The authors accessed the historical documentation, generated since 1905, when the cause of beatification and canonization of Mama Antula began, whose figure continues to grow to this day.
Starting Thursday it will be available in all bookstores “Mama Antula. “The First Saint of Argentina”published by Catharsis, an investigation carried out by two specialists in religious issues, Nunzia Locatelli and Cintia Suarez. Both have already dedicated other works to Mama Antulawho will be canonized on February 11 in a mass and ceremony to be held in the Vatican, presided over by the Pope Francisco.
The new book is the result of meticulous historical research carried out in Argentina and Italy by the authors, who over the last thirteen years have investigated numerous archives and a considerable set of testimonies through rigorous field work that allowed them to access to elements that are only now being exposed publicly. Locatelli and Suárez accessed the documentation, generated since 1905, when the cause for beatification and canonization of Mama Antula began, which would take well over a century to come to fruition.
Who was Mama Antula?
María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, was born in 1730 in Santiago del Estero. At a time when women were completely subjugated, she left a wealthy family to serve the most humble and transmit to them the spiritual exercises of the Jesuits, even after the order of Saint Ignatius of Loyola was expelled from America in 1767. The soldiers of the Crown detained the Jesuit fathers as criminals, but one of them, furtively, gave Mama Antula the last emblem of the Jesus company.
She, in an act of rebellion, walked barefoot more than 4,000 kilometers, from Santiago del Estero to Buenos Aires, to bring the practice of spiritual exercises to the capital of the Viceroyalty, and her pilgrimage is surrounded by inexplicable and mysterious events. In 1795 she founded the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises of Buenos Aires, and she died on March 7, 1799 at age 69. Her remains rest in the church of Nuestra Señora de la Piedad.
Access to archives and miracles
The authors agreed, in the Rome Statute Archive, to more than three hundred manuscripts related to the protagonist of the book, among them letters that expose daily life in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, and the links between the Saint and the heroes of Mayo, who point to her as a mother spirituality of the Argentine homeland. This edition also deals with the miracles that allow Mama Antula to be canonized and recognized as the First Argentine Saint.
Who are the authors of “Mama Antula: the First Saint of Argentina”
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Nunzia Locatelli She is an Italian journalist and writer. In 2014 she produced the documentary “El Camino del Ángel” about Pope Francis, the Argentine pope. Argentine Cintia Suárez has a degree in journalism, graduated from the University of Salvador.
Both previously published, together, “Mama Antula. An Empowered Woman in colonial Buenos Aires”, “Mama Antula, the faith of an indomitable donna” and, among other titles, “Mama Antula, the most rebellious woman of her time”.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
