La Caridad del Cobre: indigenous Cubanness of a devotion
| On September 24, 1915, the veterans of our wars of independence, when requesting Pope Benedict origin of his secular devotion.” We are sure that it was not the intention of our heroes to make a historiographical treatise on the Virgin of Charity, however, in their letter they summarized, in their own words, “the most just aspirations of the Cuban soul.” The devotion of Cubans to the Virgin of Charity appears in our national history before we can still use the term “Cuban.” It brings together and at the same time distances the merely indigenous, African and Hispanic, to create a new reality, whose main point of reference will be a small image of the Virgin Mary. The invocation of Mary as Virgin of Charity is common in the Catholic world for two fundamental reasons: the first, because charity is one of the three theological virtues (applied par excellence to Mary), and the second, because it is associated with charitable assistance, particularly with the hospital, hence the abounding of devotions such as: “Our Lady of the Helpless”, “Los Remedios”, “La Caridad”, “La Piedad”, “La Misericordia”, “ Health”, etc. However, beyond the countless Marian invocations, let us focus on ours, the Virgin of Charity of Copper, without attempting to immerse ourselves in a sterile Byzantine discussion around a specific Marian invocation. Firstly, because the Blessed Virgin Mary, beyond her multiple invocations, is but one: the humble young woman from Nazareth through whose fiat the Son of God became man and lived among us. Secondly, because no particular Marian devotion constitutes a dogma of faith. Hence, we do not delve into the topic from the point of view of Mariology, but from a strictly historiographical point of view. |
| The details of the discovery of the image of the Virgin of Charity in Nipe Bay are known, or at least almost all Cubans have reference to them. For this reason we will not stop at them and we will refer to the native Cubanness of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre. Facing, mainly, the Virgin of Charity venerated in Illescas, Toledo, Spain. It has been attempted to affirm that the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre is nothing more than a mere derivation or iconographic (or devotional) replica of her transferred to Cuba. Suffice it to cite, as an example, the North American historian Irene Wright, to mention a specific name, or the cyberspace Wikipedia, to mention a global medium. Let’s start, then, with the origins. I On March 23, 1597, a Royal Decree was issued by means of which Captain Francisco Sánchez de Moya, a native of Toledo, who directed and commanded the exploitation of the existing copper mines in the eastern part of the Island, was entrusted with the erection of a church on the site. The building was completed in the year 1600, creating the parish of Santiago el Mayor de la Villa de las Minas del Prado, the original name of the region that would shortly later be abbreviated as Villa de Santiago del Prado or, simply, El Cobre. In the year 1604, Bishop Fray Juan Altamirano visited El Cobre and blessed the bells and altars of the new parish church. Subsequently, Sánchez de Moya built a hermitage on the Cerro de la Mina dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Guía Madre de Dios de Illescas, a hermitage of which there are already references from the year 1608, so that its manufacture took place in some time between the summer of 1604 and the month of November 1608, the date on which we find the first reference. |
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II The dedication of Our Lady of Guidance Mother of God of Illescas dates back to the 12th century. His image was located in one of the entrance doors to the Villa, in a niche of obligatory visibility for those who crossed the region in the direction of Madrid, Toledo and Andalusia. The church of Illescas was consecrated from its origins to Our Lady of the Assumption. In the temple there was no image of Our Lady of Guidance, Mother of God of Illescas, which was venerated more for the dedication itself than for its iconographic characteristics. The same dedication, although with different iconographic characters, also existed in Corcoya, Ávila, Montserrat, Vigo and other regions of Spain, as well as in the rest of Europe. The Virgin of Guía de Illescas never had, despite its fame, any church in the Toledo town, although some authors report the existence of a hermitage. However, what is certain is that in the 16th century a church and a charity hospital were built in Illescas to where the image was transferred. In this way, Our Lady of Guidance, Mother of God of Illescas, began to be invoked with the title of “Charity” in the hospital, and “Guide,” on the walls, where she was venerated by devotees who entered or left the church. Illescan village. That is to say, the dedication of the Virgin of Illescas with the title of “Charity”, although some authors date it back to the beginning of the Christian era, even attributing it to a painting by Saint Luke, only became popular, at least in that region , in the 16th century, when Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros founded the charity hospital (even though its image is older and iconographically distant from the details with which it is identified today). The one known since the 16th century as the Virgin of Charity of Illescas was, in its beginnings, a wooden image – sitting on a