The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal (29 page)

The lawyer Franceschetti, who had also met Kreuzburg through Peters, was able to provide Sallua with further information. “Padre Peters revealed to me in strictest confidence that Doctor Kreuzburg was possessed, and that he had argued about him with one of the Jesuit houses in Switzerland.”
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The argument concerned an unsuccessful exorcism, during which one of the fathers “heard a great rumbling throughout the house; afterwards, they found a very heavy door lying on the floor, even though it had been secured with large iron pegs.” Peters told Franceschetti that in his role as confessor he had told Kreuzburg to make reparations for vilifying saints during the failed exorcism. He then saw the American raise himself “into the air” to “clean” the pictures of saints in the church, and thereby “assure them of his obeisance.” The American had been “transported across immense spaces” by the devil, “sometimes across the seas, sometimes through the air.” There was talk of levitation, a phenomenon also reported of some mystics.
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But in this case, Peters described the levitation as the work of the devil.

However, Kreuzburg had also received help from the Blessed Virgin, which made Peters believe that he was basically a good soul. Franceschetti mentioned some truly bizarre aspects of Kreuzburg’s life. The Americano had tried to convince him, among other things, that he was tormented by the devil in the shape of cats and mice. The lawyer also described his crazy political speeches.
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Kreuzburg’s demons had also tried to lead Maria Luisa, the saint, into temptation—though they had never really managed to conquer her, as Franceschetti said proudly. Once, he had been present in the
parlor when the vicaress performed an exorcism on Kreuzburg. But Kreuzburg had only mocked and laughed at her, as if he were the devil laughing at being ordered about by a woman.

Several nuns and the abbess confirmed there had been an improper relationship between Maria Luisa and Peter Kreuzburg. According to them, the madre vicaria conducted a long correspondence with the so-called Americano, and met with him in secret for hours at a time. Maria Luisa told her astounded sisters implausible stories, such as that he had a nun for a wife. The nuns’ testimonies also reveal that, with Padre Peters’s consent, she had made the American turn over all his books to her, in particular the medical volumes. Maria Giacinta actually found one of these on the little table in Maria Luisa’s cell, and “was greatly confused and curious to see a lot of bad pictures, of the naked sexual organs of men and women.”

But Sallua wasn’t entirely satisfied with the results of his investigation. He had been able to draw no further conclusions about the content of the obscene letter, let alone get hold of the letter itself. His only evidence was what Katharina had said in her
Denunzia
. And he was unable to question the letter writer: Kreuzburg had escaped the Inquisition’s clutches by fleeing back to the United States. But at least the Dominican had been able to establish the fact of a suspicious relationship between Maria Luisa and Kreuzburg.

Kreuzburg’s biography is still a puzzle to present-day historians.
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Peter Maria Kreuzburg came from the Pustertal in Austria, and may have been born there in around 1815. It seems he received his education at the Jesuit boarding school in Brig, the Spiritus Sanctus College, where he must have met Padre Peters. There is no information to be found on his medical studies. Nor did Peter Maria Kreuzburg ever work as a doctor; he probably just passed himself off as one in Rome. What is certain is that he traveled to the United States in about 1840, and applied for American citizenship in Cincinnati in November 1844. In February 1846 he married Gertrud Nurre, who had also emigrated to the United States in 1839. And in 1850, Kreuzburg and his brother-in-law, Joseph Nurre, opened a bookstore in Cincinnati. The marriage produced six children: a daughter, Cesaria, in 1846; Maria in 1849; Joseph in 1854; Mary in 1857; Gertrude in 1861; and finally Angela in 1863. Maria, Joseph, and Mary probably died in childhood. In March 1857, Peter Maria Kreuzburg
was issued with the passport he had applied for in order to travel to Europe. According to his application, Kreuzburg was five feet six, with gray eyes, a high forehead, brown hair, and an oval face with a “well-proportioned” nose. He used the passport to go to Rome.

Kreuzburg seems to have returned to the United States at the end of 1859, when the Sant’Ambrogio trial made the streets of Rome a little too hot for him. He and his wife subsequently became farmers in Millcreek Township, in Hamilton County, which today is part of Cincinnati. His brief venture into agriculture was clearly unsuccessful: in 1861 he was back in Cincinnati, working as a publisher and bookseller. In 1862, Kreuzburg and his family left the United States, and probably lived until 1874 in Einsiedeln in Switzerland. He then spent five years in Canada, before finally taking up residence in Jurançon near Pau in France, in 1879. Here, he once again assumed the title
Docteur en médecine
. A year after his arrival, however, he suffered a stroke—at least, his daughter Cesaria said he had become lame. Peter Maria Kreuzburg died on March 14, 1889, in Pau. His wife, Gertrud, died in 1909. Their daughters Cesaria and Angela taught at a school in Pau, which today lies on the “Avenue Kreuzburg.”

