Fray Leopoldo and the Fray Leopoldo Devotion
Born in 1864, Francisco Tomás de San Juan Bautista Márquez Sánchez, the future Fray Leopoldo, grew up in the mountain hamlet of Alpandeire, southwest of Granada in the Province of Málaga.[32] The settlement was originally founded by the Arabs some ten centuries ago. Today a modern highway connects the cluster of small white houses ringed by fields to the nearby city of Ronda. But when thick mists steam up from the valleys, bringing traffic to a standstill, one can imagine how remote the world beyond its borders must once have seemed.[33]
Aside from a year of military service, the friar-to-be barely left his birthplace. He was already thirty when he attended ceremonies in Ronda marking the beatification of the Capuchin missionary Diego José de Cédiz.[34] The event affected him so deeply that he called off his impending marriage and took steps to join the order. His age and lack of formal
[31] For a discussion of these and similar practices in Spain and elsewhere see Christian, "Folk Religion."
[32] For a chronological summary of the main events in the friar's life see Fray Angel de León, Mendigo por Dios , pp. 329-30.
[33] I am indebted to Fray Leopoldo's niece, Jerónima Máirquez Lobato, for her hospitality during my visit to Alpandeire from 27 April to 1 May 1984.
The town of Alpandeire is well aware of the outside world's interest in Fray Leopoldo, although certainly not all of its residents appear enthusiastic about the friar. Jerónima, for her part, has had to periodically replace the door of the house in which her uncle was born and which she and her husband now inhabit because of visitors' insistence on shaving off splinters of wood to take home as mementos.
[34] The name of Diego José de Cádiz is regularly linked to that of Fray Leopoldo in Capuchin publications, and the order is clearly hopeful that one cause will help the other. For a laudatory biography of the former see Juan Bautista García Sánchez, Trotacaminos de Dios .
education led to his initial rejection as a candidate, but he persisted and finally entered the Capuchin monastery in Seville in 1899. He took vows there as a lay brother a year later and was subsequently transferred to Granada in 1903. Aside from a few months in Antequera in 1905 and a year in Seville in 1913, he spent the next half-century of his life in his adopted city.
Fray Leopoldo initially served the monastery as its gardener. Somewhat later, he assumed the post of official alms collector (limosnero ). Although charged with collecting food and money to support the monastery, he appears to have made liberal use of a special dispensation to aid needy members of the lay population as well. Reports by contemporaries suggest a generosity coupled with a readiness to console and counsel, which ensured his welcome among many in both city and outlying countryside.
With his long white beard, ankle-length brown robe, weatherbeaten sandals, and rough shoulder bag, or morral , Fray Leopoldo looked very much the part of a traditional Capuchin friar. His religious beliefs would seem to have been notably conservative as well. He was firmly convinced, for instance, of the physical existence of the devil, on whom he would blame the accident that left him bedridden for the last three years of his life. His devotion to the Virgin was particularly manifest in his practice of reciting three Hail Marys wherever the news of an accident or illness chanced to reach him. (" 'For the love of God, Fray Leopoldo,' I said to him," recalls a retired bookkeeper, "'if you keep kneeling in the middle of the street much longer we are both sure to be run over by a car.' ")[35]
The earnestness of the friar's faith undoubtedly owes much to his upbringing in a relatively isolated rural community with no formal schooling. One should remember, however, that a great many Spaniards were still functionally illiterate at the close of the civil war. In addition, despite the existence of progressive industrial centers such as Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona, the nation was still, as already suggested, heavily agricultural. Although possessing greater cultural and economic resources than the small communities around it, Granada, like other Spanish cities of this period, retained strong ties to an older agrarian society.[36] The economic base of the urban elite still lay in the country-
[35] Man, age seventy-four, born Granada, high school. Married, retired bookkeeper, usually attends mass.
[36] In 1956, the year of Fray Leopoldo's death, 43.7 percent of Spaniards were employed in agriculture, 27 percent in industry, and 29.3 percent in the service sector. The corresponding figures for Granada were 69.7 percent, 10 percent, and 20.3 percent, reflecting the province's still predominantly agricultural identity. For a discussion of changes in the second half of the twentieth century see Tezanos, "Transformaciones en la estructura social española."
side (the well-to-do tended to divide their time between country estates and imposing townhouses), and almost all working-class rural families had ties to the city through female relatives who worked as domestics. These links were obvious in rural-urban patronage networks linking subordinates to elites.[37] Thus, even though the friar is likely to strike present-day observers as an anachronistic folk figure, his actions and beliefs were not necessarily dramatically different from those of many of his wealthier and better-educated contemporaries.
Then, too, the society in which Fray Leopoldo lived for the last two decades of his life was hardly open to new ideas. The regional newspaper on whose front page the notice of his death appears, for instance, also contains a statement of official norms for juvenile literature.[38] ("CHILDREN'S PUBLICATIONS ," the headline asserts flatly, "WILL HENCEFORTH EXALT SPIRITUAL VALUES AND WILL BE BOTH BEAUTIFUL AND DIDACTIC .") Other features in this issue include an article from a series by Mussolini's son entitled "ROMMEL, A GENERAL OF WHOM NAPOLEON WOULD HAVE APPROVED ," a report of the elaborate nationwide ceremonies commemorating the death of Ignatius of Loyola, and an editorial extolling the twenty years of peace following Franco's victory. The edition also gives prominence to a photograph of a decidedly boyish-looking Richard M. Nixon and a report on the inauguration of Juscelino Kubitschek, the Brazilian president who would construct Brasília.
