The Dicastery of the Cause of Saints in the Vatican approved the legal validity of all the documentation presented for the cause of Negro Manuel, the custodian of the Virgin of Luján, Patroness of Argentina.
“This step means that everything carried out in the diocesan phase has been approved by the Holy See,” reported the Archbishopric of Mercedes-Luján in a use published on its website on October 17.
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“We pray for the next steps of the cause, which include this beautiful sign for our Church that is pilgrim in Mercedes-Luján and throughout Argentina,” adds the text, in which the work of Father Guillermo Durán, procurator of the cause, is appreciated; and Geraldine Mackintosh, postulator in the Roman phase.
After the conclusion of the diocesan phase of the beatification cause, the documentation of the cause arrived in Rome on March 21, 2025. What follows is the approval, by the Pope, of the decree that recognizes the heroic virtues of Negro Manuel (Manuel Costa de los Ríos), and then wait for a miracle that allows his beatification.
Who was the Negro Manuel Costa de los Ríos?
Negro Manuel was a slave from Costa de los Ríos, in what was then known as Upper Guinea, in Africa. He arrived in the Río de la Plata, present-day Argentina, as part of a batch of slaves that would later be sold in Buenos Aires.
In 1630, working on lands administered by the military man Bernabé González Filiano, he witnessed the miracle by which the cart carrying the image of the Virgin of Luján stopped.
His master put Negro Manuel to guard the sacred Marian image in the first oratory dedicated to her. Since then he recognizes himself as “slave of the Virgin.”
His master’s heirs sold him and Manuel became a slave of the Virgin of Luján, in whose service he continued in the Villa of Luján for 56 years. From there comes the famous phrase attributed to Negro Manuel: “I am only the Virgin’s”, whom he considered his mistress and mistress.
He died in 1686, after many years of serving the Virgin and the pilgrims who came to the place. His body was buried behind the main altar of the sanctuary.
If you receive any grace worked through the intercession of Negro Manuel, you can write to causadesantos@santuariodelujan.org.ar
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.