Mozas Criollas and New Government: Francis Borgia, Prophetism and the Spiritual Exercises in Spain and Peru

The essay offers a different interpretation of Francisco de Borja's role in the spirituality and politics of the Society of Jesus, attempting to outline what we will call the other face of the Society of Jesus. With a spirituality often far from the active spirituality of Ignatius, much more inclined to contemplation but also to an intense prophetism, Francisco de Borja promoted political positions of great relevance and explicit dissent with regard to Italian and Iberian confessional politics, with extremely critical positions towards the Inquisition, the policy of exclusion of conversos but also, consequently, the colonial policies of the American world. The last part of the essay shifts the attention to the Jesuit Luis López and the group of Jesuits chosen by Borgia to start the Jesuit presence in the American world. López in particular was a man very close to Borgia, to his spirituality and prophetism but also to his political project. He was heavily implicated in the famous trials for alumbradism in Lima that erupted in the 1570s around the case of the Dominican Francisco de la Cruz and his messianic dreams of renewal of Peru. A prominent theologian but also a rather controversial character, with authoritative protections in the Peninsula, López was the author of a long memoir accusing the Spanish policy in the Americas and in particular that of Viceroy Toledo.