The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal (50 page)

In light of the unanimous witness statements, Kleutgen eventually had to concede that he had conducted an erotic relationship with Maria Luisa. He confessed that, unfortunately, it was true that “during the night, in the room he had been assigned, he embraced, kissed and held Maria Luisa, and also put his tongue into her mouth.” The Jesuit gave a noncommittal answer to why he hadn’t just kissed Maria Luisa on the mouth—why he had left his tongue in her mouth for a long time. In his defense, he said he had only “seldom put his tongue in Maria Luisa’s mouth.” Still, this meant it had been more than just one kiss. He also confessed to “using the following expressions during the kisses: ‘Thou my daughter, my love, first-born, beloved daughter, my delight, my bliss, my treasure.’ And as he kissed her heart: ‘Thou pure heart, sacred heart, immaculate heart, my treasure.’ ”
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“My treasure”—phrases like this strongly suggest an erotic fascination. At the same time, some of Kleutgen’s exclamations had religious connotations, like the “immaculate heart of Mary.”
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This combination of sex and religion arose again and again in Sant’Ambrogio. The dividing lines between sexual acts and the religious interpretation of these acts had been equally fluid for Maria Luisa and the women with whom she shared her bed. Sexual and religious experiences both involve transcendence and the dissolution of boundaries, meaning that there is a structural relationship between the two. In both religious and sexual experiences, there is a sensual, physical precondition for any transcendental experience. But Catholic moral theology has always disputed this connection: real ecstasies can only occur “when they are related to Christ.” Only then are religious transcendental experiences considered good, while erotic ecstasies are fundamentally sinful.
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Kleutgen wanted his exclamations to be interpreted exclusively as religious rapture, with no sexual content, as we can see from his testimony on May 28:

In his interrogation on June 1, he added that none of the other acts he had committed with Maria Luisa should be interpreted as signs of his lust. True, Maria Luisa had put the finger that wore the heavenly ring into his mouth, for the purposes of veneration, but he had never “sucked” it.
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For him, a reverent kiss was a religious act, while sucking was something erotic and lustful.

However, Kleutgen couldn’t convince the Inquisition that his encounters with Maria Luisa had been exclusively religious and lustfree. Everything they had done together had clear sexual connotations in the judges’ eyes. This was a case of “fornication”—as could be seen from the repeated, lingering French kisses.

In the moral theology of the nineteenth century, kissing with tongues was a mortal sin “in intent and in the deed itself.”
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Even partners who were joined in holy matrimony weren’t allowed to kiss this way. It was interpreted (with good reason) as an anticipation of sex; this also made it a mortal sin even when it didn’t result in ejaculation, or “pollution.” More recent publications in cultural studies make this point of view seem not unreasonable: here, French kissing is viewed as an analogy of sexual congress, due to the direct contact of inner organs it involves.
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All his powers of scholastic distinction were no help to the learned Jesuit in light of this fact. He couldn’t reinterpret the French kiss as a cold act of will, performed in the course of carrying out a divine command. According to his own new scholastic moral theology, it was an expression of pure lust. And if this was a mortal sin for married couples, then how much worse was it for a monk who had taken a vow of chastity, and was sharing this kiss with a virgin dedicated to God?

The crucial issue of seduction in the confessional was, of course, something that also had to be addressed in the case of Kleutgen’s relationship with Maria Luisa. Several interrogation transcripts from the end of May and beginning of June 1861 start with remarkably similar questions: Did he know any other confessor who had dispensed a special blessing with similar sexual connotations? Did he know any
other confessor who had spent nights alone in a cell with a young nun? Did he know any other confessor who had torn apart his penitent’s scapular in order to kiss her naked breast? Did he know even a single confessor who had put his tongue in a nun’s mouth for minutes at a time? And so on.
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The Jesuit’s justifications were of no use here, either. He denied any chronological or other connection between the sacrament of penance that he dispensed to Maria Luisa, and the embraces, kisses, and other touches. He claimed that Maria Luisa had never let him “enter the
clausuras
” after confession, which always took place through the grille between the convent’s inner and outer parlatory. It was only much later, when he had visited the sick and given them the sacraments, that he visited Maria Luisa in the convent to give her pastoral support. When the court challenged this, he put forward a particularly weak argument, saying he hadn’t “paid very much attention to the exact circumstances of confession.” Nor had he ever been conscious of “acting wrongly, or abusing the sacraments.”
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Kleutgen may have forced the inquisitors onto the back foot over the veneration of Agnese Firrao, but he couldn’t pull off the same thing when it came to Maria Luisa’s false holiness. This wasn’t a general cult; it was a case of him personally venerating the beautiful young nun as a saint and an attractive woman. It was an attack on his own moral and pastoral integrity. He couldn’t play off Church authorities like Popes Leo XII and Pius VII against each other to undermine the authority of the Inquisition. Kleutgen was a master of disputation in matters of objective fact, but he was unconvincing when it came to subjective misconduct and moral failings. All his attempts at reassurance and scholarly distinction came to nothing. He was even forced to admit that the heavenly letters had told him about Maria Luisa’s lesbian relationship with Maria Giacinta—though he had naturally ascribed these “bad deeds” to the devil in Maria Luisa’s form. Moreover, in the discussion about French kissing, the court had turned his own scholastic theology against him.

Once again, the question arises of how far the figures of Peters and Kleutgen were united, and how much his testimony was worth. A naive father confessor might have believed in the authenticity of the heavenly letters. But it was surprising that a highly educated Jesuit theologian, as Kleutgen most certainly was, had been taken in by letters that demanded immoral acts of him.

