by Hubert Wolf
Leziroli also had to admit to “reworking” the prayers to Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary, and other saints, at the nuns’ request, to include a prayer for the return of the mother founder from exile. After her death, he inserted the name Maria Agnese into the Litany of the Saints, as “blessed by heaven,” as if she had already achieved divine glory. From the Inquisition’s point of view, this meant he had arrogated responsibilities to himself that belonged solely to the pope and the Roman congregations in charge: the changing of liturgical texts, and raising the dead to the altars.
Leziroli was firmly convinced that Agnese Firrao’s visions had been genuine. She once wrote to him from Gubbio to say she had seen the late abbess, Maria Maddalena, “going up to heaven.” He spoke to Cardinal Pecci about her vision, and Pecci replied: “She does seem to be an exalted spirit, but only God knows this for certain.” The Jesuit was sure “that the Lord, who keeps His promises, would one day glorify His servant.” Agnese Firrao was still a saint in Leziroli’s eyes, Inquisition judgment or no. And so he allowed the mother founder’s contact relics to be venerated in Sant’Ambrogio, and petitioned for the return of her body from Gubbio. Firrao’s confessor there wrote and told him her body had shown no signs of decay a full ten days after her death. Leziroli’s aim was to create a saint’s grave as a place of veneration inside the walls of Sant’Ambrogio.10
Sallua wrote: “The defendant was shown many unanimous witness statements, saying he had promoted the veneration and the cult of the mother founder in various ways, acting on his conviction that she was a saint.” Leziroli was unable to refute the overwhelming evidence, and had to confess. “Very well, everything you have read to me is correct.”
He argued that his behavior was purely the result of Maria Luisa’s deception. The tribunal saw this the other way around: when Maria Luisa told the Jesuit about her visions and the other supernatural phenomena connected to the mother founder, she had been preaching to the choir. Everything she said fit with the image he had already formed of the “saint” Maria Agnese. He was only too willing to let Maria Luisa help him set more jewels into the crown of Maria Agnese’s sainthood. Leziroli didn’t feel he had been deceived by Agnese Firrao, whose spiritual guide he had been for a decade and a half, but only by Maria Luisa. She had a duty of obedience to him, but she had manipulated him using her supposedly divine powers. Leziroli gave a telling picture of the beautiful young vicaress’s strategy of communication and control. Looking back, he expressed his horror and disappointment at having been taken in by this deception. But he may not have been aware, as he did this, that Maria Luisa was consciously serving the expectations or projections he and many other nineteenth-century men of the cloth had of gifted women.11
THE CONFESSOR AND “SAINT” MARIA LUISA
The next charge concerned Maria Luisa’s pretense of holiness.12 The investigating judges asked Leziroli how Maria Luisa had managed to assume such a position in the convent. The defendant said that in 1849, the mother founder had written to tell him she “disapproved” the “extraordinary things” Maria Luisa was claiming. This corroborated the statements the older nuns had given during the informative process. There may have been a kind of competitive envy at work here: skepticism from Sant’Ambrogio’s old saint about the new one, who was threatening to outstrip her.
Leziroli, as he told the tribunal, emphatically rebuffed the mother founder’s criticism. He had put Maria Luisa to the test a number of times, and had seen clear signs that his faith in the authenticity of her supernatural experiences was justified. He viewed her as “a unique treasure” and saw to it that this “privileged soul” was given the appropriate offices in the convent.
Leziroli then took Cardinal Vicar Patrizi into his trust, having informed him of Maria Luisa’s special gifts. Patrizi instructed him to forbid Maria Luisa “all these things,” which, Leziroli claimed, he promptly did. But the investigating judges took a rather different view on the matter, and accused him of not having followed Patrizi’s orders. There was an obvious reason for the court to take this attitude to Leziroli’s statement about Patrizi: the judges had to get the head of the Roman Inquisition, their most senior overseer, out of the firing line.
