Lights and Shadows: The Inquisitorial Process Against the Jesuit Congregation of N uestra S eñora de la L uz on the M ariana I slands (1758–1776)

This article focuses on the controversy over the charges of sexual impropriety made against F ather F ranz R eittemberger within the context of worship of N uestra S eñora de la L uz ( O ur L ady of L ight) in the mid‐eighteenth century M ariana I slands. As is well known, this cult began to spread around the Americas and the P hilippines (via N ew S pain) starting in 1740, and it became a cohesive force in a multiethnic society perched on the outskirts of S pain's overseas empire. The S ociety of J esus arrived in the M arianas' archipelago in 1668 to found a mission with the economic support of Q ueen M ariana de A ustria, P hilip IV 's widow and regent of S pain. In 1758 F ather R eittemberger founded the M arian devotion to O ur L ady of L ight. After the expulsion of the Jesuit order from the S panish islands of the P acific (1769), the Augustinian commissaries of the H oly O ffice accused the congregation's founder of the crime of sollicitatio ad turpia . In examining this Inquisition trial J esuit and A ugustinian rivalries come to the fore, revealing the larger anti‐ J esuit sentiments that drove public censure of the colonial church in the S panish overseas possessions.