Francisca del Espíritu Santo de Fuentes (1647 – August 24, 1711) was a Filipino Roman Catholic religious sister.

Clara in which one of the main witness was the Dominican Friar Jeronimo de Belen, seemed to have inspired the Order of Preachers to start their own monastery for Spanish women.

"[citation needed] Santa Clara Monastery, however, objected to another foundation identical to it on the grounds that public alms were insufficient to support two convents for women in the city.

The Franciscans with the Poor Clares appealed to the king who eventually sided with them in a decree dated 16 February 1635 commanding the Dominicans to desist from their plans.

After some deliberation, the founders of Santa Catalina determined in 1699 that, to begin with, five native women could be accommodated as "Sisters of obedience" (hermanas de la obediencia).

Although permitted to take simple vows, they were to be deprived of voting rights, barred from holding office, and charged with the menial tasks in the convent.

Paradoxically, had she lived longer, Mother Sebastiana, a native-who helped lay the beaterio's strong foundation and was the one who predicted there would be fifteen members-would not have qualified as a full member herself.

Perhaps she foresaw this paradox, too, but kept it to herself The initial beguinage experienced many complications, and was caught in jurisdictional conflicts between the archbishop and the Dominicans, financing issues and an unclear status.

[2] After seven years of existence, scandals began to mar the image of a few of the Spanish beatas who were admitted at the start of the eighteenth century.

On the other hand, the growing community, counting about twenty-four members in 1703, seven of whom were Filipina lay Sisters, had decided to build a bigger edifice to accommodate new applicants and helpers.

The situation stirred up legalistic issues regarding beaterios, which agitated canon and civil law experts no end, their opinions depending, not surprisingly, on which faction they belonged to.

Concluding that the Dominicans had been unable to maintain discipline among the beatas, Archbishop Camacho of Manila claimed jurisdiction over the institution and insisted on the practice of closure.

The Dominican provincial protested that the authority of the master general of their Order was sufficient to justify the existence of the beaterio and that it enjoyed prior exemption from the closure which was a later requirement of the Council of Trent.

In the beginning of 1704, the beatas chose to dissolve their community and live as a group of laywomen in exile at the College of Santa Potenciana whose premises were courteously offered by the governor.

It was in the same year that the Beaterio became a Convent School for Spanish girls, mestizas and natives, instructing them in the four R's: religion, reading, writing and arithmetic with music, embroidery, flower making, etc.

Years before, in his royal decree, August 9, 1589, Philip II instructed the Governor General: "it is advisable to remedy this...and I therefore commit upon your arrival at the islands, you shall set liberty all those Indians held as slaves by the Spaniards.