Fray Leopoldo, to be sure, would be far less at home in today's Granada. It is extremely difficult to imagine a Capuchin in floor-length robes and homespun satchel canvassing the thirteen floors of a sleek new office complex for contributions. Indeed, the monastery has long since abolished the post of alms collector, and the handful of friars who continue to walk the streets in flowing beards and sandals in the dead of winter attract curious, even startled, looks. But the city Fray Leopoldo knew did not boast high-rise buildings. Relatively small and poor, the friar's Granada was a collection of neighborhood shops and makeshift apartment houses called casas de vecino , whose inhabitants were less apt to offer money than a few potatoes, a bit of cooking oil, or perhaps a choice green pear. The wealthier citizens might present the alms collector with
[37] See Maddox, "Religion, Honor, and Patronage," for a discussion of these rural-urban networks.
[38] "Se murió Fray Leopoldo, Hermano Capuchino." El Ideal , 10 February 1956, p. 1.
more impressive portions of the produce regularly brought by mule-drawn wagon from the countryside.
As already suggested, Spain has undergone profound transformations in the past few decades. And although Granada stands apart from other Spanish cities in some respects, it has most certainly responded to these larger changes.[39] The ubiquitous posters advertising "Sexual Freedom Week," mystical awareness conferences, demonstrations for and against the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), and an array of concerts, lectures, and political activities are only the most obvious, outward signs of a self-conscious opening toward a larger world. Rows of look-alike apartment complexes and wide streets perenially jammed with cars and buses have definitively replaced the acres of orchards. But vestiges of the past are unmistakable in the form of the Moorish palaces of the Alhambra and the Cuesta de la Lona (Canvas Hill), where the sails for the "Invincible Armada" were spun. Ultramodern laundromats, camera stores, and tourist hotels peer up at the sixteenth-century Jerónimos monastery with its halo of brown birds.[40]
The past is visible not only in monuments but also in various surviving customs. One of the areas in which it is most striking is that of the parainstitutional religious practices I describe earlier. Although at the time of my fieldwork, Granada was home to a community of Muslim converts, several Hindu ashrams, and a Hatha Yoga center, the great majority of residents remain nominally Catholic.[41] Community festivals such as striking street processions are still common here, as they are in other parts of Andalusia.[42] So are pilgrimages in honor of regional holy figures. Although only a percentage of the population actively engages in these activities, they have not only persisted but in some cases also acquired new life.
Granada, for instance, is known throughout Spain for its sumptuous Holy Week in which neighborhood parish associations vie to present
[39] Among the factors that set apart Granada are its strong Moorish heritage (the city was the last to fall to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492), its relative lack of industry, and the long-standing social and political conservatism of its upper classes. For an introduction to the city see Gallego y Burín, Granada . Brenan's now-classic South from Granada conveys a good sense of the larger region.
[40] The journalistic snippets in Cuenca Toribio's La Andalucía de la transición give the reader a sense of some of the changes that the region has undergone.
[41] The members of these communities are often from outside Granada. The ashrams tend to come and go, but the Muslim community in the Caldería Baja appears firmly rooted and invites serious study.
[42] For a descriptive overview see Rodríguez Becerra, "Cultura popular y fiestas." An extensive list of feast days in the city of Granada appears in the same author's Guía de fiestas populates de Andalucía , pp. 352-63.
floats with the most elaborately decorated images, or pasos .[43] Although some residents dismiss the pageant as a tourist attraction, civic pride and esthetic pleasure have clearly reinforced the more traditional religiosity of such occasions. The reaction of a young nurse to a candle-fringed statue of the Virgin gliding through the darkened streets illustrates Granadans' often ambivalent attitudes toward Holy Week and similar religious manifestations. "I don't believe," she murmurs to her neighbor, "but in a moment like this, well, I almost do."[44] "I dress up like a Penitent each year because I was born and raised here," a middle-aged participant in a Holy Week procession explains. "I believe. But even if I didn't, I would still join my friends and family."[45]
The most famous pilgrimage in Andalusia and perhaps all of Spain is the Rocío, which draws at least a million persons to a hamlet in the Province of Huelva every year.[46] There are, in addition, many smaller devotions honoring a number of saints as well as the Virgin Mary in her various guises. (The Vírgen de la Cabeza, Vírgen del Monte, and Vírgen de las Montañas are only a few.)[47] Located in the countryside, these shrines attract large crowds from neighboring cities on feast days. In most cases, long hours of merrymaking follow the solemn visit to the holy figure.
A variety of urban-based devotions complement these rural pilgrimages. Granada, for instance, celebrates the feast day of its principal patron saint, Our Lady of Sorrows, in mid-September. In addition, despite the efforts of a number of younger, post-Vatican II parish priests to downplay their importance, long-popular spiritual intermediaries such as Saint Rita and Saint Nicholas retain a strong local following. "Our priest has taken the saints from the altar and put them in an anteroom," says one older woman. "He says, 'Why go through the branches when you can go through the trunk?' [¿Por qué ir por las ramas cuando se puede ir por el tronco?] I know that he is right, but I feel sorry for the saints, poor things, all alone now in that little room."[48]
Some Granadans also pay homage to various likenesses of Christ, most notably the Christ of the Cemetery, located near the Alhambra,
[43] For a brief description of Holy Week in Granada see Briones Gómez, "La semana santa andaluza." A far more detailed, Marxist analysis of Holy Week in Seville is Moreno Navarro, La semana santa de Sevilla .
[44] Woman, age twenty-four, born Granada province, some university. Single, nurse, "rarely" attends mass.
[45] Man, age forty-three, born Granada, high-school education. Married, businessman, seldom attends mass.
[46] Of the various studies of the Rocío, the best is probably Infante-Galán, Rocío .
[47] For a discussion of the pilgrimage to the Vírgen de la Cabeza and to the Cristo del Patio see Luque, "La crisis de las expresiones populares del culto religioso."
