Miguel Ángel Gaitán
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Miguel Ángel Gaitán (July 9, 1966 – June 24, 1967), also known as El Angelito Milagroso (Spanish for "Miracle Child" — "angelito", which is a diminutive for ángel (angel), is a reference to his name) was an
Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
baby who died of meningitis, fifteen days before his first birthday.


History


Life

Miguelito was born in Banda Florida, on the banks of the
Bermejo River The Bermejo River (Spanish, Río Bermejo) is a river in South America that flows from Bolivia to the Paraguay River in Argentina. The river is generally called Bermejo in spite of its different names along its way, but it also has its own Native ...
, in
Villa Unión Villa Unión is a city in northwestern Argentina and the main settlement of Coronel Felipe Varela Department with a population of 12,263. Overview The city is strategically located in the heart of the Bermejo Valley, 1,153 meters above sea leve ...
, head of the Coronel Felipe Varela
department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of the province of
La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous community and province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, and N ...
, Argentina. He was the 12th son from Argentina Nery Olguín and Barnabas Gaitán (which had fifteen children, but only nine survived). Miguelito died on June 24, 1967, when he was urgently transported by an ambulance to
Chilecito Chilecito is a city in the Argentine province of La Rioja, and head of the department of Chilecito. Overview The city is located in the valley formed by the ''Sierras de Velazco'' to the east, and the ''Sierras de Famatina'' to the west. The c ...
.


Popular belief as a saint

His corpse remained remarkably well-preserved, as was discovered after a violent rainstorm in 1973, seven years after his death, which unearthed the baby's coffin. After four attempts to build tombs to shelter the coffin, which kept appearing collapsed the next day, the locals decided to keep the coffin out in the open. But then the coffin's lid kept being removed, and presuming those to be signs that he didn't want to be hidden, but rather seen by the people, his mother finally transferred the body to a coffin with a glass lid, on which he has stayed to the present day, revered by people from all Argentina which recurred to him for miracles as a
folk saint Folk saints are dead people or other spiritually powerful entities (such as indigenous spirits) venerated as saints, but not officially canonized. Since they are saints of the "folk", or the ''populus'', they are also called popular saints. Like o ...
. He eventually gained international fame, being covered by several newspapers, most notably the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''.


See also

* Religion in Argentina#Popular cults *
Difunta Correa The Deceased Correa (in Spanish La Difunta Correa) is a semi-Paganism, pagan folk saint, legendary figure in folk-religion, for which a number of people in Argentina and Chile, especially among the popular classes, feel a great devotion. It has ...


External links

*


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaitan, Miguel Angel 1966 births 1967 deaths Folk saints Argentine folklore Deaths from meningitis Infectious disease deaths in Argentina Neurological disease deaths in Argentina People from La Rioja Province, Argentina