Peru's Dominicans write St. Martin de Porres into their official record

PERU, 1641 AD — The Dominican friars of the province of Peru met in chapter this year and drew up an act in praise of Saint Martin de Porres. He was a donado (a lay tertiary of the Order) of the convent of Our Lady of the Rosary at Lima. He died there two years ago. The record gives the reason: his life had been so exemplary and his miracles beyond dispute. The year of the sitting is recorded; the place where the friars met is not.

His father was don Juan de Porres, a Spaniard from Burgos and a knight of the Order of Alcántara. His mother was Ana Velázquez, a free black woman born in Panama. His father was ashamed to be named in the baptismal entry and did not sign it. St. Martin de Porres was trained as a barber and bloodletter, and learned from his master the remedies then used for wounds, ulcers and abscesses. He came to the Dominicans as a boy and asked for the habit of a donado, the lowest rank in the house. He made solemn profession of the three vows on June 2, 1603 AD. Donados in Peru were not then granted vows. He was made infirmarian as soon as he professed and held that office until he died. There were three hundred religious in the convent in his time.

He died in his cell on the night of November 3, 1639 AD, between eight and nine. At the bier the crowd called him a saint and kissed his hands and feet. People tore his clothes for relics and touched rosaries, crosses and medals to his body. He had to be reclothed several times, and guards were set over him. He was buried in the chapter room, where the friars of the house are buried. That room has one place for priests and another for lay brothers and donados. He was laid among the priests, in ground where no one had been put before. Since then people have been taking earth from his grave for the sick.

A Dominican provincial chapter is a gathering of the friars of a province: some are there by right of the office they hold, the priors of the houses, and the rest are elected by the friars of their own convents. It meets periodically and legislates for the province. Its decisions are entered in a set of acta (acts). Those acts are the law of the province and its formal record. Each delegate has one vote. The Order’s own accounts of how it is governed agree on what the acts are for: they carry the decisions reached and not the debate that reached them, and the series has been kept since 1220 AD.

The act of this year is therefore a decision taken by vote and entered in the province’s own law.

It is also the Order writing about itself, and it is not a step in a cause. No process on his virtues and miracles has been opened in Lima.