THE CORD AROUND KATHARINA’S NECK

When Sallua questioned them, several of the sisters confirmed that the princess and the novice mistress had begun to grow apart after Katharina had read the Americano’s obscene letter.
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They told the inquisitor that Maria Luisa had been increasingly exasperated with Luisa Maria (the princess’s name as a novice), and continually spoke ill of her. The rumor went around the convent that she had “made [Katharina] read a letter from a German that was unworthy of a nun.” Maria Luisa dismissed this as wicked slander on the princess’s part and, like the two confessors, claimed it was the result of a “devilish deception.” As the rumor continued to spread within the convent walls, Leziroli and Peters spoke to the novice mistress about this alleged letter, but she “vigorously denied everything.” However, since “the father confessors established that this letter really existed, and as the other facts of the matter were also impossible to refute, they both
judged that it was all an evil ploy by the devil, who had appeared to the novice princess in the shape of Maria Luisa.”

But Katharina, to whom most of her fellow nuns attributed genuine “obedience” and “great deference,” refused to give in, or to acquiesce to the confessors’ interpretation of events. She was “certain of the facts, [and] tried to move the mistress to confess all.”

In her denunciation, Katharina gave a detailed account of this attempt, which took place on the morning of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,
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December 8—a Wednesday. She approached the novice mistress in the choir of the convent church, probably after Lauds, when the nuns had gathered there for morning prayers. A confrontation took place between the two women. Katharina’s account was corroborated by a series of nuns who had witnessed the scene at close hand. Maria Giuseppa, Giuseppa Maria, and Agnese Celeste proved to be particularly good witnesses. On April 2, 1860, Giuseppa Maria told Sallua:
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Two weeks prior to Giuseppa Maria’s hearing, on March 17, 1860, Sallua had questioned Sister Maria Giacinta himself. Her statement tallied almost word for word with Giuseppa Maria’s.
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She said that the Lord had appeared to Maria Luisa and revealed to her that “as punishment for her pride, the princess
would die, and He had already arranged this
.” Maria Luisa even told Agnese Celeste, with regard to the scene in the choir, that “the princess behaved among the novices as Judas among the apostles.”

This way, the novice mistress was likening Katharina’s behavior in the choir to Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus. She saw the princess as a female Judas, who was betraying the community of Sant’Ambrogio by refusing to believe in Maria Luisa’s holiness. Katharina wanted to turn her over to the Church authorities, just as Judas had turned Jesus over to the high priests. In the world of Catholic ideas, the cord around Katharina’s neck was associated with the suicide of Judas Iscariot, who hanged himself when he realized the consequences of his betrayal.

But within religious orders, a cord around the neck had a very different historical significance. Here, it wasn’t a sign of betrayal, but a gesture of great humility.
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When a monk or a nun put the cord or belt that held their habit together around their neck, it meant they were humbling themselves utterly, and putting themselves entirely at the mercy of their superior. This kind of ritual abasement was the only way for a novice to remonstrate with a superior like the novice mistress, to whom she owed strict obedience. The gesture of humility forced the superior to listen to her charge. And placing a cincture around one’s neck was a particularly expressive gesture of humility for the Franciscan orders. It was said that Saint Francis of Paola always received holy communion kneeling with his cincture around his neck, and advised his fellow monks to do likewise.
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Katharina was consciously following this tradition. But why did Maria Luisa have such an extreme reaction to her remonstrations? The witnesses’ statements may not reveal the exact words the two women exchanged, but they were clearly talking about the letter from the Americano. The princess was disgusted by the letter’s indecent
content, not least because the Americano was also making improper advances toward her, saying she could become a “mother without a husband” like Maria Luisa. She had made a point of this in her
Denunzia
. But why hadn’t the madre vicaria simply dismissed the obscene phrases as the sick sexual fantasies of a man possessed by demons, with no bearing on reality? After all, she couldn’t be held responsible for the crazy thoughts of a sick mind. Why hadn’t she immediately deplored the letter and its contents? The fact that she denied ever having shown Katharina the letter—and later, when the princess insisted she had, started blaming the devil—raises the suspicion that it wasn’t just a possessed man’s fantasy. There was something behind this crazy talk of “becoming a mother without a husband”: probably nothing less than a sexual relationship between the Americano and the madre vicaria.

This was the subject on which Katharina had implored Maria Luisa to speak the truth. She asked her to repent of all her deceptions and lies, including the story about the devil. If she refused, Katharina would have to take up the matter herself, in order to save Maria Luisa’s soul. She would reveal the madre vicaria’s affair with the Americano. But Maria Luisa wasn’t prepared to repent. The attempt to persuade her failed, and the relationship between the two women was permanently destroyed.

HEAVENLY LETTERS FORETELL KATHARINA’S MURDER

Katharina’s impending death had hung in the air since the scene in the choir. Christ had already told Maria Luisa of it in a vision, and now all that was missing was written confirmation from above. Once again, the novice mistress set Maria Francesca to work writing letters in the name of the Virgin Mary. Maria Francesca told the investigating judge about the origin of these in her hearing on February 21, 1860.
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