throne – with no other clothing than those carved in the polychrome wood itself. The Child was standing, in the center of the mother’s lap, and was supported by both of the mother’s arms. Later the image was dressed and covered by a mantle, but it retained its original shape. The first iconographic transformation consisted of changing its seated position to make it appear standing, with the Child remaining in the center of the image and supported by both maternal arms. This was the form that the Virgin of Illescas presented when Diego Rómulo, in 1601, created his pictorial work “Miracle of Francisca de la Cruz”, and when El Greco painted his famous “San Ildefonso”, conceived between 1603 and 1604. In both paintings the image appears dressed in a tunic and a cloak that extends over the feet. She holds the Child on her chest with both arms. |
| By changing the stylistic canons, the Child is detached from the original carving and the Virgin’s arms are mutilated, superimposing two articulated arms. The Child remains in the center of the maternal lap. As time goes by, it is replaced by a smaller one, which will be placed on the Virgin’s left arm, while the right arm, which previously also held it, will now be free. This is the form that the image of the Virgin of Charity of Illescas currently presents, of which only the face and hands are visible. The Child Jesus is supported by the Mother’s left arm. Likewise, the original dark characters were whitened to the extreme, reaching the crimson color they present today, particularly since it was recomposed by Antonio Herrera, a silversmith from Madrid, in August 1884. The mantle, for its part, longitudinal and elongated in its beginnings – at least until the 17th century – gradually took on a more triangular shape, until reaching the shape it has today. We can affirm then that the features that today identify the Virgin of Charity of Illescas are not those that the image had when Cardinal Cisneros founded the charity hospital of Illescas in the 16th century and, even, those that it had at the beginning of the XVII, when the discovery of the Virgen del Cobre occurs, as can be seen with the naked eye in the work of El Greco. We can affirm then that the features that today identify the Virgin of Charity of Illescas are not those that the image had when Cardinal Cisneros founded the charity hospital of Illescas in the 16th century and, even, those that it had at the beginning of the XVII , when the discovery of the Virgen del Cobre occurs, as it can be seen with the naked eye in the work of El Greco |
| III Let’s now turn to eastern Cuba, specifically at the time of the discovery of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre in Nipe Bay. Solving the fact that in the notarial statement of Juan Moreno – an eyewitness to the discovery and subsequent events – there may or may not be symbolic references, particularly in the devotional elements that are described after his transfer to Cobre, there is one piece of information that does. It is irrefutable. The image of the Virgin of Charity found in Nipe, once it reaches El Cobre, is taken, by order of Captain Sánchez de Moya, to the parish church. This information is of capital importance, especially because Sánchez de Moya was a native of Toledo and he himself had erected, between 1604 and 1608, a hermitage dedicated to the Virgin of Illescas from Toledo. The fact that Sánchez de Moya (who had a son and a nephew in the diocese, a clergyman and a canon, respectively) ordered the transfer of the Nipse Virgin to the parish church – even though said transfer was carried out, as Juan Moreno points out, with utmost respect and devotion –, denotes that neither Sánchez de Moya, nor any other of his countrymen living in Villa del Cobre (nor in Santiago de Cuba), homologated, nor identified at the time, the iconographic particularities of the image of the Virgin found in Nipe with that of Illescas; which, moreover, Sánchez de Moya knew very well, since it came from his native region. |
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This detail –perhaps imperceptible and unforeseeable by Sánchez de Moya himself– will have a fundamental consequence for the evolution and subsequent establishment of the devotion to the Nippense Virgin, which, being relegated to a “background” by “the colonizers”, is assumed as its own by the nascent Creoleism, “the colonized”, who separate it from the purely “Spanish” from the very moment in which Sánchez de Moya does not accept it in the hermitage of Cerro de la Mina and orders its transfer to the parish church. It is certain then that in the Cerro de la Mina there was a Virgin of Illescas in the year 1612, the date on which the discovery occurred in Nipe Bay. Now, to affirm that the image of the Virgin found in Nipe and venerated for 400 years in El Cobre constituted a replica of that of Illescas is somewhat simplistic. Especially if we take into account that when Sánchez de Moya handed over the administration of the mines to his successor, Juan de Eguiluz, on January 30, 1620, he reported in the Royal Inventory, among other aspects referring to the parish church, that On the Cerro de la Mina there was a hermitage with an image of Our Lady of Guidance, Mother of God of Illescas (it does not speak of a “Virgin of Charity of Illescas”). It also indicates the existence of a house next to the hermitage on the hill that functioned as a hospital, a detail that is highly important as we will see below. IV Since the discovery of the Virgen del Cobre in 1612, an increase in devotion to her has been observed, mainly among Indians and blacks, who assume her as their own (precisely two Indians and a black are the protagonists of this fact). Now, blacks could not enter the church and attend mass along with whites. They were only allowed to stand behind the choir. In 1766, the chaplain Julián Bravo, who must have had in his hands the original document (written in 1703) of his predecessor, the chaplain Onofre de Fonseca, specified that the devotees of the Virgin of the |
