1742. Carta de José de Casas para fray Miguel Prieto, superior de San Bernardo.

Letter from José de Casas to Fray Miguel Prieto, a superior from the Order of San Bernardo.

The author, as an answer to a previous letter, informs Fray Miguel Prieto of the content of certain propositions made by Cristóbal de Albenadea on December the 8th.

Following an accusation of scandalous propositions, a trial against Fray Francisco Antonio de Villar del Saz, also known as Fray Francisco Antonio Ladrón de Guevara, occurred between 1739 and 1744. Eventually the defendant was condemned. He was given away by the parish priest Manuel Antonio Sánchez Niño, who was Josefa Moreno y Suárez´s confessor. Josefa told the aforementioned priest that the defendant arrived in Toledo around 1737, he contacted her and told her he was his brother. She believed him and he took advantage of her, touching her, kissing her and asking her to sleep together. These events occurred approximately between 1738 and Epiphany night of 1739. The defendant justified himself by saying that it was a "test or experience" therefore, it was not a sin. He argued that this kind of relationships were not unlawful in the classics he was reading. Josefa asked him to give it to her in writing and so he did, sending a boy with a paper containing quotes and opinions. As soon as she received it, Josefa took it to her confessor (PSCR5740). A part of the "papers" that Fray Francisco Antonio de Villar del Saz and Josefa Moreno exchanged (PSCR5739 a PSCR5750) were provided to the trial documentation by Manuel Antonio Sánchez Niño. The rest (PSCR8626 a PSCR8629) were provided by Josefa Moreno y Suárez during her second statement (July the 4th 1739) following her confessor´s advice.

In 1743, a new proceeding for scandalous propositions against the same defendant was added to the existing one. These propositions were made during a sermon on December the 14th 1742, in Fuentelencina (Guadalajara). Ten letters were added to this proceeding: five of them were written by Miguel Prieto, a superior of the Order of San Bernardo in the monastery of Monsalud (Córcoles, Guadalajara) and addressed to several neighbours from Fuentelencina (Guadalajara); the other five letters are the answers from each one of them, so they admitted when they were called to testify. All the letters sent by Manuel Prieto were answered in the same folio he sent. The letters were integrated to the proceeding documentation because there were doubts regarding a proposition made by the defendant during a mass in honour of the Purísima Concepción (on December the 8th 1742) in Fuentelencina (Guadalajara). On the following 14th of the same month, Cristóbal de Albendea preached in Auñón (Guadalajara) another serious proposition; not longer after that, on the 23rd, the defendant, who belonged to the same convent of Cristóbal de Albendea, repeated the same proposition. Given that the five letters from Miguel Prieto are the same and the answers to it very similar, only the first one from Miguel Prieto (PSCR8630) and two of the answers (PSCR8631 and PSCR8632) have been included.