This volume, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Dios me haga santa (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. May God make me a saint) advocates for the seventeenth-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to be declared both a saint and a Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis in the Roman Catholic Church. In the past, Cardinal Noberto Rivera, the Archbishop Primate of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, expressed interest in Sor Juana’s sanctity and sought counsel on pursuing the possibility of elevating the Hieronymite nun to the Altar of Saints. For unknown reasons, this initial interest did not come to fruition. At present, we are fortunate that Ramón Castro y Castro, Bishop of Cuernavaca and President of the Mexican Episcopal Conference, has written the prologue to this volume, endorsing the importance of examining the merits of declaring Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz a saint and a Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis in the Roman Catholic tradition.
The essays in this volume are an ecumenical joint initiative of Sorjuanistas from Mexico and the United States. Our hope is that this volume will foster renewed interest in the canonization of Sor Juana as a saint and in her declaration as a Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis. The readers of these essays will encounter a saintly and sapient seventeenth-century Mexican nun who prayed to God to make her a saint (Dios me haga santa).[1] In addition, the essays in this volume provide a counter narrative to the dominant myth that depicts Sor Juana as a persecuted intellectual by powerful hierarchs in the Catholic Church. This myth is known as the Black Legend of Sor Juana.[2]
Sorjuanistas such as Darío Puccini and Octavio Paz have promulgated the Black Legend of Sor Juana. More specifically, in his book Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe (1982), Paz argues—without citing primary sources—that Sor Juana endured inquisitorial treatment at the hands of the seemingly “misogynistic” Archbishop of Mexico City, Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas. Regarding Paz’s text, Stephanie Merrim, in her edited volume Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1991), states: “Any further studies on Sor Juana will inevitably have to take this milestone work into consideration”.[3] In the present volume, however, the authors have not taken Paz’s “milestone” book into consideration.
As a result of newly discovered primary sources, the authors of this volume, together with contemporary Mexican secular humanist scholars, have reached a consensus that Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz did not endure inquisitorial treatment at the hands of the Archbishop of Mexico City because of her criticism of the Jesuit António Vieira. In her book Sor Juana ante la muerte, Gisela von Wobeser states:
Darío Puccini and Octavio Paz maintain that Fernández de Santa Cruz used the manuscript of the “Crisis of a Sermon” to perpetuate a political attack against Archbishop Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, and that in doing so they turned Sor Juana into the target of numerous criticisms and persecutions—when there is evidence that the two had a good relationship and there is no document from which it can be inferred that the Archbishop felt he had been attacked. Many more examples could be cited of the enormous number of unsubstantiated conjectures in studies on Sor Juana carried out during recent decades.[4]
Additionally, the leading Sorjuanista scholar Sara Poot-Herrera has affirmed that Sor Juana was not persecuted by the Mexican Inquisition or the Archbishop of Mexico City.[5] For this reason, the authors of this volume have intentionally ignored Paz’s book and other mainstream biographies of the past decades that insist on Sor Juana’s persecution at the hands of the Catholic Church because “[t]he problem with their theses is that they lack documentary support, [and] are contradictory with respect to documents that prove the contrary, and the conclusions they reach are inconsistent”.[6]
Contrary to Paz’s personal and subjective interpretation of Sor Juana’s life, the authors of these essays have engaged directly with primary sources that have recently emerged from Mexico. The objective approach of this volume’s contributors is supported by the research of von Wobeser:
In more recent years, with a revisionist impulse, researchers such as Georgina Sabat de Rivers, Marie-Cécile Bénassy-Berling, and Alejandro Soriano Vallès have returned to the thesis that the withdrawal from worldly activities was voluntary and not the result of ecclesiastical coercion. The works of these authors show a greater adherence to the sources and a better understanding of the religious beliefs and practices of the era in which the nun lived.[7]
With the exception of Georgina Sabat de Rivers, the authors of these essays have cited and quoted the researchers mentioned by von Wobeser. As a result, the essays in this volume are presented in a straightforward manner. Consequently, their tone may come across as confrontational or antagonistic toward previous works on Sor Juana. This is not the case. On the contrary, the tone of the volume reflects an urgent call to reclaim Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, through primary sources, as a saintly and learned Mexican nun.
In this volume, readers will be introduced to the most current primary sources on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. In the first essay, the esteemed Mexican Sorjuanista scholar Alejandro Soriano Vallès, author of El mito moderno de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, dismantles the assumptions that Sor Juana was silenced and persecuted by the Church. In the second essay, Monacato y conciencia episcopal. Una carta de Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz a Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, Rocío Silva Herrera and Jesús Joel Peña Espinosa present a previously unpublished document that sheds new light on Sor Juana’s amicable relationship with the Church hierarchy.
In Jaime Septién’s essay, La decisión de Sor Juana, the Hieronymite nun is depicted as a woman of agency with a strong religious vocation. Readers of the subsequent essay, Sobre el ofrecimiento de la vida de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz para sus hermanas religiosas, authored by Juan A. Tavárez, Alan A. Barrera, and Abjessü Valdiviezo, will encounter a Sor Juana consumed by the evangelical charity of love.[8] Additionally, readers are introduced to the Hieronymite’s first biographer, Padre Diego Calleja, SJ, who aptly asserted that Sor Juana “enfermó de caritativa”.[9] In the volume’s final essay, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis, Theresa A. Yugar argues that Sor Juana should be declared a Doctor in the Roman Catholic Church. Her essay introduces readers to Sor Juana’s theological, philosophical, and poetic writings. Readers will discover a learned seventeenth-century Mexican nun who contributed to the rich intellectual tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. The last contributor to this volume is Fernando Caloca Ayala who wrote a book review on the text, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Doncella del Verbo authored by Alejandro Soriano Vallès.[10]
Throughout the volume, readers will be presented with several direct and extended quotations from primary sources. The authors’ intention in doing so is to ensure transparency and academic integrity, as encouraged by Pope Francis in his apostolic letter Maiorem Hac Dilectionem: On the Offer of Life. In Article 10:1 of the apostolic letter, Pope Francis states:
[I]n both recent and ancient causes, a biography of any historical import of the Servant of God, should such exist, or otherwise an accurate, chronologically arranged report on the life and deeds of the Servant of God, on his virtues or on his offer of life or martyrdom, on his reputation of sanctity and of signs. Nor should anything be omitted which seems to be contrary or less favorable to the cause.[11]
We pray that this volume will inspire renewed interest in initiating the process for the canonization of the saintly and learned Mexican nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and in elevating her to the Altar of Saints within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Ora pro nobis
Ruega por nosotros
Pray for us