[48] Woman, age sixty-six, born Granada, some grade school. Widowed, works in souvenir shop and does embroidery, customarily attends mass.
and the Christ of the Three Favors in the Campo del Príncipe Plaza. Residents may also regularly visit the Christ of the Puerta Real, whose image occupies a niche in the outer wall of the San Juan de Dios Hospital.
Although these sites attract a steady trickle of visitors, most are associated with particular days of the week or month. The Christ of the Cemetery, for instance, attracts a small crowd every Friday, as does the Christ of the Three Favors, the latter between noon and three o'clock, the hours of the Passion. Saint Nicholas receives his guests on Monday, Saint Rita on the seventeenth of every month.
Visitors to these and numerous other local shrines are often either looking for solutions to pressing problems or expressing gratitude for past aid. They are likely to bring candles, money, and bouquets of roses and carnations, which they affix to, or lay before, these images. Exvotos , or votive offerings, expressing gratitude for a saint's intervention in a particular problem, take the form of handwritten messages or newspaper classifieds or photographs. Wax, metal, and plastic representations of previously afflicted parts of the body are also piled around the figure of the saint.[49]
The Fray Leopoldo phenomenon resembles these and similar local devotions in at least two principal respects. Like visitors to other shrines within Granada, many of the people who appear at the crypt are seeking divine guidance, if not overtly miraculous intervention. In addition, those who visit the friar's crypt tend to so on a set day, the ninth of every month.
Fray Leopoldo nonetheless stands apart from these other holy figures. First and most obvious, he is a recent historical personage, a candidate for canonization rather than an official saint. It is true that a number of residents of Granada honor the memory of the priest Andrés Manjón (1846-1923), founder of the Ave María schools for the poor and, like the friar, a candidate for canonization.[50] And yet, although people frequently compare Fray Leopoldo with Padre Manjón, they are far less likely to attribute miracles to the latter.[51] Other residents regularly visit the home of Conchita Barrecheguren (1905-1927), the daughter of a prominent family known for her valiant struggle against a protracted
[49] For a study on Andalusian ex-votos that contains various intriguing illustrations see Rodríguez Becerra and Soto, Exvotos de Andalucía . For a list of studies on the ex-voto in various other contexts see Wilson, ed., Saints and their Cults , pp. 350-52.
[50] For an account of Padre Manjón's life see (n.a.) Vida de don Andrés Manjón y Manjón , and the shorter Pino Sabio, ed., Don Andrés Manjén .
[51] Frequent comparisons of the friar to both Padre Manjén and to the sixteenth-century San Juan de Dios merit detailed study. All three men are closely associated with Granada and with aid to the poor, although only San Juan is an official saint.
illness and yet another potential saint.[52] These individuals are more apt to credit her than Padre Manjón with supernatural actions. Neither she nor the priest, however, was part of Granada's everyday reality represented by Fray Leopoldo, whom many present-day residents of the city actually knew. As part of their everyday existence, the friar was, and remains, a familiar, spiritually accessible figure for Granadans. Thus, while some visitors to his tomb are seeking the miraculous intervention of a reputed saint with whom they have no direct connection, others are interested in paying homage to an esteemed personal acquaintance.
Then, too, the crowds that pour into the basement of the Capuchin church on the ninth of every month present a striking contrast to the far smaller numbers of persons who cluster before other, far more narrowly local shrines. Unlike these other locations, which overwhelmingly attract unaccompanied older females, almost all of whom are from the city and its immediate environs, Fray Leopoldo's selpulcher draws a number of men. In addition to the many middle-aged individuals from the lower or lower-middle classes, persons of various social classes and all ages visit the crypt. Then, too, perhaps a third of these visitors are from outside Granada proper.[53]
Finally and most important for our purposes, the visit to Fray Leopoldo's sepulcher is only one, albeit particularly obvious and important, manifestation of a broader awareness of and often personal interest in the particulars of the friar's life. Virtually no one recounts the life of Saint Rita or Saint Nicholas, and few people whom I asked could do more than identify these figures in the vaguest terms.[54] In contrast, a good number of residents tell stories about Fray Leopoldo. As we will see in considerable detail later in this discussion, these accounts, unlike those about other holy figures, often contain numerous and specific references to the era in which he lived.
In keeping with the rest of the structure that has replaced the crumbling seventeenth-century monastery that was home to Fray Leopoldo, the
[52] For a laudatory biography see Pérez Ruiz, Conchita Barrecheguren . The Redentorist order, which the young woman's father joined after her death, actively supports her canonization and publishes a bulletin about her several times a year.
[53] There are no figures available on visitors to Fray Leopoldo's crypt. My estimate is based on two one-hour spot checks, the first conducted on the afternoon of 9 March and the second on the morning of 9 June 1984. In the one case, almost two-fifths of the visitors were from outside the city of Granada; in the other, just under a quarter. By far the largest number of nonresidents in both instances were from Málaga.
[54] These details are not only customarily sketchy but also often wrong. People, for instance, quite often identified Saint Rita of Cascia, a medieval Italian saint, as a seventeenth- or nineteenth-century Spaniard.
crypt located in a basement chapel of the building is streamlined, even stark. Normally, an ironwork screen with a circular opening through which visitors may slip a hand seals off the marble sepulcher containing the friar's body. On the ninth of the month, however, the screen is opened to permit full access to the chapel.
The visit to the friar is often a family affair. The chapel aisles are always full of toddlers noisily cracking sunflower seeds or talking to a stuffed toy while their parents pray. A dog sniffs at the carnation stalks littering the floor, an old man leans on his umbrella before the sepulcher, a teen-ager unwraps the foil from a garden rose and tucks it into a bright blue vase. A small boy with an iron leg, valiant in the T-shirt stamped "Athlete in Training," pats Fray Leopoldo's tomb. An older woman in rubber boots, a sack of carrots under one arm, smiles resolutely at the boy as his young mother bows her head.
