The Portrait of María de Ajofrín: in support of the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church

Abstract

The content of the beata María de Ajofrín’s visions (d. 1489), as told by her confessor/ biographer Juan de Corrales in the late fifteenth century, and incorporated at the end of the sixteenth century by José de Sigüenza into his Historia de la Orden de San Jerónimo, validates the establishment of the Inquisition in defense of Catholic orthodoxy. The defense of orthodoxy is also served by the depiction of the relationship between the beata’s spiritual life and the Sacraments of Confession and Communion. This relationship reinforces the spiritual relevance of these Sacraments, and the concomitant central role of priests as administrators of these Sacraments, even as the clergy is in need of reform.