Penitentes (New Mexico)
Los Hermanos de la Fraternidad Piadosa de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno, also known as Los Penitentes, Los Hermanos, the Brotherhood of our Father Jesus of Nazareth and the Penitente Brotherhood, is a lay confraternity of Spanish-American Catholic men active in Northern and Central New Mexico and southern Colorado. They maintain religious meeting buildings, which are not formal capillas, called moradas.
Membership
Members come from Penitente families and only those of known background and conviction are chosen to join.New candidates express their desire for novitiate status by application to the Hermano Mayor, the secretary, or some other official of the morada of intention. After a thorough investigation of the petitioner's life and motives, he receives elaborate instruction in the regulations and rituals. If he passes an examination on this material, he is allowed to present himself, together with a sponsor, at the morada door for the actual rite of initiation. Aspirants might apply for admission to become a member after mature thought, as a matter of course, or as the result of a promesa. It is also thought that the eldest son of a Penitente father "automatically" joined at the age of eighteen to honor and obey his parents.
History
Los Penitentes de Nuevo Mexico began in the early 19th century, following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821. Around that time, Church authorities withdrew the Franciscan, Dominican, and Jesuit missionaries from its provinces. The Church was vulnerable in New Mexico at that time and unable, at that time, to supply its Church parishes located within the Territory of New Mexico with Church priests. This affected many secluded communities in New Mexico, depriving families baptized into the Church from obtaining and receiving the Sacraments.Los hombres living in these communities, who were devout in the faith of the Church, started meeting together in dedicated service to God and His people. From these men, Los Penitentes are drawn.
Los Penitentes gather in meeting houses called moradas and are perhaps best known for their songs of worship, called alabados. Many of their ceremonies, which never deviate from Christ or His Church are respected as private. They are known to hold ceremony during Lent, including processions during Holy Week. Los Penitentes de Nuevo Mexico never fail to strive to always keep their minds and hearts with God and always honor Christ Jesus, Lord, Savior, and King.
Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and his successor, Jean Baptiste Salpointe, unsuccessfully attempted to suppress Los Penitentes in the latter part of the 19th century as a part of the "Americanization" of the Church in New Mexico, driving its membership underground, with some seeking refuge in Penitente Canyon. For this reason, Los Penitentes might mistakenly be thought of as a “secret society.”
One Miguel Archibeque began his first term as the first Hermano Supremo Arzobispal in June 1946. Sr. Archibeque's first term lasted 7 years and it was during this term in January 1947 that the group was officially recognized and sanctioned as an organization by Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne. In June 1953, Miguel Archibeque was replaced by Roman Aranda of Las Vegas, New Mexico, who served for one year and was replaced by Archibeque in June 1954. Archibeque served again until 1960 when he was replaced by the third Hermano Supremo Arzobispal, M. Santos Melendez, of Mora, New Mexico. Sr. Melendez continues to serve in this capacity.
Culture
Willa Cather's 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop included references and scenes of the Penitentes and their ritual.In the novel Brave New World, the Penitentes are shown in a video at a school, which causes the class to laugh at their rituals. They are also compared to savages in the 1946 foreword by Aldous Huxley.
The 1936 roadshow exploitation film Lash of the Penitentes combines old footage of the Penitente's ritual flagellation with new footage about a murder.
The novel Dayspring by Harry Sylvester depicts an anthropologist who studies the Penitentes and eventually joins them.
Fray Angelico Chavez titled his book on New Mexico My Penitente Land.
Percival Everett’s novel The Body of Martin Aguilera features Penitente characters and rituals as part of a murder mystery set in northern New Mexico. Everett also utilizes Penitente characters for his short story "Warm and Nicely Buried" from his collection Damned If I Do.
Kirstin Valdez Quade’s novel The Five Wounds takes place in New Mexico and heavily features Penitente characters and rituals.
In the 1968 Richard Bradford novel Red Sky at Morning, set during World War II, he describes a morada: "...little wooden building with a cross on the roof. It looked very old and weathered, with no windows and a chain and padlock on the door." This makes the protagonist question whether the owner is a Penitente, whom he describes thus:
"The Penitentes were a sort of outlaw branch of the Catholics who took everything very seriously, especially Good Friday. They'd pick a member of the church to play Jesus every year. He'd carry a cross while his friends all whipped him with rawhide and cactus and then they'd crucify him. In recent years they just tied him to a cross and left him all day in the sun. A hundred years ago they did the job right, with nails."