A sizable number of the visitors from outside the city are from Má-laga, a major industrial center with numerous tourist beaches some two and a half hours from Granada by car. Busloads of school children from parochial institutions as well as organized groups of adults visit the crypt along with other monuments such as the Alhambra and the cathedral. "It's good for them to get to know Fray Leopoldo," explains one of their teachers. "Of course, many of them have already been here with their parents."[55]
Smaller numbers of nonresidents come from small towns just outside Granada. The rest of the devotees would appear to be more or less equally divided between other parts of eastern Andalusia and more distant locations such as Valencia, Barcelona, and Madrid. Every once in a while, visitors appear from the Canary Islands or Ceuta and Melilla in what remains of Spanish Morocco. Or they have traveled from France, Australia, or Venezuela and Argentina. The majority of these individuals are Spanish citizens or their descendants and virtually all are Spanish-speaking. They have usually learned of Fray Leopoldo through friends, relatives, and various acquaintances, Capuchin missionaries, or one of the publications described in chapter 2.
From the moment shortly after dawn when the church opens on the ninth until it closes around sunset, visitors throng the sidewalk, waiting their turn to get inside. In winter they fend off a cold, fine rain with bright umbrellas before entering an interior that has been transformed into a kind of hushed greenhouse by body heat and countless flowers. When the sun beats down in July and August they may raise the same
[55] Man, age thirty-eight, born Málaga, high-school education. Married, parochial high-school teacher, "usually" attends mass.
umbrellas to create a bit of shade. Once inside the crypt, many of the women beat the air with lace-edged paper fans at the same time as they pray.
Even in bad weather the line frequently wraps around the building, ending halfway down the adjacent block. The city routinely stations extra guards to handle the traffic snarls created by the influx of visitors. "What's that?" demands an anxious German tourist of the driver as his bus grinds to a halt before the Plaza de Triunfo. "Has there been an accident?" The driver clicks his tongue. "Oh no," he assures him. "Don't worry, sir. It's just one of our saints."
As one might expect, the crowd attracts a host of peddlers who hawk figurines of Fray Leopoldo, rosaries, calendars, and small plastic brooches with his likeness. Others offer food, cheap checkered tablecloths ("perfect for the beach, for a picnic, for the top of your refrigerator, ma'am!"), lottery tickets ("with Fray Leopoldo's blessing, how can you fail to strike it rich today?"), trinkets and toys for the children, and carnations packaged in white paper like long loaves of bread. Cripples, blind men, and beggars cradling listless infants stretch out their hands in the hope of a coin.
Once inside the crypt, many people deposit their bundles of carnations on top of Fray Leopoldo's tomb. Periodically, the heap of flowers grows so high as to threaten the lamp suspended from the ceiling. At this point someone will take it upon him or herself to remove several armfuls, thus allowing the pile to grow again.
Even those who do not bring bouquets customarily break off a flower to take with them as a token of the visit to the crypt. People often stroke a single carnation over the tomb's marble surface, then touch it to their cheeks and chin as if it were a powder puff. A few individuals wipe the length of the tomb with a handkerchief, cover it with kisses, or walk its length upon their knees. Such behavior usually prompts audible expressions of disapproval on the part of other visitors. "What fanaticism!" they may mutter. "What exaggeration!" The votive candles lit by the devotees on their way out of the chapel create a firmament of tiny flames before the image of Christ. As soon as one is extinguished, another is cemented into the still-warm stub of wax.
Motives for the Broader Interest in Fray Leopoldo
Just as a minority of visitors to the crypt go on to attend mass in the church located above the chapel, so only a portion of the persons who
tell stories about the friar have ever set foot in the crypt. Reminders of Fray Leopoldo can nonetheless be found throughout the city. They take the form of a small clay figure of the friar atop a cash register in a corner grocery store festooned with loops of sausage, a green metal key chain stamped with his image dangling from a teen-aged boy's shirt pocket, a commemorative plate on the wall of a jaunty new café. Fray Leopoldo's photograph serves a university student as a bookmark. It is taped to the corner of a beauty parlor mirror and slipped into the plastic pocket of a child's schoolbag. Both the small boy swinging at an orange with a makeshift cardboard bat and the young woman talking excitedly with a friend in Granada's only feminist tea shop wear tiny medals of the friar about their neck. Passersby take care not to step on a diaphanous chalk sketch of the friar on a downtown sidewalk, the work of a street artist hoping for a coin. Granada is full of likenesses of him in plaster, rough wood, and expensive china—tall and thin, short and chubby, cherubic and severe. Though a visitor may never notice these unobtrusive images, once one starts to look, they are everywhere.
The friar's relative ubiquity does not mean that all or most people believe in his thaumaturgic powers. "He was a good man, that's all" or "This business of Fray Leopoldo is just a story," they may say. The most highly educated persons with whom I spoke tended to alternate between enthusiasm for the friar and the spontaneous expressions of faith he has generated, and embarrassment or outright irritation at what they see as the intensely popular quality of the devotion. "If you're interested in saints, why don't you study Saint Teresa or Saint John of the Cross?" more than one demanded. Or "Why waste your time with fantasies and superstitions?"
The pervasive, if largely muted, presence of the friar in the life of the city has a number of possible explanations. I will argue in succeeding chapters that Fray Leopoldo is important because he affords people the opportunity to express competing opinions (as well as, often, their own ambivalence) about saints, the supernatural, and the church. I will also insist that his close association with a very specific historical moment is crucial to many people. By dying precisely on the eve of dramatic transformations in Spanish society, he has become a particularly effective symbol of another way of life.
