Write the history through guilt: the religious women of Juazeiro in the Vatican Archives (1889-1894)

<p>In the late nineteenth century the Diocese of Ceará (Juazeiro, Brazil) has started a trial to investigate about the transformation of the Holy Particle in flesh and blood in the mouth of devout Maria Magdalena do Espírito Santo de Araújo. The phenomena occurred in March 1889 and the inquiries were produced between 1891 and 1892 that were sent to the Holy See in 1893. In 1894, the Holy See ditacte a decree in which, it condemned Maria de Araújo and eight other women as liars. This paper aims to analyze the trajectory of two devout women, Jahel Cabral e Maria da Soledade, from the analysis of an ecclesiastical inquiry that exists in the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. We hypothesized that these women have sought to build unique spiritual paths through their testimonies, without the clerical intermediation, and because of that they were fought and condemned by the official Church.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> religious women; feminine holiness; XIX century; Catholic Church.