Magdalena de la Cruz

Magdalena de la Cruz (1487-1560) was a Franciscan Nun of Córdoba, who for many years was honoured as a Saint. On the other hand St. Ignatius Loyola had always regarded her with suspicion. Falling dangerously ill in 1543, Magdalena confessed to a long career of hypocrisy, ascribing most of the marvels to the action of demons by which she was possessed, but maintaining their reality. She was sentenced by the Inquisition, in an auto-da-fé at Córdoba in 1546, to perpetual imprisonment in an Abbey of her order, and there she is believed to have ended her days most piously amid marks of the sincerest repentance.