Although we will leave these key points for later in our discussion, other possible reasons for Fray Leopoldo's popularity are worth mentioning at this time. Among the most noteworthy are first, the extensive personal dealings he had with many residents during his lifetime, and, second, the Capuchins' present, massive publicity campaign on his be-
half. Also significant are Fray Leopoldo's close ties to the countryside, his association with Granada and Andalusia, his grandfatherly appeal, and, possibly, his Saint Joseph-like complementarity to the Virgin Mary, his membership in a religious order coupled with his lack of canonical standing, and his emotionally charged identity as the monastery's official alms collector. In addition, the relative lack of biographical details about the friar fosters projection and interpretation, reinforcing his attraction as a sort of Everyman.
The genuine warmth with which many Granadans middle aged or older remember the historical Fray Leopoldo is undoubtedly one important explanation for his persistent, if unostentatious, presence in the city. His perceived integrity and concern for others have engendered strong feelings of personal loyalty. "What I like about Fray Leopoldo is that he never stopped wearing his robes, even during the height of the Republic," a clerk in a suitcase shop explains. "My family was on the other side—my father was a hundred percent Republican—but I like people who are loyal to what they believe."[56] Even those who never knew him may speak of him with borrowed affection. "He always had a word for everyone," explains a waiter born a year after the friar's death.[57]
Although pictures of holy figures are commonplace in Granada, it is Fray Leopoldo's likeness that regularly crops up among photographs of family members in a billfold or a purse. "Fray Leopoldo," says a plumber in his late forties, "knew everything and everyone. He helped others. Why, he even helped me in a time of need."[58] This personal connection to the friar is undoubtedly what prompts many individuals to look for aid and comfort in him instead of in some other, remoter holy figure. "I go to Granada at least once a month to visit Fray Leopoldo and a married daughter who now lives there," one woman from a small town in the Alpujarra region explains.[59]
Were many people not already favorably disposed toward Fray Leopoldo, the Capuchins' efforts on his behalf would almost certainly have had a limited effect. And yet, while the order did not create and could not have created the enthusiasm for the friar from thin air, it has
[56] Man, age sixty-nine, born Granada, "no formal schooling, but I learned to read at home." Widower, clerk in suitcase shop, does not normally attend mass.
[57] Man, age twenty-seven, born Almería, some high school. Single, waiter, "almost never" attends mass.
[58] Man, age forty-nine, born Granada, some grade school. Separated, plumber, occasionally attends mass.
[59] Woman, age fifty-four, born Granada province, no formal schooling. Married, works at home, attends mass regularly.
definitely tapped, amplified, and in many cases given new direction to an existing sentiment. Capuchin missionaries have brought the friar's name to the attention of a community extending far beyond Granada. His biography and a bi-monthly devotional bulletin that reports stories of his continuing intercession on behalf of the needy have further enhanced his reputation. Statuettes, calendars, and numerous other objects bearing his image keep him in the public eye. So do radio broadcasts and articles in religious newsletters, the activities of the Fray Leopoldo Home for the Elderly, and ongoing commemorative efforts in the friar's hometown of Alpandeire.[60]
By providing individuals with a coherent framework into which they may fit their own scattered impressions, the Capuchins have effectively fostered a particular vision of the friar. Their efforts on his behalf have almost certainly encouraged some devotees to claim a supernatural dimension in their own encounters with Fray Leopoldo that they might otherwise have failed to discern, let alone assert. "I don't know," says a forty-seven-year-old housewife in describing what she sees as the friar's miraculous intervention in curing a severe childhood illness. "If it had happened just to me, I would ignore it. But there are so many people who have had experiences just like mine. One voice echoes another [una voz secunda otra] until you say, 'Wait now, there must be something more in this than meets the eye.' "[61]
Fray Leopoldo's prestige as a candidate for canonization leads some individuals to confer new value on their own past. People often point out a chair in which he used to sit or an object he once admired with obvious pride. "To tell you the truth," a cleaning woman in a luxury hotel asserts, "there is something very exciting about having known a saint. When I hear all these reports about his miracles, I think, 'You, Erlinda Gómez, you spend your life scrubbing other people's floors, yes, but it's you, not they, who spoke with Fray Leopoldo face to face!' "[62] Even people who express serious doubts about the friar's thaumaturgic powers often appear pleased by the prospect of his canonization. "I'11 have to admit," a waiter in a small café says, "I never thought that much about
[60] Among these activities is the construction of a road from the center of the hamlet to the field Fray Leopoldo worked. It is worth mentioning that the mayor of the town has identified another plot of land as that belonging to the friar so that the Capuchins will be financing a route more useful to the community than that which would lead to the real plot. ("Isn't it for saints to help the living? That's the way I look at it.")
[61] Woman, age forty-seven, born Granada province, some high school. Married, works at home, attends mass regularly.
[62] Woman, age sixty, born Granada, no formal education. Widowed, cleaning woman, attends mass "when I can."
him when he was alive. Still and all, I'm hoping he'll turn out to be a saint."[63]
As we shall later see in detail, the Capuchins' campaign has also had an effect on those with little interest in, or who may emphatically oppose the whole idea of, miracles or sanctity. In fact, the canonization effort has made Fray Leopoldo a particularly obvious negative example for a sizable number of individuals critical of the ecclesiastical establishment. These persons may categorically dismiss the devotion as a commercial endeavor or an attempt to capitalize on people's gullibility. And, yet, although their vision of the friar differs markedly from that actively disseminated by the order, one could argue that Fray Leopoldo's symbolic potential is as great for them as it is for persons who champion his cause.
