María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa

María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, known throughout the Río de la Plata as Mama Antula, was born in 1730 in Silípica, in the province of Santiago del Estero, then part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. She came from a Creole family of the colonial interior and from an early age was drawn to the spirituality of the Society of Jesus. Without entering a convent or taking canonical religious vows, she adopted the life of a beata: she wore a black cassock in imitation of the Jesuits, lived in poverty and penance, and devoted herself to promoting the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, especially among women, indigenous people, and the poor. By about the middle of the eighteenth century she was already organizing retreats in Santiago del Estero and neighboring districts.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from all Spanish domains in 1767 left a vacuum in that apostolate. Mama Antula undertook to continue it. For more than a decade she traveled on foot across the northern provinces—Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Salta, Jujuy, Catamarca, and La Rioja—gathering groups for days-long Ignatian retreats and supporting the work by begging alms. In 1779 she set out for Buenos Aires, a journey of several hundred kilometers, with the aim of founding a permanent house of spiritual exercises in the colonial capital. Civil officials and some clergy viewed with suspicion a woman acting so independently in a public ministry; she nonetheless obtained the support of portions of the episcopate and of devout laity and persisted through years of petitions and fundraising.

In the 1790s she succeeded in establishing the Santa Casa de Ejercicios Espirituales in Buenos Aires, which began receiving retreatants before the end of the century and has continued in operation into the modern period. She lived in the house she had founded, remaining poor and widely regarded in her lifetime as a woman of holiness. She died in Buenos Aires on 7 March 1799 and was buried in the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Piedad in that city.

Her reputation for sanctity was kept alive in Argentina. The cause for beatification advanced in the twentieth century. Pope Benedict XVI recognized her heroic virtues on 1 July 2010, declaring her Venerable. She was beatified on 27 August 2016 in Santiago del Estero, with Cardinal Angelo Amato presiding as papal legate. After the approval of a miracle attributed to her intercession, Pope Francis canonized her on 11 February 2024 in Saint Peter’s Basilica. She is venerated as the first woman born in the territory of present-day Argentina to be declared a saint by the Catholic Church. Her liturgical feast is observed on 7 March.