Petrus Claver

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Petrus Claver , actually Pere Claver i Socobano , (born June 25, 1580 in Verdú , Catalonia , † September 8, 1654 in Cartagena , Colombia ) was a Spanish Jesuit , missionary and priest . He is the patron saint of Colombia and has been the patron of human rights since 1985 .

biography

Youth, studies, Jesuit college

Petrus Claver received the tonsure in 1595 and traveled to Barcelona to study , where he attended the Jesuit College Colegio de Belén there in 1601. On August 7th, 1602 he entered the Jesuit order in Tarragona / Spain at the age of 22 , where on August 8th, 1604 he took the vows (poverty, chastity, obedience). 1605-1608 he stayed in Palma , where he pursued his philosophy studies and met the 74-year-old brother and porter Alonso Rodríguez, who impressed him with his modesty, kindness and unpretentiousness. Another confrere, González, inspired the 25-year-old novice to do social and missionary work among the slaves of the New World because of his own experience with blacks .

Crossing to New Granada, ordination

In 1610 , while he was still studying theology, he was called to New Granada , the newly founded viceroyalty in northern South America. He traveled via Seville to Cartagena in Colombia . Cartagena, the heavily fortified port on the Caribbean coast, played a major role in trade to and from Spain . a. also as the main port of entry for slaves from Africa . Here Claver learned a lot about the nature and origins of slavery from Father Alonso de Sandoval , who had looked after the slaves since 1605, in the few weeks that he spent in town . In the autumn of 1610, Claver traveled on to Santa Fé de Bogotá , where he completed his studies in philosophy and theology in the Jesuit college of San Bartolomé, which was only founded in 1604 . In 1615 Claver returned to Cartagena, where he was ordained a priest on March 19, 1616 as the city's first Jesuit and where he remained until his death 38 years later and worked in selfless charity for the slaves.

Charitable, medical and missionary work

From his room on the upper floor of the Jesuit college, Claver awaited the 12-14 yearly incoming slave ships with their 300-600 slaves on board, and was the first to bring them food (rusks, fresh fruit), refreshments (wine, schnapps, tobacco, dates, sugar ), Clothes, took the sick into the outpatient clinic in the college, where he looked after them medically, especially the lepers and lepers, taught them the languages ​​of their countries of origin - Senegal, Guinea - with the help of his 8–12 interpreter slaves , Sierra Leone, Angola, Congo and Sudan - ruled, introduced them to the faith and, according to a confrere, donated a total of 300,000 baptisms, according to today's rough calculations about 150,000, which he carefully recorded in a separate notebook. 15–20% of the “freight” had usually already fallen victim to the rigors of the two-month sea voyage. If the destination of the slave ships was also the Spanish South America, the entire slave trade from catching / buying and transporting the “black gold” to delivery in America was contractual due to the lack of own Spanish-African possessions in the so-called Asiento de Negros (or “Asiento”) firmly in the hands of the Portuguese (1580–1640), then the English, French, Dutch ( West India Company (WIC) ) and other nations.

Every year Petrus Claver undertook processions with the entire slave population to the Virgen de la Popa monastery above Cartagena; his confessional was mainly reserved for blacks. During Lent he preached to them in simple words in the church, in the squares and in the streets, at Easter he visited them in the surrounding villages, while Sandoval did missionary work in the more distant villages. He took vigorous action against alcoholic excesses at their nightly parties and dances.

Above all, the sick were close to his heart; in the hospital he did not shy away from doing the most basic of nursing jobs, sometimes assisted by white volunteers. In the Hospital de San Lázaro at the gates of the city, he looked after the lepers, taking no account of himself; his black Jesuit coat sometimes had to be washed four times a day.

The so-called cimarrones - fugitive slaves who lived outside the law outside the city in the swamps - Claver visited secretly to proselytize and encourage. His engagement created tensions with parts of the Spanish population who accused him of inciting the blacks. Nevertheless, he could count on financial and personal support from influential personalities, including a. on ladies of society; their slaves also worked for Claver.

In the prisons he looked after those imprisoned for their crimes or religious offenses. The Inquisition , which had been established in Cartagena since 1610 , was responsible for the purity of the faith throughout South America and sentenced more than 700 people for witchcraft, offenses and errors of belief; many were tortured during the lengthy trials, and a total of six people were sentenced to death, two of them in the time of Claver, who was present as her pastor when they were executed.