At the same time that the friar may imbue a stream of personal memories with new value, he also possesses a strong telluric force. His rural roots imply a direct relationship to the land, which appeals to city dwellers who tend to idealize the countryside. Fray Leopoldo's initial duties as the monastery gardener reinforce this friar's connection to the earth. (The garden, which appears in various stories of the friar, was known as the Huerta de la Alegría, "garden of happiness.") In a city where the smallest sliver of balcony is home to a dozen flowerpots and where people may carry plants with them to the park so that both can enjoy the sunlight, this aspect of the friar's appeal cannot be underestimated.[64]
While Fray Leopoldo recalls the countryside, he also belongs to the city he adopted and has become a source of the civic pride local saints have long inspired. So close are the links between the friar and the city where he spent most of his adult life that some persons insist he was a native of Granada, not of Alpandeire. Their close association of Fray Leopoldo with the city suggests his identity as a de facto unofficial patron saint. "He was born in the Hospital Real," a middle-aged ice-cream vendor says. "At the time of his birth it was a maternity ward, but because of Fray Leopoldo they have since declared the building a national monument."[65]
[63] Man, age forty-nine, born Madrid ("but my parents brought me here when I was just a baby"), some grade school. Married, waiter, seldom attends mass.
[64] Particularly attractive plants excite the same sort of admiring interest among strangers that a child might. "May God give you the strength to care for that lovely cyclamen, my daughter!" an old lady once exclaimed to me.
[65] Man, age forty-four, born Granada, some grade school. Married, ice-cream vendor, does not attend mass.
Others insist that the friar expressly singled out Granada as his place of residence. "They sent him to Seville," a young hotel clerk says. "But he went straight to the head of the order and said, 'Excuse me, but it is in Granada that I was meant to spend my life.' "[66]
"He couldn't take the climate in any other part of Spain," asserts a nurse in the Fray Leopoldo Home. "Only the climate of Granada agreed with him."[67]
"It is hard to ask other people for help," says a middle-aged book salesman, "but we here in Granada are known for our generosity, and so he always felt at home."[68]
The ticket vendor in a raffle intended to aid crippled children offers buyers a choice of two symbols of Granada—either a paper flag (the Spanish emblem on one side, the city's pomegranate on the other [the Spanish term for this fruit is granada ]) or a miniature of Fray Leopoldo in a gold-colored plastic frame. Pictures of the friar regularly appear on calendars and posters distributed by local businesses and religious associations. In addition, in a number of portraits of Fray Leopoldo, the friar appears against the backdrop of the Alhambra or the old-style Moorish houses of the Albaicín. Perhaps the single most eloquent expression of the ties between the friar and the city in which he spent five decades, however, are the pictures of him edged with taracea . This distinctive sort of wood inlay associated with Moorish craftsmen in southern Spain, and more specifically Granada, is common in the decoration of boxes of all shapes and sizes, small tables, and chess and checkerboards. Its popularity as a frame for likenesses of Fray Leopoldo—seldom done for those of other holy figures—attests to the close relationship between him and "his" Granada.
Likewise, the stream of non-Granadan visitors to the friar's crypt (the most obvious sign of growing interest in the friar on the part of other Spaniards) is a source of satisfaction to some residents of a city who have a deep sense of Granada's distinctive history. "Of course Fray Leopoldo was a saint," says a young flower vendor. "Don't you see all these people arriving from Barcelona, from La Coruña? Why, even in Madrid people put his picture in the window. Yes, even there, where everyone looks down his nose at us Andalusians!"[69]
[66] Man, age twenty-three, born Granada, some high school. Single, hotel clerk, rarely attends mass.
[67] Woman, age thirty-eight, born Granada, high school. Married, nurse, regularly attends mass.
[68] Man, age fifty, born Granada, high-school education. Married, book salesman, "quite often" attends mass.
[69] Man, age nineteen, born Guadix, grade-school education. Single, flower vendor, does not attend mass.
As this last comment suggests, the region's long unfavorable social and economic position within the nation leads a number of persons to see in the friar a confirmation of its, and by extension their, worth.[70] Possessing some of Spain's richest farmland, Andalusia has nonetheless remained one of its poorest and least-developed regions. Recent autonomy movements connected with regional identity debates point to Andalusians' frustration with the status quo.[71] Although there are signs of an economic upturn, ownership of property is still concentrated in the hands of a few. (A little more than 1 percent of the population controls approximately half of the arable surface.)[72] The lack of adequate health services and lingering gaps in the educational system have helped to perpetuate one of the lowest standards of living in Western Europe and to foster immigration to other parts of Spain.[73]
The possibilities for economic advancement are still limited within the city. Capital of the province of the same name, Granada is home to over a third of the province's total population of 800,000. Lacking heavy industry (Puleva, Dhul, and Alhambra are all food service industries), the city depends heavily on an extensive local and regional service sector to provide employment. Three out of five residents work for one or another arm of the bureaucracy or the large public university. The overall jobless rate for Spain in 1984 was 19 percent; Granada stood a full six percentage points above the national average. This figure does not take into account the university graduates selling begonias on street corners or the many women who might work outside the home if the opportunity existed.[74]
Economic factors are not the only explanation for Fray Leopoldo's power as a symbol. The long white beard and kindly smile that are the hallmarks of so many graphic and verbal portraits of the friar suggest a grandfatherly figure and affirm the family relationships so important to an understanding of the role of Spanish, and particularly Andalusian,
[70] For an introduction to the ample bibliography on the region see Iglesias de Ussel, "Materiales para el estudio de Andalucía." An overview of key themes appears in Domínguez Ortiz, Andalucía ayer y hoy .
[71] Although these movements have not been as intense as in Catalonia and the Basque Country, they are nonetheless significant. For one statement of the cause see Acosta Sánchez, Andalucía .
[72] For a discussion of the historical underpinnings of the agrarian question in Andalusia see Díaz del Moral, Historia de las agitaciones campesinas andaluzas , and Bernal, La propiedad de la tierra .
Figures for 1986-87 indicate a 8.3 percent growth rate for Andalusia as a whole, with 9.1 percent increase in agricultural production.
[73] See Gregory, "The Andalusian Dispersion."
