonization process
Locatelli says that the opening of the cause for beatification and canonization of Mama Antula was in 1905. The miracle they presented to justify it was from a nun named Sister María Rosa Vanina from the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises.
She had been terminally ill by doctors for contracting a widespread infection in her body.
However, the other nuns of the place
started a novena invoking Mama Antula
and a few days later Vanina recovered her health.
In 2016 Mama Antula was beatified in a ceremony in Santiago del Estero.
Locatelli and Suárez, when they were recognized as Outstanding Cultural Personalities for their research by the Buenos Aires Legislature.
Photo Emmanuel Fernandez
To be declared a saint, she needed a second miracle, which occurred in 2017 in Santa Fe. Claudio Perusini, then 66 years old, had a sudden faint, for which he was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
There, he was diagnosed with ischemic stroke with hemorrhagic infarction in several areas, deep coma, resistant septic shock with multiple organ failure.
The doctors evicted Perusini because of this condition; he had no life expectancy.
However, on the second day of his hospitalization, the Jesuit Ernesto Giobando, auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires and friend of Perusini,
brought a picture of Mama Antula and together with the convalescent's family they prayed for his healing
.
Ten days later, against all medical predictions, he regained his vital signs and
managed to recover
.
With these two documented cases, Locatelli says that they went to Rome and after weeks of waiting they confirmed the date that Mama Antula would be proclaimed a saint.
The information came to them little by little, first that it will be on February 11, an unusual month, and then they learned the news that it will be in the
Papal Chapel
.
“First time (that a proclamation is made there), that is
an extraordinary thing
and another thing is the second time that a saint is canonized alone.
The only case is that of Saint Teresa of Calcutta
.”
He also shares that both have similarities because Mother Teresa was "a woman who always dedicated herself to others, to the last, to the most well-behaved, and Mama Antula also always dedicated herself to others, to the last, but secular. That is important and the date, February 11, which is remembered as the day of the Virgin of Lourdes, the protector of the sick.”
Locatelli added that
Pope Francis always expressed his support and support
through letters to them to continue with their investigation, he also told them to highlight the fact that she was a laywoman.
And he expressed his happiness because they achieved her goal:
canonizing Mama Antula
.
The findings that Locatelli and Suárez made during their long investigation are reflected in the book they wrote, "Mama Antula. The first saint of Argentina."
Locatelli began to investigate her figure after Suárez, a journalist from Santiago, commented to him about this cause and the need to recognize it.
“She wanted to propose that topic because she is from Santiago and because of
a lack of Argentine history that was never rescued
.
(Mama Antula) is a woman who was truly the mother of the country because she opened the House of Exercises and Argentine heroes like Saavedra and Moreno passed through there.
This February 11, Pope Francis
will make official the proclamation of Mama Antula
in the Papal Chapel as the first saint born in Argentina.
President Javier Milei is expected to attend the event.
Clarín Master's Degree / University of San Andrés
ACE