On the other hand, this belief was in line with the well-regarded brochure of 1846,
Über den Glauben an das Wunderbare
(On the Belief in Miracles). The author of this text, who used the pseudonym J. W. Karl, was none other than the young Kleutgen: Joseph Wilhelm Carl were his three forenames. Even at that time, he had mounted an enthusiastic defense of miraculous apparitions, stigmata, and women with mystical gifts. He pointed out that “the gift of miracles is one of the favors bestowed upon the Church by its divine benefactor.”
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It shouldn’t be considered improbable “that the saints, and the queen of saints herself, might come down from heaven.”
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But the unusual apparitions that were part of a mystic’s life should be approached with extreme caution. It was better to ask three times than to believe too easily. The crucial criterion for judging these divine works was their “wholesome purpose.”
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“Gullibility and precipitate eagerness in these cases” were a great “evil.” “We call those people gullible who believe in miraculous apparitions without further ado, before they have been properly investigated.”
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Kleutgen, alias Karl, emphasized the important role played by these female mystics’ “spiritual guides.”
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They had to examine all supernatural phenomena with the utmost care. For if “even men whose role is to lead and teach the people” allowed themselves to be gullible and impulsive, “then how much greater and more dangerous will be the outrage of the pious, and the scorn of the unbelievers, if a deception or sham should be discovered!”
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This confirms that Kleutgen sincerely believed in the reality of supernatural phenomena, and that this belief had a theological foundation. Visions, apparitions, and letters from the Virgin were quite self-evidently real to him. But then why didn’t Peters, working in Sant’Ambrogio in 1857, stick to the criteria that Kleutgen had set down in 1846? Why didn’t he ask “three times”? Why was he, a priest and a spiritual guide, “gullible” and more than “impulsive”? The answer may well have been: because he was blinded by his love for Maria Luisa.

NEW SCHOLASTIC CONVOLUTIONS

As it had been for the other three main defendants, the third point to be covered in Kleutgen’s hearings was the poisoning of Katharina von
Hohenzollern, and the Jesuit’s possible entanglement in the murder plot. Kleutgen also applied his tried and tested strategy to this charge: first, denial, then admitting as little as possible, and finally trying to cast anything he had been forced to admit in a different light in an attempt to mitigate what he had done. After a long back-and-forth, involving extensive discussions and written explanations, the court recorded the following facts pertaining to this charge.
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From the outset, Kleutgen had been well informed about the contents of the letter from the Virgin that Maria Luisa made Maria Francesca write for her on December 8, 1858. He also knew about other such prophecies. Since he believed in the authenticity of these letters, he had to assume that the princess’s death had been ordained by heaven, and that furthermore she was threatened with eternal damnation. As a good pastor, he should have acted immediately to try and save Katharina’s soul, even if he didn’t believe he could save her earthly life.

As her father confessor, Kleutgen had also always known that the princess was afraid she was being poisoned in Sant’Ambrogio. However, he didn’t take her concerns seriously. He told the Inquisition several times that he believed they were the product of an overwrought noblewoman’s imagination. The Jesuit also regarded the Americano’s ominous letter as the catalyst for the whole affair. But as Maria Luisa consistently denied having shown Katharina the letter, and because the heavenly letters said it was a satanic trick, Kleutgen chose to believe their version of events.

The Jesuit also knew that some of the nuns suspected Katharina was being murdered with a cocktail of various poisons. Although there were a great many rumors about the poisoning, he had remained convinced that the princess was not being given “any genuine poison.” But he then had to admit he had been concerned for his own future, should Katharina decide to talk about the secrets of Sant’Ambrogio outside the convent. Once he had even broached the subject directly with Maria Luisa, and had also communicated his fears to her in writing.

Then the court confronted Kleutgen with Maria Luisa’s testimony, which claimed that his fears were the real catalyst for the poisoning attempts. She had set the whole thing in motion as a favor to him, to release him from his concerns. Kleutgen’s answer, as was only to be
expected, was extremely evasive. “I repeat that I expressed my fears about the princess in the manner I have stated.” But what exactly did that mean? Was he afraid
for
the princess, which should have been his duty as a confessor? Or was he afraid
of
what she might say about him and Maria Luisa if she made it out of the convent alive?

There had, Kleutgen continued, been a “huge misunderstanding” regarding the words he had used about the princess’s impending death. “I said we should pray for God to show us the truth, because I believed in Maria Luisa’s innocence. And as the princess had fallen seriously ill, I may possibly have expressed the opinion that her death might be God’s way of putting an end to things that had disturbed both the princess and the community.” In plain terms, this meant that Kleutgen had not acted to bring about Katharina’s demise; he merely hoped that God would see to this Himself. Then it wouldn’t be his fault, but that of a higher power.

The court was, of course, very interested in the exact nature of the “fears and distress” that Kleutgen felt at the prospect of any revelations Katharina von Hohenzollern might make. The Jesuit admitted that he had told Maria Luisa, and probably also the abbess, about these fears. But he had never used the “wicked words” that the witness statements accused him of uttering. And then he passed the buck on to the novice mistress, testifying that his concerns stemmed exclusively from “Maria Luisa’s revelations.”

He also firmly denied ever having told the nuns to pray for the princess’s death. When he had said that the princess was in danger of dying on that particular night, he was “merely repeating Doctor Marchi’s words.” The court accused him of declaring that the sick woman had to die “as a punishment from God.” The Jesuit replied: “This much is true. When I denied that the time of the princess’s death was prophesied, I was referring to the prophetic letter. I do not remember Maria Luisa telling me in person that the princess would fall ill that very day. But from what I now recollect, I must conclude that she at least revealed the day the princess was likely to die.”

So Kleutgen knew about Katharina’s impending death. Her demise would certainly have been advantageous to him: she was party to his secrets, and this would have silenced her once and for all. But the investigating court couldn’t prove that he was directly involved in the poisoning attempts.