[74] Statistical information is taken from Estudio sobre la renta .
saints.[75] As archetypal grandfather, he not only inspires confidence and affection but also provides a masculine counterbalance to the Virgin Mary.[76]
In line with a broader, though in no way homogeneous, Mediterranean honor code, which social scientists have described in detail, the father is expected to behave sternly toward his children.[77] Unlike the mother, who may show a certain degree of indulgence, he must insist on his unmarried daughters' chastity and his sons' readiness to actively defend the family honor. In this capacity he inspires as much fear as affection.
The grandfather, however, is a sort of father emeritus. Although titular head of the family and thus demanding of deference, he is not compelled to exhibit the same severe authority. ("You can ask things of your grandfather that you would not dare ask of your father," the twenty-three-year-old receptionist at the Fray Leopoldo Home for the Elderly explains.)[78] Both grandfathers and grandmothers are not only permitted but also are often expected to actively indulge the young.[79] Because members of the older generation frequently die before the young reach adulthood, fond associations between them and a distant, happy past are common. ("You think of your grandparents and you remember all that was good about your childhood," the young receptionist says.) The grown child is likely to remember the easily idealized grandfather as a more demonstrative, more accessible father who could be asked for favors with impunity. He or she is also likely to conveniently forget that this benign figure had himself been a stern parent and the model for his or her own father.
The caption beneath one common portrait of the friar, usually stamped on linen, reads, "Thank you, Grandfather/ for your eyes/ your gaze/ for the smile on your lips/ and the peace in your soul" (Gracias Abuelito/ por tus ojos/ tu mirada/ por la sonrisa en tus labios/ y pot la
[75] On the humanization of the cult of the saints in Andalusia see Moreno Navarro, Propiedad , and Aguilar Criado, Las hermandades .
For the links between family and religious symbols see Prat i Carós, "Estructura y conflicto."
[76] For one psychoanalytic discussion of the dynamics of Marian devotion see Carroll, "The Cult of the Virgin Mary."
[77] A now-classic collection of essays on the honor code is Peristiany, ed., Honour and Shame . For an update that stresses complex differences among regions as well as countries see Gilmore, ed., Honor and Shame and the Concept of Mediterranean Unity . An interesting discussion of father-son relationships in Andalusia is Murphy, "Emotional Confrontations between Sevillano Fathers and Sons." See also Mitchell's discussion of stern fathers and gentle mothers in his Violence and Piety in Spanish Folklore , pp. 182-89.
[78] Woman, age twenty-three, born Granada, high-school education. Single, receptionist, customarily attends mass.
[79] See Puentes, "Abuelos y nietos en la Granada de 1984."
paz en tu alma). Another very popular likeness of Fray Leopoldo shows him gazing upward with a smile at a Virgin Mary in mantilla and large gold ear hoops as she cradles the infant Jesus.
We have already noted the historical Fray Leopoldo's propensity to recite three Hail Marys in moments of need. But while the friar is fulfilling the familiar obligations of Marian devotion, he provides an important, masculine counterbalance to the Virgin. This complementarity is nowhere more obvious than in the two-photograph picture frames sold on street corners throughout the city. Portraits of Fray Leopoldo are almost always accompanied by a likeness of Mary in one of her various guises: Our Lady of Sorrows, for instance, or the Virgin of Araceli. Although various representations of the infant Jesus or the crucified Christ and a couple of male saints are also available, purchasers prefer a male-female combination. "Why did I ask for Fray Leopoldo and Our Lady?" a middle-aged woman asks. "I don't know. They just make a good pair."[80] A schoolgirl, who has also just purchased photographs of the Virgin and the friar, refers to him as "one of these very lovable grandfathers" (uno de estos abuelitos muy amorosos). "For this reason I like him better than Saint Anthony," she asserts.[81] In his humble origins, his asexuality, and relative age, Fray Leopoldo suggests an indigenous Saint Joseph.
While we are on the subject of family relationships, it is worth pointing out that Fray Leopoldo is not only an abuelito (grandfather) but also a hermanico (little brother). (The term brother is the same term for friar .) As a hermanico , he invites feelings of intimacy and affectionate protectiveness seldom associated with a padre (father or priest).[82] Although a member of a religious order, and thus of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, Fray Leopoldo's lack of canonical status makes him far more approachable than his peers who have been ordained and can thus preach and hear confession. It allows him to be used as a vehicle for criticism of institutions that the speaker would prefer not to dismiss out of hand.
Fray Leopoldo's identity as limosnero touches yet another deeply responsive chord. Through the figure of the friar people can express mixed feelings about giving and receiving. This ambivalence is in part a product of the tension between two apparently contradictory value systems.
[80] Woman, age fifty-five, born Granada, some high school. Married, works at home, regularly attends mass. "The Virgin is a very motherly mother [una madre muy madrera ] and Fray Leopoldo looks very good beside her," she goes on to explain.
[81] Girl, age thirteen, born Granada, high-school student. Single, attends mass every Sunday.
[82] These feelings are particularly obvious in comments on Fray Leopoldo's diminutive stature and physical frailty. ("Poor little one! So thin, so small, so poorly dressed!")
