AGREDA, Maria de, Venerable. — Mystic Clarissan, born Maria Coronel, on 2 April 1602 at Agreda (Burgos), died there on 24 May 1665. At the age of eight she took a vow of virginity, and at seventeen, together with her mother and a sister, she entered the convent of the Discalced Clarissines of the Immaculate Conception, founded by her ancestors, taking the name Maria di Gesù, while her father and two brothers donned the Franciscan habit. At the age of twenty-five, with papal dispensation, she was elected abbess; a dignity which she held, to the great spiritual and material advantage of the monastery, except for a three-year vacancy, until her death. Her cause of beatification was introduced on 21 June 1672.
She wrote various religious works, most of which remain unpublished: *Leyes de la Esposa*, *Conceptos y suspiros del corazón para alcanzar el ultimo y verdadero fin del agrado del Esposo y Señor*; *Meditaciones de la pasión de nuestro Señor*; *Ejercicios cotidianos y doctrina para hacer las obras con mayor perfeccion*; *Escala spiritual para subir a la perfeccion*.
The following were published posthumously: 1) *Cartas de la ven. madre sor Maria de A. y del señor Rey Felipe IV*, ed. F. Silvela, 2 vols., Madrid 1885-86. This correspondence (614 letters) with Philip IV lasted twenty-two years; it deals with ascetical, moral, and political matters, and is considered a model of epistolary literature for its classical elegance of style and as an excellent historical document. The removal of the Count-Duke of Olivares from the direction of government is attributed to the counsel of the Venerable. 2) *Mistica ciudad de Dios, historia divina y vida de la virgen madre de Dios*, etc., 3 vols., Madrid 1670; first Italian edition, Palermo 1703; new edition, with biography, edited by Bishop Ozcoidi y Udave, Barcelona 1914. It is this work by which the Venerable is chiefly remembered. Conceived in 1627, begun in 1637 by order of her spiritual director, it was definitively redacted between 1655 and 1660. After an account of creation, the author minutely, often prolixly, describes the life of the Blessed Virgin, asserting that she wrote under celestial command the revelations in which she had contemplated the perfections of the Mother of God.
Sbarale, citing Giovanni di s. Antonio, reviewed other published and unpublished works of the Venerable, most of which are considered apocryphal by many.
The disparity of opinions does not concern the truly holy life of A., but her principal work. The *Mistica ciudad de Dios*, published five years after the author’s death, with the approval of a commission presided over by the General of the Franciscans, who had it accompanied by a life of A. by Fr. Samaniego, an introductory dissertation (*Prologo galeato*), and explanatory notes, became the subject of countless controversies. Prohibited by decree of the Holy Office on 26 June 1681, which however was not extended to Spain at the request of King Charles II, and was lifted in 1747, it had as its most bitter opponents the Sorbonne (censured in 1696), Bousquet, and especially E. Amort (q.v.). In its favour spoke the Universities of Louvain, Alcalá, Salamanca, and Toulouse; in controversy with Amort, the Franciscans D. Gonzales Matheo, L. Maier, and D. Kich, and many other theologians. Objectively, although the *Mistica ciudad de Dios* contains historical, geographical, and chronological errors, which show that the work is not merely “revelations,” its high ascetical and mystical value must be acknowledged.
AGRÉMENT (agréation, gradimento). A term also used in ecclesiastical diplomacy for the benefit granted by a government to the posting of a diplomatic agent within its territory. Since no State is obliged to maintain diplomatic relations with others, still less is any State obliged to receive as a diplomatic agent a person who is not acceptable to II. The sending State, therefore, before proceeding to the appointment of a diplomatic agent, takes care to ascertain (demande d’agréation) whether the person it intends to send will be acceptable to the receiving State. This usage, generally observed as a norm of international courtesy, is also enshrined in art. 8, §1 of the Inter-American Convention of Havana on Diplomatic Agents. Cases of refusal of agrément are not infrequent (cf. K. Strupp, *Wörterbuch*, I, 244; F. H. Geffcken, in *Handbuch des Völkerrechts* by von Holtzendorff, III, pp. 632 ff.). The practice is generally followed only for heads of mission, and in the case of ordinary missions it is not applied to chargés d’affaires.
In the ecclesiastical sphere, the Holy See, through the Cardinal Secretary of State, requests agrément from governments for a new Apostolic Nuncio. Conversely, the government of a given State requests agrément from the Holy See for a new ambassador or minister it intends to accredit to the Holy See. The Holy See may pursue two different channels in requesting agrément: through the Apostolic Nunciature, entrusting the request either to the Apostolic Nuncio, who, although recalled, is still in post, or, if the Nuncio has already left, to the interim chargé d’affaires; or through the good offices of the diplomatic representative of that government at the Holy See, to which the new Nuncio is destined. Governments proceed in a similar manner when dealing with the Holy See regarding the presentation of a new diplomat. If, however, no diplomatic relations exist between the Holy See and a given government, the request for agrément is conducted directly between the Secretariat of State of His Holiness and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of that State. Ordinarily, agrément is not refused except for very serious reasons, which, however, the consulted government is not strictly bound to disclose.