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Father Pareja deemed Florida Indians worthy of baptism
Source: Situado and Sabana #82
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The sacrament of penance was properly preceded by confession. In Florida, an Indian Christian's first confession seems to have functioned as a rite of passage out of childhood and into the ranks of labor. Thereafter the Church required a Christian to confess to his parish priest and perform penance at least once a year. Inasmuch as church pastors deliberately scheduled the hearing of annual confessions to equip their wayward flocks with clean consciences for Easter, Florida officials were able to use the register of baptized Christians who had "complied with the Church" in their home towns during the Lenten season as a provincial census of laboring adults, town by town. Reportedly, many Florida natives chose to confess oftener than the Church required and showed a remarkable aptitude for penance, relishing the chance to display their courage and physical endurance through fasts and other forms of self-denial, hours on their knees, and flagellation. Such practices were in harmony with the rituals of purification and fortitude that had long been part of the Southeastern way of life. AN107 Not everyone who confessed and did penance was admitted to the sacrament of the Eucharist, even at Easter. In 16th-century New Spain, where embarrassing cases of "idols under altars" had first come to light, laymen communed rarely. Franciscans there were particularly wary of administering the sacrament to the unworthy. Only after their charges had undergone prolonged indoctrination, had been confessing for four or five years, and had satisfied their confessors that they possessed the kind of inner conviction and Christian practice that could only develop over time, did the clergy allow them to approach the Lord's Table. To prevent mistakes, the friars sometimes gave identifying badges to those who were judged ready to receive the sacrament. The Franciscans in 16th-century Peru were somewhat more lenient. The Christians under their care ordinarily communed on either Holy Thursday or Easter Sunday and, with the permission of their confessors, also on Christmas, Pentecost, Assumption, and All Saints Day. Each time, they prepared to receive the Eucharist by bathing and putting on new or clean clothes. In 1614 the Peruvian-born Franciscan Father Ore, making an ecclesiastical visita of the Florida missions, asked Father Pareja, a 20-year veteran, to give his written opinion about whether or not the Christian natives of Florida could safely be admitted to the Lord's Table. Pareja was satisfied with the spiritual progress of the Indians in the vicarios of San Juan del Puerto and San Pedro. He responded: "I have looked carefully into this matter, to see that they had that sufficiency to receive Holy Communion, and I have found no reason why they should be denied this Sacrament. Many persons are found, men and women, who confess and who receive with tears, and who show up advantageously with many Spaniards" (Pareja, 1614). (Bushnell SS)
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