The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal (28 page)

THE SANT’AMBROGIO SYSTEM

Maria Luisa had developed a “Sant’Ambrogio system,” which rested entirely on her authority as saint and mystic, and assured her a unique position of power both inside and outside the convent. When he
was interrogated on September 12, 1860, the convent’s lawyer, Luigi Franceschetti, said something that made the inquisitor prick up his ears. He stated that the nuns of Sant’Ambrogio had “a completely different system and completely different principles from any other religious community.”
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In his report, the investigating judge laid out six of this system’s fundamental distinguishing features.
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First, leadership of the convent—both in the areas of outward discipline (which fell under the abbess’s jurisdiction) and inner spirituality (for which the confessor had sole responsibility)—lay in the hands of the madre vicaria. Maria Veronica, after all, had only been appointed abbess by the grace of Maria Luisa. When they entered the convent, the novices had to give a “general confession” to the novice mistress, and at other times they were to confess “first to her, and only then to the father confessor.” Maria Luisa informed Leziroli of the points on which the novices were “well or ill disposed.” And, as the inquisitor summarized from the many witness transcripts, she had also managed to “persuade the abbess to betray to her the nuns’ confessions or self-incriminations.” Maria Luisa was following a tradition started by the mother founder—though she went significantly beyond anything Maria Agnese Firrao had done. Firrao had never achieved this level of connection between the nuns admitting their sins to her, and confession in the confessional.

Second, the novice mistress accrued responsibilities to herself that went far beyond what was permitted in canon law. She took it upon herself to give the young nuns dispensations from attending the Divine Office. Some of the novices, who really should have been practicing the psalms every day, were released from this for days, weeks, or even months at a time. Maria Luisa also instructed them to disregard the obligation to fast before receiving Holy Communion. The sick received the Eucharistic gift—“frivolously,” as Sallua put it—several times a week. The precondition for taking Holy Communion was that absolution had to be given in the confessional immediately beforehand. Sant’Ambrogio’s Rule stipulated that the sick could only be given Communion every eight days—though it also said the nuns should have the opportunity to receive Communion every morning. This was already more than the general Rule of the Third Order said: according to this, the sisters were only obliged to take Communion at least three times a year, at Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost.
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Third, the religious fasts were not taken very seriously in Sant’Ambrogio. According to the Rule, meager meals were to be served twice a day in winter, and three times a day in summer. During the two fasting periods before Christmas and Easter, as well as on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, the nuns weren’t allowed to consume meat or dairy products.
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According to statements from many of the novices, Maria Luisa ate meat in their presence on Fridays, and all the other fast days. She claimed to have been released from all obligations, including going to Mass, even on feast days. It seemed that the novice mistress hadn’t taken part in any of the prescribed Offices of the Liturgy of the Hours for the past five years.

Fourth, the Sant’Ambrogio system was not solely dependent on the supernatural gifts, blessings, visions, and ecstasies of “saint” Maria Luisa: there were also real objects, which made her holiness tangible in the truest sense of the word. The inquisitor accorded these relics a charge of their own.
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From one of her trips to heaven, Maria Luisa had brought back a “strand of the Virgin Mary’s hair,” which was kept in a silver reliquary. Another time, she received a relic from Saint Joseph during a rapture, and then Christ gave her a “substantial piece of the holy cross,” which she displayed on Good Friday. The handover of these gifts in heaven was confirmed in letters from the Virgin to Padre Peters, who then saw that the relics were venerated. Sallua managed to obtain from the abbess the reliquary containing the Virgin’s hair. Padre Leziroli had written an inscription on a card displayed above Maria Luisa’s cloak, which Christ was supposed to have worn during one of their encounters in heaven. The notice read: “No nun should ever put on the cloak, since the Savior of the world condescended to wear it one night, when He was cold.” One of the novice mistress’s veils was also hailed as miraculous; the nun’s habit she had worn at her wedding to Christ in heaven was carefully preserved; the novices guarded the hair cut from her head like a treasure—this was holiness you could actually touch. Here, too, Maria Luisa was following the example of her great role model, Maria Agnese Firrao, but at the same time far surpassing her.

