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Penitentes

This secret religious society is found in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado and is also known as Los Hermanos Penitentes (“The Penitent Brothers”). Members of these Hispanic Catholic all-male societies practice penances, including flagellation and carrying heavy wooden crosses, in order to atone for their sins. At one time, there may have been as many as 20,000 members in these groups; today, membership is estimated at around 1,000.

Origins

The Penitentes’ historical roots are most likely in the Third Order of St. Francis, a religious order for non-ordained Catholic men and women established in 1221. Franciscan missionaries from Spain had established Third Order Fraternidades (fraternities) in New Mexico and elsewhere in North America by the 1680s. Participants in these brotherhoods were not ordained men. Rather, these laypeople vowed to live by a set of rules, including simplicity in dress, fasting, daily prayer, regular confession, and works of charity and penance. Because they believed that sin could be atoned for in part through suffering, one penitential practice the Franciscans approved was self-flagellation (whipping) without loss of blood.

As Franciscan missionaries spread their order and the Catholic faith throughout Latin America, local fraternities took on their own structure and shape, adapting faith practices to fit their own cultural framework. Historical records are imprecise, but evidence suggests that the Penitentes grew out of one or more of these fraternities. When Mexico gained independence in 1821, many of the missionary orders pulled out of Mexico and the southern United States for a time. The resulting shortage of local parish priests left fraternities to continue praying in their community while developing their own worship practices.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, a series of archbishops tried to repress the activities of the Penitentes, denouncing their practices as barbaric and ordering them to desist with their practices and processions. In 1846, the United States took over the territory of New Mexico, and shortly thereafter, the first Bishop of Santa Fe, Jean Baptiste Lamy, was installed. He tried to put an end to the Penitentes by barring them from local Catholic churches and denying the sacraments to their leaders. This drove the groups into hiding, but meetings and ritual practices continued in secret. The conflict between the Penitentes and Catholic Church leaders continued until 1947, when Archbishop Edwin Byrne officially recognized them as a lay order.

Group Structure and Initiation Rite

Each chapter of Penitentes is locally based, and there is no central authority overseeing all the groups. Their meetings are held in buildings known as moradas, usually stone or adobe one-room buildings with a single entrance and a simple cross over the door. The leader of each chapter is known as the hermano mayor, or chief brother. Primarily, the societies focus on the virtues of humility and charity by providing monetary and spiritual support based on the needs in their local communities.

Initiation into a Penitente fraternity takes place over a yearlong period, culminating during Holy Week, when all new members are marked with a cross cut into their flesh on their backs with a sharp piece of flint. There are three degrees of membership, each with its own initiation ceremony. Members of the most advanced Third Degree are expected to inflict various forms of self-punishment as part of their penitential rituals.

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