But if Patrizi had been so critical of Maria Luisa, why was he present when she was elected as vicaress? Had he really believed that if he didn’t go, the devil would possess his servant and poison him with chocolate, as Maria Luisa had prophesied? Patrizi’s visit had perpetuated the “system of visions,” Leziroli explained, because it was taken as recognition of Maria Luisa’s holiness.
Leziroli subsequently admitted that in many cases he had acted on the visions of the supposed saint. He had casually handed out dispensations from fasting and attending Divine Office, and supported Maria Luisa’s recruitment of young nuns. He put pressure on Maria Giuseppa during confession, because she refused to believe in Maria Luisa’s holiness. In general, he had been imprudent with the seal of the confessional, and had actually broken it several times. He had been unstinting in his claims that the heavenly letters were genuine. Last but not least, he had staged the scene in which the nuns venerated the madre vicaria as she lay, seemingly unconscious, on her bed, wearing valuable rings and giving off a lovely fragrance.
The court was particularly interested in what Leziroli knew about the relationship between Padre Peters and Maria Luisa. On June 13, 1861, Leziroli told how Peters’s unusually intensive “pastoral” support had come about.13
While she was still a novice, Maria Luisa showed a note which, she said, she had been commanded to write by the late abbess, Maria Maddalena. It instructed the novice mistress at the time to let Maria Luisa lie in bed for three days, as she was going to suffer from a very severe headache, a sunstroke … and in fact, this did then happen. She continued to suffer from this illness, which in recent years was declared extraordinary and supernatural. She therefore had need of a confessor and his blessing, rather than a doctor. I was called upon once to care for her during an attack of this illness, and recited litanies and blessed her, to give her comfort, which she said she felt.
A few days later, she told me the mother founder had appeared to her and said: “That good padre has spoiled the work of God. The suffering was supposed to last a day longer, in order to receive the reward of two more jewels for the ring.” The mother founder also said she should now suffer for one more day, which indeed she did.
I also heard tell that during her suffering she fell into a swoon, and spoke with divine beings. But at this time she gave confession to Padre Peters; it was he who was present on these occasions, and not myself.
I would also like to mention that Padre Peters once told me an angel with a sword in his hand had appeared to Maria Luisa. She had taken the sword from the angel’s hand and wounded her breast, to share in the suffering of the Madonna.
This was probably a reference to an image that was widespread in nineteenth-century Catholicism of the “seven sorrows of Mary.” On devotional cards, these sorrows were symbolized by seven swords in Mary’s breast.14 Maria Luisa’s vision was her attempt to position herself as close as possible to the Virgin Mary by reenacting her suffering. The scene in which Mary stands under her son’s cross with his favorite disciple, and the Pietà, where she holds the body of Jesus in her arms, play a central role in the history of piety. The Mater Dolorosa became a model for the experience of suffering, particularly the suffering of women.15 Perhaps Maria Luisa was searching for a substitute for the wounds of Christ, the stigmata that she lacked. There were numerous reports that the mother founder had received the stigmata.
On Holy Saturday 1857, Maria Luisa and Peters sent for the abbess and Leziroli, to demonstrate to them the authenticity of her ecstasies, and the purity of Padre Peters’s care. This certainly worked in Leziroli’s case. He recounted his experience of the vision to the Inquisition.
After Maria Luisa had been called, Padre Peters kissed her ring, which at that time was set with a simple cross. At this, she fainted,
and the mother abbess supported her and laid her on a chair. In this state, without saying anything, she made movements of her body, and her head most of all, which suggested honor, affection and veneration. She lowered her head, as if some being, invisible to us, was giving her a kiss. Padre Peters gave an explanation of these acts, saying that at that moment, she was transported to God, and was perhaps being embraced. She remained in this condition for around three quarters of an hour, before coming to and telling us she had seen the choir of angels, the apostles, and the risen Christ.… During the ecstasy, as I recall, Padre Peters told me to go into the adjoining room, because—as he claimed—he had to receive some manner of secret communication from Maria Luisa. I withdrew for a few minutes.