The honor code mentioned above sees debt as a form of domination and thus inadmissible subordination. The Spanish folk tradition is full of mocking proverbs about persons who voluntarily assume an inferior position in the social order by asking others for assistance. Familiar sayings such as Quien pide a dar se obliga (he who asks something of another commits himself to give) underscore the pressing sense of obligation engendered by even the most freely given gift.[83]
This honor code clearly conflicts with the New Testament ideal of humility. Thus, although Fray Leopoldo's activities as alms collector are ostensibly a source of admiration ("he did what many fathers would not do for their own families," says a garbage collector in his thirties), the friar is not necessarily a model for daily life.[84] On the contrary, respectful comments frequently preface an admission that the individual could or would never emulate the friar. "I believe he was a saint," a traffic policeman says, "because only a saint would do the sort of things he did."[85]
"I think the world of Fray Leopoldo," a janitor in a public high school comments. "But it is a man's pride that makes him truly human. It is wrong of me, perhaps, but I could never—I would never —go as he did from door to door."[86]
Descriptions of the friar's activities as alms collector often prompt more general comments about giving and receiving. A number of the people who see Fray Leopoldo as a spiritual intermediary feel he is repaying those who gave him alms in life. "He knew how hard it is to ask," says a farmer-turned-bus-driver, "and so he is quick to give. There are saints you ask and ask without ever getting anything. But Fray Leopoldo does not allow a person to leave his church with empty hands."[87]
[83] Among numerous other common sayings that underscore ambivalent attitudes toward giving and receiving are Contra el vicio de pedir, hay la virtud de no dar (In response to the vice of asking, there is the virtue of not giving); De quien pide, desconfia; a quien das, no te daría (Be wary of he who asks you for something; he to whom you give wouldn't give to you); and Quien algo te da, algo te pedirá (He who gives you something will ask something in return).
[84] Man, age thirty-eight, born Granada, "very little" grade school. Married, garbage collector, rarely attends mass.
[85] Man, age forty-one, born Antequera, some high school. Married, traffic policeman, usually attends mass.
The saints, to be sure, have always been revered for their readiness to perform actions that others profess to admire but show no rush to emulate. See Brown's discussion of the holy man in his Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity , pp. 103-52.
[86] Man, age sixty, born Granada province, no formal education ("though the priest taught us how to read a little"). Married, janitor, does not usually attend mass.
[87] Man, age fifty-two, born Granada, grade-school education. Married, bus driver, attends mass from time to time.
Some individuals clearly consider the friar obligated to return favors. "My wife always regrets not having given something to Fray Leopoldo when he used to call here," says the owner of a small shoe shop in the center of the city. "She says that if she had helped him we would be rich today. Because there were those who did give and now he has to help them. Today she brings many offerings to his crypt, but she says it is not the same as giving to a saint in life."[88]
An office worker in his early thirties observes that "the saints do not have to help you. But they are a lot more likely to do so if you've expressed your belief in the past."[89] Such sentiments suggest the importance of the limosnero aspect of Fray Leopoldo's identity. The issues of the gift, reciprocity, what the rich owe the poor, and what the poor owe those still poorer are all central to the constructions of the differences between past and present that, I shall argue, are a key dynamic in stories of the friar.
Fray Leopoldo also exerts a different sort of attraction as a kind of Everyman who is not just approachable, but distinctly ordinary. "What stood out in him was his insignificance" (Lo que se destacaba en é1 era su insignificancia), says a well-known artist.[90] "He was a periquillo el de los palotes [a parakeet like that on every perch]," that is, a completely run-of-the-mill individual, a middle-aged seamstress remarks.[91]
"You may think this strange," a surgeon in the San Juan de Dios Hospital remarks, "but I think people have made a saint of Fray Leopoldo because he was so undistinguished. Even the simplest person can see himself in him."[92]
"He was of little account, very little account," an older woman murmurs. "He understood the poor because he had been poor himself" (era poca cosa, cosa ínfima. Entendía a los pobres pot haber salido de la pobreza).[93]
Some residents of Granada find the friar's matter-of-factness uninspiring. "There are saints whose deeds would require several volumes," a supermarket cashier in her forties asserts, "but Fray Leopoldo's ninety
[88] Man, age fifty-nine, born Granada, grade-school education. Married, shoe shop owner, does not usually attend mass.
[89] Man, age thirty-one, born Granada, high-school education. Married, office worker, sometimes accompanies wife to mass.
[90] Man, age sixty-two, born Granada, university education. Married, graphic artist, usually attends mass.
[91] Woman, age forty-five, born Granada, "a little" grade school. Single, seamstress, usually attends mass.
[92] Man, age thirty-four, born Granada, medical school. Married, surgeon, does not normally attend mass.
[93] Woman, age seventy-four, born Granada, no formal schooling. Widowed, supported by sons and daughters, usually attends mass.
years would barely fit a pamphlet. Why, I myself have led a more adventurous life!"[94] The unprepossessing character that makes him seem dull to some renders him acceptable and appealing to many others. (Those members of Opus Dei who told me stories of him were often attracted precisely by his undramatic, workaday qualities.) Had the friar been a more colorful and therefore almost certainly more controversial figure, he would have bitter enemies as well as fervent supporters. "I don't believe in saints, and we Spaniards have had far too many priests sticking their noses where they don't belong. And yet I will admit it's hard to criticize Fray Leopoldo. I for one have nothing bad to say about him," an older salesman declares.[95]
Fray Leopoldo's outwardly unremarkable existence allows individuals to read into his life often radically different meanings. The apparent lack of personal crises in his life, the absence of stigmata or fiery sermons, encourages those who talk about him to embroider on the facts.[96] Not surprisingly, the friar who emerges in these stories corresponds in large part to needs that will become increasingly apparent in following chapters. Before turning to the narratives themselves, however, it is important to say something about both the Granada church's perspective on Fray Leopoldo and the formal Life.
[94] Woman, age forty-six, born Granada, some grade school. Single, supermarket clerk, attends mass several times a week.
[95] Man, age sixty, born Jaén, high-school education. Married, plumbing supply salesman, attends "funerals, baptisms, weddings, you know, this sort of thing."
[96] Fray Leopoldo's unsensational character sets him apart from a number of decidedly more dramatic twentieth-century holy figures such as the Italian Padre Pio. For an interesting contrast see McKevitt's study of the latter, "Suffering and Sanctity."