| Nippense Charity were “poor inhabitants, all the most slaves of His Majesty, who placed the image on an altar only for the poor.” When he states this he is not referring in any way to the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Guía Madre de Dios de Illescas, but to the hospital chapel, where the image of the Virgin of Charity found in Nipe was venerated on a humble altar. , the only place where the mestizo cult of the Virgin Mary could be established, given that Indians and blacks could enter there, hence the invocation of the Virgin of Cobre, in reference to the hospital, as “Virgin of Charity and Remedies.” . At this point we can point out two things; First: in the hermitage on the hill the dedication that existed before 1620 was that of Our Lady of Guidance, Mother of God of Illescas; Secondly: the image of the Virgin of Charity found in Nipe Bay was not considered property of the Real de las Minas, but was relegated to a devotion of “slaves of His Majesty”, hence the Virgin of Cobre does not appear in the Royal Inventory when Sánchez de Moya leaves the administration of the mines. |
| .In 1637 a storm destroyed the Cerro de la Mina hermitage. When rebuilt, the new hermitage will not be dedicated again to Our Lady of Guidance, Mother of God of Illescas, of whose devotion and image there are no more references after the inventory of Sánchez de Moya, either because it was his property, and he took it with him when he abandoned the mines in 1620, either because it suffered irreparable damage when the storm destroyed the hermitage in 1637. The truth is that from these dates, the new hermitage, completed before the year 1648, will begin to shelter under its roof the image of the Virgin of Charity found in Nipe, which was, until then, in the poor hospital. In the hermitage, next to the Virgin of Charity, two other Marian images will be placed: the Concepción and the Candelaria, each with their respective silver crowns and a small lamp of the same metal, although an inventory ordered by the monarch is required. in 1648: “all (the crowns) are from the Mother of God of Charity.” That is to say, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, once installed in the hermitage of Cerro de la Mina (place where its Basilica and National Sanctuary currently stands), not only replaces Our Lady of the Guide Mother of God of Illescas –of whom there are no more references in the place– but as Dr. Olga Portuondo stated, the absorption of the other two virgins begins to end up reigning alone in the site. The aforementioned inventory of 1648 speaks of “a new hermitage at the top of the hill, rebuilt, covered with tiles and which is said to be the house of Our Holy Virgin of Charity.” In the year 1655 the hermitage was definitively consecrated to Our Lady of Charity of Cobre. In 1679 the construction of a major temple was completed. By this time, El Cobre had already become a hive of pilgrims from Santiago de Cuba and other regions. What are the characteristics of the image of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre? |
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V The Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre is a frame image: its body is made of wood up to the waist, with six rods that currently support the image. He has a Baby Jesus in his left hand, and a cross in his right hand. One of its most significant features is the inverted crescent that was placed on the base that supports it, and that was placed after its discovery, sometime before 1766. The head of the Virgin of Charity is made of a type of vegetable or corn paste. This information was corroborated by the archbishop emeritus of Santiago de Cuba, Monsignor Pedro Meurice, the main architect of the restoration carried out on the image in 1982. In this regard, Monsignor Meurice said: “The face was worked with great care, its small face that seems to be made of corn paste, a material widely used at that time in America to make images… a paste that becomes as hard as wood or more. The trunk is made of wood, the arms reach halfway up the leg, that is the image, hence six rods that are embedded in the trunk and rest at the base.” The face of the Virgin of Charity is beautiful and has fine lines, of a light brown color. As a distinctive and peculiar fact, the image displays a diamond on its forehead, perhaps a symbol of a star, in the opinion of Fernando Ortiz. This brilliant, which is found in the front epidermis of the image, almost where the hair begins, is something distinctive about her; It is not set in the crown but is free. This iconographic peculiarity is not common to observe in other images of Mary. It is an element more typical of the tradition of the Eastern peoples and not of the Catholic one (both Latin and Orthodox). Did the primitive image possess it or is the presence of this element the result of a Creole agglutinating process? We cannot affirm it. However, this diamond was already on the forehead of the |