Leziroli could say nothing, however, about Peters’s continual breaking of the clausura, the exact quality of the extraordinary blessing, and the possible sexual dimension of Peters’s relationship with Maria Luisa.
In Agnese Eletta’s case, this was rather different. The Jesuit had to confess that she had slept in Maria Luisa’s cell for a year or more with his knowledge and permission—naturally, following a divine instruction.
I ordered the abbess to let the two of them sleep in the same room, because it was a command from God. I also revealed this command to the novice Maria Giacinta, who had to sleep in the mistress’s cell as well, to serve as secretary. She actually slept there for a few months.
With regard to the novices, I only heard that the evening before they received their habits and professed their vows, they spent a few hours in spiritual conversation with the mistress in her room, and then went to bed. I heard nothing else about the intimacies that occurred between the nuns.
This account downplayed his own role in the affair, and didn’t convince the investigating judge. Sallua presented Leziroli with testimonies from several nuns who said they had made more than one complaint about “immoral” and “improper” acts and intimacies between Maria Luisa and the novices. Leziroli replied: “As I believed Maria Luisa to be an innocent soul, who could not commit such acts, I attributed these things to the devil. It is true that I was shocked to be told that Maria Luisa treated a nun on the sexual organs. But because I was led to believe that this instantly healed the nun, I was reassured.”
Leziroli stubbornly insisted that he had acted “in good faith throughout this business.” The court, however, rejected this claim, and gave the Jesuit a caution. Even in his concluding statement, he refused to make any confession of guilt. He could only bring himself to state: “Alas, God gave me this blindness as punishment for my sins.”
LEZIROLI AND THE POISONINGS
The third and final charge concerned the poisoning attempts. The court put it to Leziroli that he hadn’t taken Katharina von Hohenzollern seriously, on the several occasions she had expressed serious doubts about Maria Luisa’s virtue and holiness, and about the devil having assumed her form. He had also dismissed the princess’s “complaints” as ridiculous—particularly those concerning the Americano’s obscene letter. If Leziroli had only believed Katharina, the poisoning attempts would never have occurred. In the court’s view, a substantial portion of the blame for the criminal acts that had been committed in Sant’Ambrogio fell to the convent’s spiritual formation director, and his negligence. In his interrogation on June 14 and 15, 1861, Leziroli answered this charge at some length.16
The story of the letter you are asking about … is true. The princess did not believe it was the devil in the shape of the mistress who had given her the letter, so she came to me on December 3 to speak to me about it. She said she refused to believe it was an illusion created by the devil. But at the time I was convinced of Maria Luisa’s innocence, and did everything I could to convince the princess it was the devil, and not Maria Luisa, who had given her that letter.…
Later, Maria Luisa told me that on the morning of the Immaculate Conception, the princess had thrown herself at her feet after Communion, and begged her to tell the truth. Maria Luisa felt very offended by this, and gave her a curt answer, saying: “You don’t know who I am.”
Maria Luisa then told me the Lord had revealed to her that he would send a terrible illness and death to the princess, as punishment for her pride and her stubbornness, because she opposed Maria Luisa. I was to pray to God that Cardinal Reisach would not visit the princess before the start of her illness. At that time, we were expecting a visit from the cardinal to the princess.
In fact, the princess suffered a stroke a day or two after the Immaculate Conception … and just two or three days later she was on her deathbed. Padre Peters told me there was a suspicion that one of the nuns in the convent had given her something poisonous. The sick woman had handed him a little glass of liquid, which had been fed to her, and she told him she believed it contained something harmful. The above-named padre had it analyzed, and alum was found in it. Maria Luisa told Padre Peters, and later myself, that the cook had accidentally put alum in the broth instead of salt.
Padre Peters asked me if he should undertake a more thorough investigation, to establish whether the princess really had been poisoned. But I said no, because I was firmly convinced of Maria Luisa’s holiness and innocence.
Leziroli made several attempts to exonerate his fellow Jesuit: “But I must also confess that Padre Peters relied on my authority, so I am guiltier than he.”
