Penitente Moradas kept the faith alive of Hundreds of Years

By Larry Torres, Associate Professor, UNM-Taos

The first entrada or official expedition into the New Mexico territory from New Spain, as Mexico was called in those days, took place in 1540, led by Conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. He was accompanied by a retinue of 336 men, 3 women and some 500 Tlaxcala Natives from Mexico. He also brought a handful of Franciscan friars to introduce the Catholic Faith to any indigenous people they might encounter. Many of these friars were killed during the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680 but several came back in subsequent expeditions. Since they were busy proselytizing to the Indians, the European settlers largely had to fend for themselves when it came to interpreting their faith. That’s where the religious brotherhood of Penitentes came forward.

Penitentes in Northern New Mexico are ordinary lay men who act as religious, moral, cultural, social and economic leaders in small towns. They take no vows of poverty, chastity or obedience, but merely express their love of God each according to his own ability. They seem to have evolved as a hybrid of two earlier movements. The first was based on the aesthetic teachings of St. Francis and the early Church desert hermits and the second great influence came from the German flagellators that began the practice of whipping themselves during the Bubonic Plague of the Middle Ages.

In northern New Mexico the first recorded incident of blood being shed as a means of expiation for sins and as dedication to the land came when Don Juan de Oñate and his men shed their shirts and practiced flagellation in 1598 during Holy Week near what is now Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. Later on, in 1630 Fray Alfonso de Benavides made mention of the custom of flagellation in New Mexico in a report addressed to King Phillip of Spain. In 1826 Padre Antonio José Martínez of Taos was appointed delegate minister to the “Third of Order of St. Francis” allowed the Brotherhood from Santa Cruz de la Cañada to display their faith publically in 1827.

With the coming of the Institutional Church in 1851, the first four French Archbishops of New Mexico drove the Penitente Brotherhood underground for a hundred years. Chapter houses, called moradas, became unofficial churches and chapels for the faithful who wanted to remain loyal to the official church but also express their folk religion in secret. Moradas became sacred places of instruction for new members much as kivas were for Native youth.

There are still over 40 of these sacred places ranging from as far north as Fort Garland, Colorado, as far south as Tomé , as far east as Cubero and as far west as Las Vegas, New Mexico. Moradas generally host meetings at least once a month and are most active during Holy Week. During those times scores of pilgrims congregate in them to pray rosaries for world peace or for the repose of the souls in Purgatory. The bultos or folk carvings of saints and Virgins at the morada shrines are dressed according to the occasion. Human hair on the heads of the bultos has been donated to the chapter house by the faithful for prayers answered.

As with many holy places in New Mexico, photography inside moradas is strictly forbidden. A book by Craig Varjebedian titled “En Divina Luz” chronicles the moradas still extant in Northern New Mexico with poetic commentaries by Michael Wallace.