Appearance, character

Claver's lifestyle was meager; he ate little, slept on a simple mat and, despite the hot climate, did his mental and physical penance several times at night.

His appearance is described by his first biographer in 1657 as follows: “Father Claver was of medium build, flat face, quite long, with a rather full beard, half black, half gray, with large melancholy eyes, a narrow nose, and from the many penances and exercises because of the bad treatment of his body he was all yellow like an ascetic. "

In his personal file at the headquarters of the Jesuit Order in Rome, his abilities and activities were characterized as follows: “Talent: mediocre; Judgment: average; Cleverness: little; Life experience: mediocre; Character: melancholy, serious; apostolic talent: for preaching and working among the slaves; spiritual gift: best possible "( aprovechiamiento espiritual: optimo )

Last years, death and canonization

In 1650 , the 70-year-old, accompanied by his slave interpreter Sacabuche, went on a missionary trip, where he caught mala fever. The following year he stayed in Cartagena during the plague , where 9 of the 22 confreres died. He did not recover from the subsequent Parkinson's disease until his death; unable to work, he spent the last four years on the second floor of the Jesuit college, where his rude caretaker - a newly arrived slave - tortured him more than cared for, without the old man ever complaining. Petrus Claver died on September 8, 1654.

All of Cartagena was present at his funeral; his body rests in a crystal coffin under the altar of the Jesuit church named after him in Cartagena. Soon after his death, efforts for canonization began, which dragged on until 1888 because of the expulsion of the Jesuits from America in 1767 , the suppression of the order in 1773 and its reinstatement in 1814 .

For his commitment to the sick, lepers, dying and prisoners, he, who always called himself the “slave of the slaves”, received the honorary title “ Apostle of Cartagena”.

Beatified in 1851, he was beatified in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII. canonized and in 1896 appointed patron of the "Mission among Negroes". Petrus Claver is venerated as the patron saint of Colombia. According to him, the Sodality of the Missionary Sisters of St. Mary, founded in 1894 by Maria Teresia Ledóchowska and operating in Africa . Named Petrus Claver .

In Germany and in the Jesuit order, the Catholic Church celebrates its day of remembrance on September 9th (not mandatory day of remembrance, in the USA mandatory day of remembrance). His feast day in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is also September 9th.

literature

Web links

Commons : Petrus Claver  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rita Haub : Patron of Human Rights. Saint Peter Claver, in: KNA / ÖKI 40, September 28, 1999, 22-23 (Order).
  2. ↑ Altfried G. Rempe: Patron of Human Rights
  3. ↑ Today Colegio San Pedro Claver
  4. ↑ A total of about 1 million slaves landed in Cartagena, and from there they were resold to Nuevo Reino de Grenada (today Colombia), Panama , Venezuela , Ecuador and Peru , to be found in the gold and silver mines, on the large cattle ranches and sugar cane plantations, to work as rowers on the rivers or as household slaves; 1/3 of them were women, a smaller percentage were children and the rest were men; Botero, Claver p. 14
  5. ↑ Sandoval (d. 1652 ) worked in Cartagena from 1605 and later wrote a fundamental work on slavery: Naturaleza, policia… costumbres i Ritos… de todos Etiopes , Seville 1627; new udT De instauranda Aethipium salute , Madrid 1647, span. udT Un quartado sobre la servitud , El mundo de la esclavitud negra in America etc. (1959, 1987), engl. Treatise on slavery (2008). In it, Sandoval explains the geography, ethnology and sociology of black slavery, which he condemns in clear terms ("a mortal sin ... eternal damnation").
  6. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.de
  7. ↑ Claver asked in a letter in 1626 not to sell these slaves to him because he needed them for his work; Botero Claver p. 33
  8. ↑ Erroneously only 30,000 baptisms by Syré: Calendar of the Society of Jesus ; Botero, Claver p. 27
  9. ↑ Botero, Claver p. 25
  10. ↑ Among the convicts of the Inquisition there was also a Jesuit who had spoken out in his sermon in 1614 against the brutal treatment of slaves; Botero, Claver p. 30 f.
  11. ↑ Botero, Claver p. 37
  12. ↑ Botero, Claver p. 35
personal data
SURNAME Claver, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Claver i Socobano, Pere
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish Jesuit, missionary and priest
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1580
PLACE OF BIRTH Verdú , Catalonia
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1654
Place of death Cartagena , Colombia