Francisco Tito Yupanqui

Servant of God

Francisco Tito Yupanqui

Catholic Church in the Andes; Sanctuary of Our Lady of Copacabana

Born	About 1550, Copacabana, Viceroyalty of Peru
Died	About 1616, Cusco, Viceroyalty of Peru
State of life	Indigenous married layman, sculptor, and catechetical missionary
Religious institute or church	Catholic Church in the Andes; Sanctuary of Our Lady of Copacabana
Ecclesial status	Servant of God; diocesan cause formally opened on 21 May 2011
Recognition	Cause opened at the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana; historical inquiry in progress

Francisco Tito Yupanqui was an Indigenous Andean Catholic layman and sculptor whose image of Our Lady of Copacabana became Bolivia's foremost Marian icon and a lasting instrument of evangelization around Lake Titicaca.

Overview

Francisco Tito Yupanqui (1550–1616) was an indigenous sculptor of the Viceroyalty of Peru. He sculptured renowned Roman Catholic wood statues such as the Blessed Virgin Mary in what is now Bolivia, known as Our Lady of Candles (also known as Our Lady of Copacabana), one of the most celebrated Marian images located at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.

Life

Origins and formation

Francisco Tito Yupanqui was born around the middle of the sixteenth century at Copacabana on Lake Titicaca. He belonged to the Aransaya community and was remembered as a descendant of Inca nobility. Dominican evangelization introduced his family and community to Catholic doctrine in a region already sacred within Andean religious geography. Local disagreement arose over whether the town's principal patronal image should represent Saint Sebastian or the Virgin of the Candelaria. Tito's desire to make an image of Mary grew within that contest and within his baptismal faith. His Indigenous identity was not an incidental biographical label: knowledge of local people, materials, artistic conventions, and communal loyalties shaped both the opposition he faced and the religious reception his work eventually achieved.

Vocation and ministry

Tito's first clay image was judged technically inadequate and removed from the church. Rather than abandon the project, he traveled to Potosí and other centers to learn sculpture, studied an image of the Virgin at Santo Domingo, and worked through repeated failures. He carved a figure from maguey wood and prepared it with cloth, plaster, color, and gold. Ecclesiastical examination eventually permitted the image, and it was enthroned at Copacabana on 2 February 1583. Tito did not retain the image as private property; he understood the work as service to the Mother of God and his people. Tradition remembers subsequent travel and religious art before his death around 1616. Exact details of his later years remain subjects for the historical commission and should not be filled with confident legend.

Christian witness and legacy

Spirituality

Perseverance, Marian faith, humility under criticism, craft as vocation, and a desire to bring neighbors to Christ are the clearest elements of Tito's spiritual witness. Catholic reverence for Our Lady of Copacabana is directed through the image to the Blessed Virgin Mary and ultimately to God; the carved object is neither a goddess nor an independent source of power. At the same time, the image's Indigenous maker and Andean visual setting helped the Gospel take local cultural form. Inculturation does not baptize every pre-Christian belief without discernment, nor does evangelization require cultural annihilation. Tito's life stands at that demanding intersection and merits both faithful Catholic interpretation and careful historical study.

Work and historical significance

The enthroned image became the center of the Basilica and Sanctuary of Our Lady of Copacabana, attracting pilgrims from Bolivia, Peru, and the wider continent. The devotion helped reconcile local factions and gave Bolivian Catholicism an icon made by an Indigenous artist rather than imported from Europe. Later coronation and national patronage belong to the history of the image, not personal honors conferred on Tito. His legacy also reaches art history, pilgrimage, catechesis, and the agency of Indigenous Catholics in the first generations after conquest.

Cause and veneration

Recognition and present status

The competent Bolivian Church formally opened Francisco Tito Yupanqui's cause of beatification and canonization at the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana on 21 May 2011. A historical commission was charged with clarifying his biography, writings or attributed records, virtues, reputation for holiness, and continuing devotion. His exact current title is Servant of God Francisco Tito Yupanqui. The title means that a canonical cause has begun; it is not a judgment of heroic virtue, martyrdom, beatification, or canonization. The uncertain dates in his sixteenth-century record remain openly approximate while the cause proceeds and should not be converted into false precision.

Liturgical and devotional scope

Servant of God Francisco Tito Yupanqui has no authorized public liturgical cult or feast. The approved cult of Our Lady of Copacabana and the liturgical celebration of the Blessed Virgin under that title do not transfer automatically to the sculptor of the image. Tito has no memorial on the General Roman Calendar or an approved proper calendar by reason of the opened cause. Catholics may privately ask his intercession, promote historically responsible knowledge of his life, and send evidence of favors to the competent postulation. Public presentation must avoid halos, relic honors, or liturgical language that anticipates a judgment the Church has not made.

Background

Yupanqui was born in Copacabana of Tola and Francisco Tito Yupanqui Sr. His family was Anansayas, or descendants of Quechua people who relocated to Copacabana with the Inca. He came from a family recently converted to Roman Catholicism by the Dominican priests but like many of the time, retained some of the Aymara religious beliefs.

Our Lady of Copacabana

Under the influence of the Dominicans, Yupanqui's monotheistic beliefs increased while studying religion, and he started admiring the works of European religious art. Legend has it that one night, a beautiful woman carrying in her arms a child appeared in the fourth month of the Indian calendar and was charged with the task of making the image. This image later became known as Nuestra Senora de Virgen de la Candelaria or Our Virgin Lady of the Candles. Father Antonio Montoro, who was the presiding parish priest at the time insisted that the image of the virgin be likened to European faces, but Yupanqui insisted that the face of the statue be likened to the native people of Bolivia.

Later art career

Later in his life, Yupanqui created three other replicas of his famed Marian image and sent them to three different places. One statue resides in Cocharcas, Peru while another is located in Pucarani, Bolivia and yet another one was sent to Tucumán in northern Argentina. The sculpture Our Lady of Cocharcas is attributed to him.

Veneration

Yupanqui died in 1616 in the monastery of Oblates of the Order of Saint Augustine in Cusco, Bolivia.

The statue Yupanqui made was crowned Queen of Bolivia on August 1, 1925 by the Republic of Bolivia, as accorded with national honors by the centenary of the country, with the participation of President Bautista Saavedra, officiating Archbishop Augusto Sieffert in a solemn High Mass and religious ceremony, along with Monsignor Gaetano Cicognani, the Apostolic Nuncio to Bolivia sent by Pope Pius XI.

In 2011, the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference of Bolivia petitioned the Holy See to beatify Yupanqui as the first person of Bolivia.