As the Diocese of Toruń has re-opened the Beatification Process for Mother Magdalena Mortęska (+1631), many points concerning her biography are waiting for an explanation. Four have been treated here. The first concerns her monastic profession which, it appears, never took place. In 1579 the Bishop was in such a haste to restore the (by then) legally inexistent community that he waived the Canon Law then in power (which demanded a full year of novitiate served for making a valid profession) and applied a much earlier custom, which allowed bishops to consecrate virgins without stating the amount of time necessary for their formation. Now, consecration was in the 16th century regarded as something superior to mere profession and Bishop Kostka believed it could do alone; so he consecrated the 13 candidates. The result was about 20 new monasteries started before 1650; but also much suffering caused by the necessity of building monastic life up from the start, without formation or experience. The next point is the correspondence between Abbess Mortęska and her old pupil (but by then adversary) the Abbess Dulska. There are some letters from the former to the latter dated around 1624 and very kind in tone, avoiding troublesome topics; it has been believed lately that this correspondence went on until 1631, but proof was found to show that after 1626 Dulska must have stopped corresponding with a person whom she insulted in a published book. This paper treats next with some family connections, namely Magdalena's nieces and grand-nieces who followed her to convent; and finally with the convent accounts which started at the time and were done in a way as much painstaking as inexperienced.
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