Fifth, the investigating judge placed particular weight on the fact that the two confessors were extremely active in “inculcating, approving and endorsing” these bad “precepts and practices.” They had attributed them “to the supposed will of God,” supported by the “absolute
conviction that they had an extraordinary mystic in the convent,” and the “great holiness” of Agnese Firrao and Sister Maria Luisa.
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Sixth, the Sant’Ambrogio system was bound up with an absolute and sacramentally sanctioned veil of secrecy. At Maria Luisa’s behest, the confessors impressed upon the nuns the need to remain silent about the system to the visitators, and even the inquisitors. Maria Luisa’s holiness had to be defended by any means necessary, up to and including perjury. According to Giuseppa Maria, Maria Luisa herself swore the community to absolute secrecy: “It is better to protect the secret, even if you are questioned about these things; I will be the first to set an example, even if I am made to take an oath. The princess is the denouncer, and I would like to ask those in charge to let her come and justify these accusations to us. I close this chapter with the request that you do as I do.”
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This was a straight request to give false testimony under oath. But Maria Luisa was also able to rely on the authority of the Jesuit fathers, Leziroli and Peters. “The extraordinary events around Maria Luisa were kept as secret as possible on the instructions of the father confessors,” the abbess stated on May 19, 1860.
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And the confessors went even further: not only did they issue a general warning to the sisters not to say anything about the veneration of Maria Luisa; during confession they even instructed individual nuns to perjure themselves as an obligatory penance. Maria Ignazia said in her hearing that Padre Peters had placed her under the “seal of the confessional” with regard to the madre vicaria’s “gifts.” She was therefore under the impression that she “could swear to and deny everything with complete conviction,” even when she wasn’t telling the truth. She went so far as to tell the investigating judge that she had the support of her confessor, and would “rather be turned into mincemeat than talk.”
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In his
Relazione
for the Inquisition’s cardinals, written in January 1861, Sallua summed up the results of the witness examinations. “This charge,” he said, meaning the feigned holiness of the beautiful young novice mistress and madre vicaria, Maria Luisa, “represents, in its significance and importance, the central point of this extremely serious
Causa
.” His reasoning behind this was that “all other charges feed into this or stem from it. It stands at the center of all the accused’s actions, and those of all the other people involved in this trial.”
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And as far as the Dominican was concerned, all aspects of this charge had been proved during the informative process.

CHAPTER FIVE

Murder on the Orders of the Virgin

THE AMERICANO AND HIS OBSCENE LETTER

Once the investigating judge had dealt with the first two charges in the informative process—these being the veneration of Agnese Firrao as a saint, and the feigned holiness of Maria Luisa—he moved on to the attempts to poison Katharina von Hohenzollern. Sallua was now entering a minefield, even if the pope had intimated his grave doubts over the plausibility of the whole story. Moreover, the Dominican had no expertise in the investigation of capital offenses: other papal courts usually dealt with murder and manslaughter.

The highest religious tribunal’s inexperience in handling this type of crime is reflected in how the files on this charge were put together. While the investigative court’s argumentation on the religious offenses is notable for its clarity and rigor, Sallua’s summaries on the poisonings appear disordered and incomplete. He also slipped up by forgetting the most important testimony on Katharina’s poisoning, and had to add this in later.
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In his
Relazione
to the cardinals of January 1861, he remarked self-critically that he had entered uncharted territory when he investigated the attempted murder. “The trial system of our holy court is quite different from that of the criminal court, which normally handles crimes of such severity and gravity.”
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Both Katharina and Archbishop Hohenlohe had made serious accusations against the madre vicaria, blaming her for the repeated poisonings. But this was nowhere near sufficient to prove Maria Luisa’s guilt. The Dominican needed reliable witness statements and evidence. He had to shed light on the background to the poisoning, in order to discover the motive for the attacks.
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Sallua started with Katharina’s claim that her relationship with the madre vicaria, which had been very good, was badly damaged when she showed Katharina the obscene German letter from the Americano. He had to find out more about this ominous letter and its author.

Various witnesses told Sallua that Peter Kreuzburg had been introduced to Sant’Ambrogio by Padre Peters, who had apparently known him since he was a child. The Jesuit, they said, had tried to free Kreuzburg from his “five demons” through an exorcism.

In contrast to the present day, exorcisms were a daily occurrence in the nineteenth century—a fact connected to contemporary notions of the devil and demons.
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The devil wasn’t viewed as a second eternal principle alongside God. Satan and his followers, the demons, were seen as angels created by God who had chosen to pursue evil, and had therefore fallen from heaven. People imagined demons and the devil as having airy bodies, meaning they could force their way into humans through any orifice and possess them, in particular during sexual intercourse. Exorcism was the ritual expulsion or banishing of evil spirits (including the devil himself) from people who had been possessed.
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The
Rituale Romanum
of 1614 reserved the right to perform exorcisms for very experienced priests, who were only permitted to do this after close consultation with their bishops. Amateurs—particularly women—could not drive out devils.

The liturgy of exorcism followed the three steps of word, sign, and seal. First, the name of God was invoked. There followed the direct address to the devil or the demons, using the threat of God, and finally the order to leave. The possessed person would often emit ecstatic cries, and experience cramps, nosebleeds, and exhaustion. The whole thing was rounded off with a laying on of hands, making the sign of the cross, and anointing or breathing on the possessed person. The demons usually put up a fight, and priests had to be prepared for a long struggle with the forces of evil, repeating the
exorcism many times in order to free a possessed person completely. Even when the demons had gone, that person was still susceptible to evil.

Kreuzburg met Maria Luisa when he came to Mass in the convent church, which was also open to the public. Peters introduced her as a saint with special divine gifts. After the Jesuit padre had failed to exorcise Kreuzburg, he entrusted Maria Luisa with Kreuzburg’s spiritual guidance, and with driving out his demons, which was clearly in contravention of canon law. She met the Americano frequently under this pretext, inside the convent and sometimes even outside its walls, and often returned from these encounters looking very much the worse for wear.