| Virgin when the sacrilegious theft occurred in 1899. It is also observed in the first engraving (corroborated so far) that is preserved of the Virgin of Charity, made by the chaplain Julián Bravo in 1766. This drawing is of singular importance, as it serves as a reference to guarantee the original iconographic characteristics of the Virgen del Cobre in the face of possible transformations that could be objected to, especially after the almost total destruction of the image in the theft of 1899. and its subsequent restoration. Another distinctive feature of the Copper image is its hands. Since the first descriptions of her – including that of Juan Moreno – there is unanimity regarding the presence of the Child Jesus in her left hand. There is no agreement, however, as to the existence of the cross he carries. However, whether it was a cross, a scepter or another accessory, there is no doubt that the primitive image had something in its right hand. This was confirmed in 1703 by the chaplain Onofre de Fonseca: “when this divine Lady appeared she was carrying in her right hand a sign or hole equal to the one the crucifixes have in theirs: a novelty that the hermit Melchor de los Remedios noticed… without consulting “No one called a painter who lived in the same town, named Méndez, and had him cover said hole.” Chaplain Onofre de Fonseca specifies that Francisco de Peón de Orozco, canon of the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba, rebuked the fact saying: “in these matters he should not have proceeded so lightly, without giving information to those who could determine them.” Along the same lines, the chaplain Julián Bravo expresses that when the image of the Virgin was found in Nipe, “in the right hand he brought, in the manner of Saint Christ, halfway through the palm, a hole, some for this reason.” They call her ‘the big manirrota’.” |
| It will be the infraverse crescent (with the points downwards) that appears at the base of the base – already present in the drawing by Julián Bravo, 1766 –, the distinctive sign of the Virgin of Charity. During the 400 years since its discovery, painters and craftsmen have placed the Child Jesus sometimes on the Virgin’s left arm, and other times on the right. Something similar has happened with the cross, sometimes ignoring it. The crescent moon constitutes one of the most genuine symbols of the Virgen del Cobre. It is enough for us to make a freehand drawing consisting of a kind of triangle with a circle on top, and no one will know what it is; But, if we add an infraverse crescent to that drawing at the base of the triangular sketch, any Cuban will recognize the Virgin of Charity of Cobre in it. Many designers have made logos of the Virgin based precisely on this design, even the quadricentennial logo itself is not far from it. Except for a minority group of Marian images that present the moon in an infraverse position, most of the traditional representations of the Virgin Mary who holds the moon at her feet – according to the vision of the Apocalypse – is in a supraverse position, that is, with the tips upward, generally in the crescent phase. The Virgin of Charity of Illescas herself wears the lunar symbol in a supraverse manner. Thus, in Murillo’s famous Immaculate Conception, the crescents appear in a position of crescents: the Virgin appears to us with one foot on the supraverse moon, while the other crushes the head of a snake –according to the prophecy of Genesis– . The placement of crescents at the feet of the Virgin (even in a supraverse manner), although we observe it in some other ancient image, it will not be until the year 1571, with the victory of Lepanto, that it will reach its maximum diffusion as an iconographic sign of the |
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victory of the Christian troops against the Turks, whose main emblem is precisely the semilunar. Let us remember that when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Ottomans in the year 1453, the first act carried out by the Turkish army, as a sign of victory, was to remove the cross that the emblematic Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Constantinople displayed on its dome, to place in its place a crescent, which has remained untouchable to this day. Neither heraldry nor traditional Catholic imagery explain the reason for the inverted moon observed at the base of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre. Nor does the vision of the Apocalypse, which limits itself to referring to the vision of “a woman clothed with the sun with the moon at her feet”; but it does not specify its position. There is a mathematical, or astronomical, fact, to be more exact (it is not precisely historical nor of a symbolic or allegorical nature), that the vision of a woman dressed as the sun with the moon at her feet – that is, a conjunction of the sun and the moon in unison – would only allow us to observe the moon, from the earth, in the form of an infraverse crescent, just like the one displayed on its base by the Virgin of Charity of Cobre. |
