GLOBAL RELICS IN THE JESUIT WORLD (16TH TO 18TH CENTURIES)

After the Roman persecutions carried on by the emperor Diocletian (284-305 AC), the increase of relics and their fragmentation forced the Catholic Church to regulate not only their production but also their authenticity. From the 16th century onwards, the Jesuits produced a great number of saints and blessed martyrs in the missions of Europe, Asia and America, certifying the principle of universality that defines Jesuit identity. Bones of dead bodies, pieces of black doublets, crosses and sacred objects circulated quickly over the Christian world, contributing to spread the faith in the new extra-European spaces. In this study I argue that the cult of relics cannot be dissociated from a global perspective of the Jesuit mission, articulated with a "demand of the saint" at the Spanish and Portuguese peripheries that adapted rapidly to a local context. The Mariana Islands, located at the margins of the Spanish empire, exemplify a borderland where the martyrs of the Society of Jesus, as models of evangelical dedication in the furthest regions of the known world, became producers and distributors of relics.