The judges refused to accept that Leziroli hadn’t been aware of the details of the poisoning. They confronted him with numerous witness statements that contradicted what he had said. Finally he had to admit that, shortly after the prophecy of Katharina’s death, he learned that the novice mistress had not only asked Agnese Celeste about the effects of various poisons, but had also ordered a series of poisonous substances from various apothecaries in Rome. But once again, he saw the devil at work in Maria Luisa’s shape.
Even the poisoning of Sister Maria Agostina didn’t cause him to doubt the madre vicaria’s integrity during his time in Sant’Ambrogio.17 It was only after the Apostolic Visitation, when he was dismissed from his post as the convent’s confessor, that he began to suspect that both Katharina von Hohenzollern and the late Sister Maria Agostina had been given “something harmful” to cause their illnesses, and Agostina’s death. He didn’t believe it was a case of poisoning. He only started to have his doubts when, following the Visitation, Padre Peters told him Maria Luisa had prevented him from seeing the sick woman, when Maria Agostina had expressly asked Leziroli for him.
Eventually, the regular confessor and spiritual director of Sant’Ambrogio made a detailed admission of guilt.18
First, he confessed that he had endorsed the holiness, the visions, stigmata, and many other supernatural gifts of the condemned Sister Maria Agnese Firrao, both in writing and verbally. He had promoted her cult in various ways, and had invoked her as a saint. “I admit that I did wrong, and ask for forgiveness.”
Second, he confessed to promoting the feigned holiness of Sister Maria Luisa in various ways, through writing, verbal statements, and reprehensible actions. He had believed the supposedly divine correspondence to be real, even though the subject matter of these divine missives was sometimes unworthy of God and the saints. He had come to the defense of this “saint,” with her visions and her heavenly marriage and divine rings, against the nuns’ doubts and fears, which later proved to be justified. And he had made himself an accomplice to Maria Luisa’s crimes, immoral acts, and other misdemeanors, which he now recognized as such. “I do not know how I can explain my great confusion and blindness at that time. I remain confused, and admit that, unfortunately, I have erred.”
Third, he confessed that he was guilty of knowing about, endorsing, and assisting in the expulsion of Sister Agnese Eletta from the convent. “For this, too, I beg forgiveness.”
Finally, he confessed to promoting precepts and practices that were out of line with healthy theology and morality. Some had been wrong and dangerous, and their use in Sant’Ambrogio had had serious consequences,
such as blasphemy and perjury. “For this I also ask God and the Holy Office for forgiveness.”
The tribunal stated that he was guilty on several charges, and in conclusion the Jesuit replied that although he had erred, he had not done so consciously. Leziroli recognized that the Inquisition’s judicial proceedings had been perfectly correct, and the transcript was an accurate record of his interrogation. Like Maria Luisa, he declined a defensive process with a reexamination of the witnesses, as well as any further defense. The answers he had given had been his defense. He was happy just to allow the assigned counsel, Giuseppe Cipriani, to review the files. On September 13 and 17 respectively, the fiscal, Antonio Bambozzi, and then Cipriani, checked the draft Ristretto for Leziroli’s interrogation, countersigned it, and released it for printing. In October 1861, copies were made on the Inquisition’s secret internal press, and distributed to its deciding authority: the consultors, the cardinals, and the pope.
MARIA VERONICA MILZA: AN ABBESS BEFORE THE COURT
Sallua began his witness examination of Abbess Maria Veronica in mid-January 1860 as part of the informative process. She pulled the wool over his eyes several times. It was only when Sallua confronted her with witness statements from her fellow nuns that she admitted to “intentional omissions, lies, and several counts of perjury.” The Dominican therefore called her a “model of wickedness.”19 On March 16, following the preferral of charges, the cardinal vicar had her secretly moved to the conservatory of Santa Maria del Rifugio, near Santa Maria in Trastevere. The pope stipulated that neither she nor the other nuns from Sant’Ambrogio were permitted to wear the habit of the Regulated Third Order. Instead, she was given a simple black tunic.