| Beyond these mathematical quintessences, the infraverse position of the crescent of the Virgin of Charity could well be explained from Indian or African animist influences. Let us not forget that the ball games of the Indo-Cubans were lunar rites, a fact that is observed also in other pre-Columbian cultures. Among the Cuban aborigines it was not unusual for the chiefs to use as Guanín (magical-religious accessory) various ornamental metal pieces, consisting of an alloy, in the shape of a half-moon balanced in the middle (with the tips facing down so that they could balance). They were composed of 80 percent gold and 20 percent copper. This Guanín was also used in the mystical initiations of the Mesoamerican and South American aborigines. Possessing it announced the virtue of its owner, the knowledge of the secrets of communication with nature and the mastery of magical forces. Hence, the vision of the Virgin on an infraverse crescent – which, given its disproportionate shape and size, could well be associated with a Guanín – could be interpreted by the indigenous people as a sign of supremacy. In this way, the Son and the cross that she offers them are seen above their deities, mainly above Atabex (or Atabey), whom they linked to the moon and recognized as the owner of the waters. According to the indigenous worldview, the position of the Virgin, standing on the moon, personified the triumph of Mary over Atabex, mother goddess of the supreme indigenous being. The iconographic detail of the infraverse crescent could well explain, consequently, the rapid assimilation and spread of devotion to the Virgin of Charity among our aborigines, populous in the Hato de Barajagua and its surroundings, since it spoke to them “in their own language.” ” (something similar happened with the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico). From the point of view of African tradition, Fernando Ortiz refers to the opinion of a 107-year-old black elder, Ta-Francisco, belonging to the local African society “Divine Charity”, who stated that “the Virgin of Copper appears on a moon with the points downwards, because the Virgin of Copper has more power than the moon.” Furthermore, Ta-Francisco says that he has had this concept since his childhood, “at which time he was known by all his classmates.” Another opinion, also collected by Fernando Ortiz, echoes the tradition that says that “when the Virgin appeared, the storm stopped. The Virgin was already resting her feet on the rainbow. There is therefore no such moon with the points downwards. It is simply and logically the rainbow that appears after the storm and that the Virgin took as a base, because it is the brightest place in that dark space.” |
| VI At this point and following the Socratic method or logical demonstration of an inquiry, we have to: 1. The discovery in 1612 of an image of the Virgin Mary floating in Nipe, which was collected by two Indians and a black slave child, is not something that enters the realm of tradition, legend or myth, but rather that the historicity of the discovery (beyond the intricacies of the origin of the image itself) is a historically documented fact. 2. Likewise, the presence of Captain Sánchez de Moya, a native of Toledo, in charge of the El Cobre mines, is a fact supported by royal decrees and other documents. 3. If the above is true, it follows that it is Sánchez de Moya who is entrusted with the construction of the parish church of El Cobre, and that he himself takes the prerogative of building and/or authorizing the construction of a hermitage to the Virgin Mary, under the Toledo dedication of Our Lady of Illescas. |
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| 4. If in reality Sánchez de Moya was the administrator of the mines, it explains that when his subordinates were faced, against all expectations, with the fact of the discovery in Nipe, he ordered them to have the image found be transferred to El Cobre, a territory under its jurisdiction. 5. If this transfer took place, this shows that it was carried out with the approval of Sánchez de Moya and the ecclesiastical authorities; The image was nominally referred to as the Blessed Virgin, Divine Lady of Charity, Our Lady, or other homologous appellations. 6. If these original denominations, collected by the documents of the time (conserved in the Archive of the Indies in Seville) are historically true, this is a sign that the image found was not nominally acclaimed as Our Lady of Illescas, already present in the Hermitage of the Hill. In this way, the lack of historical reports expressing that Sánchez de Moya exulted with joy is justified (as would have been expected if the Nippon image were the dedication of his native Toledo); evidence that the discovery was not considered or revered by him (or by any Iberian) as a “miracle”, a “prodigy” or a “grace” of Our Lady of Charity of Illescas. 7. If the above is true, we understand why the sources always speak of “Finding of the Virgin of Charity” in Nipe, and never of “Finding of the Virgin of Charity of Illescas in Cuban waters.” 8. If these sources are worthy of credit, we understand why the first chaplains of the Nippense Virgin describe devotion to her as something typical of Indians and blacks, “the most slaves of His Majesty”, which allows us to infer that the Nipponese devotion does not She was revered by the Spanish. 9. If this is true, the identification or homologation of the Virgin of Charity found in Nipe with the Virgin of Charity of Illescas from Toledo lacks historical foundations. To state the opposite, beyond the opinions expressed by some authors in the 20th century (particularly after the substantial iconographic transformation carried out on the Virgin of Illescas in 1884), would require, more than subjective statements or opinions, objective people who advocate a serious dialogue with history that results in the historical challenge, refutation and invalidation of the protocols and notarial orders preserved in the Archive of the Indies in Seville. 