"We most strictly command that nowhere in the provinces of the Indies may there ever be received to the holy habit or profession of our order those who are begotten on the side of either one of their parents of Indian or African blood," read the statute of the Dominican order in 17th century Peru. Thus, the lowly Martin de Porres, offspring of a dalliance between a Peruvian grandee and a freed Negro slave girl, could never aspire to full priestly status in the Dominican Convent of the Most Holy Rosary in Lima. He took this mortification humbly, and gave a...
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