That Torquemada exploited the matter and turned it to the fullest account is admitted. But this merely shows him to be an opportunist; it is very far from proving him a forger. The very sentence was couched in terms calculated to excite—as it did—popular indignation against the Jews. Nor did the publication of the sentence end in La Guardia, whither copies were sent. We may infer that Torquemada scattered those copies broadcast through Spain, since we actually find a Catalan translation which was specially prepared for publication in Barcelona.
The cult of the Holy Child of La Guardia sprang up at once, and developed rapidly. Numerous shrines were set up in his honour, the first and chief of these being on the site of the house of Juan Franco, which had been razed to the ground. Here an altar was erected in the cellar of the house, on the spot where it was believed that the child’s sufferings had begun; it was surmounted by a figure of a child pinioned to a column.
Over this subterranean shrine a church sprang rapidly into existence.
Another hermitage was erected near Santa Maria de Pera, on the spot where the child was alleged to have been buried, and yet another in the cave where he was believed to have suffered crucifixion. “In all times since,” says Moreno,[224] “the three sanctuaries have been frequented by those who come to pray to the Niño as to a saint.”
The first of these sanctuaries was erected by 1501—at which date records of it are to be found. It was called the Sanctuary of the Holy Innocent, and Moreno adds that this has always received the approval of Popes and Bishops, and that plenary and partial indulgences have been granted to the faithful visiting these shrines.
The people of La Guardia elected him their patron saint, and a fast was appointed for the eve of his feast-day, which at first was March 25, but was afterwards changed to September 25. Moreno includes in his book the prayers prescribed and a litany to the Niño.[225]
But it is not without a certain significance that Rome—ever cautious, as we have already had occasion to say, in the matter of canonization—has not yet recognized the Holy Child of La Guardia as one of the saints of the Church.
Yepes chronicles four miracles performed by the child after his death, beginning with his mother’s obtaining sight. All these, with other very interesting and purely romantic details, are to be found in that piously fraudulent work—the “Life of the Holy Child,” by Martinez Moreno.