10. By virtue of the foregoing, given that for any topic it is possible to urge reasons for and against, we invite, before signing any conclusion, a reflection based on rationality and scientific and historical objectivity.VII What, then, is the origin of the image found in Nipe Bay? In this regard, there are three variants, which scholars have identified as “the three hypotheses.” 1. A celestial portent (the hypothesis of the inexplicable apparition). 2. The Hispanic origin (the Spanish origin hypothesis). 3. A unifying image of indigenous, African and Hispanic elements (the hypothesis of autochthonous origin). With respect to the first variant, the celestial portent, this constitutes something metahistorical about which we can absolutely affirm or deny nothing, especially if we take into account that we are talking about a discovery and not an apparition. Hence, the intricacies of what really happened –prior to the moment of its discovery in Nipe Bay– is a reality that, given the very materiality of the image, we cannot assert or refute (a condition valid also for the second and third variants). With respect to Hispanic origin – second variant – its influence is undeniable. Spain has always been a fertile land with respect to Marian devotion; it is not for nothing that many have classified it as the land of Mary. From the Spanish missionaries, faith in Christ and devotion to his Holy Mother was received in Cuba, as in the rest of Hispanic America. However, one thing is the faith received and another is the assertion that the image of the Virgen del Cobre was made in the Iberian Peninsula, in Flanders or in Germany, as some have stated, including Fernando Ortiz himself. , who nominally mentions these three countries. However, faced with the hypothesis of the European origin of the image we have the aggravating factor of the material used in the making of its face, corn or another vegetable, something exclusive to pre-Columbian cultures (apart from the fact that corn is not native to Europe), as well as other distinctive elements, such as the diamond on the forehead, the almost circular infraverse crescent observed in Bravo’s drawing, and other elements that are more typical of the indigenous tradition, and even of the African tradition, than of those from other countries. latitudes. The Virgin of Charity of Cobre is, therefore, not a mere transfer to Cuba of the devotion to Our Lady of Guidance, Mother of God of Illescas. First, because the iconographic characteristics displayed by the Virgin of Charity of Illescas in 1612 do not coincide with those presented by the Virgin of Cobre at the time of its discovery; second, because the Spaniards themselves, including the Toledo native Francisco Sánchez de Moya (and the ecclesiastical authorities), never saw in the copper image a copy (not even figurative) of the Illescan one, relegating it to a devotion typical of Indians and blacks. Third, because the Virgin of Charity of Cobre and the Virgin of Charity of Illescas, except for the generic and widespread dedication of “La Caridad”, only coincide today (centuries ago not even in that) in the almost triangular shape of the mantle, modified on more than one occasion, both in one and the other, but particularly and pronouncedly in that of Illescas (especially from the 17th century). And finally, the existence of the Child Jesus on her left arm, an element that is not clarified at all, since this is common in Marian images and, even, the representation of the mother with the child in her arms is not something exclusive to Christianity, but rather It is also observed in other religions, some of them polytheistic (suffice it to mention the Egyptian Isis). VIII The Virgin of Charity of Cobre, to conclude, is, therefore, neither Indian, nor African, nor Hispanic… Although, paradoxically, Indians, blacks and whites feel represented in it, as a mystical fusion that gives rise to a new and indigenous reality, a reality that is born from a rooted and original identity, a new spirituality: the Creole, the Cuban. From the moment of her discovery, the Virgin of Charity is Cuban, before Cuba existed as a nation. Let us not forget that the choice of what our national symbols would be was something fought at the time, without excluding from that fight what our own national flag would be, something elucidated only in the Güaimaro Assembly, more by agreement than by conviction. However, the recognition, the very genesis of who would be the Patroness of Cuba – and we must emphasize this well – was not something that came from the Church, but from the Cuban people. It was not the Spanish metropolis, it was not the Royal Board, much less the Catholic Church, who imposed on the Cubans the veneration of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, but quite the opposite: it was the people who internalized, made their own and “ “imposed” that veneration. It is enough for us to return to the beginning and see that it will be the veterans of our Wars of Independence, and not the Church, who ask the Apostolic See that the Virgin of Charity of Cobre be declared Patroness of Cuba, knowing that under her maternal mantle they were summed up. the noblest aspirations of all Cubans. *Lecture given at the VI National History Event: “Catholic Church and Cuban nationality.” Camagüey, June 10, 2011. |