In this role – though also with a grade of ambiguity - he featured as a protagonist in a few great works of Spanish Modernist literature of the early 20th century and became a mythical figure long before his own death.

Manuel Santa Cruz Loidi was descendant to Basque rural working-class families; generations of his ancestors were farmers living in the Oria river valley, in the Gipuzkoan county of Tolosa.

It is not clear where he was first educated; at some stage he was taken care of by his much older paternal cousin, a local priest Francisco Antonio Sasiain Santa Cruz (1812–1898); he taught the teenager Latin and apparently directed him towards the religious career.

[5] Indeed, in 1861 Manuel entered the seminary in Vitoria; during the first 3 years he was obtaining high grades and was rewarded with the meritissimus title; later his performance worsened, reportedly due to health problems.

[8] Following the death of the parish priest it was Santa Cruz who became his successor at an unspecified time in the late 1860s; he allegedly assumed his duties with frenetic energy and as a spiritual shepherd he tended to rigidity, himself adhering to an austere living pattern.

Since his father had served as a Carlist volunteer during the last civil war[9] and since legitimist sympathies prevailed among the rural Gipuzkoan folk,[10] it is likely that Manuel from his youth was growing in an ambience strongly flavored with Carlism.

[12] In line with the Traditionalist outlook Santa Cruz assumed a decisively hostile stand towards the 1868 revolution, from behind the pulpit lambasting the new regime as an ungodly, depraved system.

Initially, he joined a unit led by a Carlist veteran Pedro Recondo; serving as a chaplain, Santa Cruz was gaining experience in rural irregular tactics.

The detachment was rather loosely incorporated into the Carlist war effort; at early stages it was assigned a vague task of "guarding the Northern borderline" by the legitimist general staff, yet it seems that the unit retained great autonomy and operated independently.

However, in line with his guerilla strategy Santa Cruz avoided open confrontation against enemy forces; cases of accepting a battle usually resulted in defeat, e.g. in Aia.

[27] When facing enemy roundup Santa Cruz used to disband his group and to set re-assembly terms; taking advantage of perfect familiarity with the mountainous Gipuzkoan countryside and support of the local population, he kept evading the governmental chase.

[34] Claiming that during the shootout the defenders had mischievously displayed a white flag to fire at the approaching Carlists later on, Santa Cruz had his men execute 35 carabineros who had ultimately surrendered.

In late 1874 or early 1875 he found himself in the Jesuit college in Lille; thanks to support of the Cambrai archbishop René-François Régnier, Santa Cruz's plea for clemency was accepted in the Vatican and he was reinstated to regular religious duty,[43] abandoned during the wartime years.

In early 1876 he met his king Carlos VII in London but accounts differ;[46] according to some Santa Cruz defended his wartime record,[47] according to others he regretted his conduct and begged for mercy.

[53] His exact position in the religious structure is not clear; in documentation available he is listed as "clergyman";[54] until the early 1880s he is recorded usually as administering baptisms,[55] marriages[56] and especially funerals,[57] mostly though not exclusively in the location of King's Weston.

[70] The following year Colombia was torn by a Thousand Days’ War, with Pasto turned into a Conservative stronghold dominated by the personalities of Ezequiel Moreno Díaz and Pedro Schumacher, two hardline bishops.

[72] Following the ultimate Conservative victory in 1902 Santa Cruz founded the village of San Ignacio,[73] located in the Andes some 20 km north of Pasto in the county of Buesaco;[74] for the second time since the Hernialde spell he assumed the role of a parson.

[78] Santa Cruz retained his reactionary ultra-conservative outlook; during local electoral campaigns he used to instruct his flock how to dodge the corrupted election system and vote the candidates he considered right.

In 1880 he became one of the key protagonists of Vida, hechos y hazañas del famoso bandido y cabecilla Rosa Samaniego,[90] a short novel written by an unidentified author.

[97] In 1897 Santa Cruz appeared in Paz en la guerra by Miguel de Unamuno and for some 20 years he kept featuring in greatest works of Spanish literary Modernism.

[104] Whatever their intentions were, the noventayochistas and especially Baroja transformed a somewhat crude newspaper version of Santa Cruz into a powerful literary image enriched with diabolic and demonic features.

[116] Confrontational political milieu of the Republic helped the Carlists to re-claim Santa Cruz,[117] e.g. in poetry,[118] and upon outbreak of the civil war Traditionalist press linked military virtues of Requetés to these of El Cura.

[125] Youths from the progressist faction of Comunión Tradicionalista tried to re-claim El Cura, and in the early 1970s their terrorist organisation GAC declared that "the flag of Santa Cruz has been raised again".

Fundación Manuel Santa Cruz Loydi was set up to honor his work for the poor and to preserve his memory as exemplary missionary, who possibly bordered sanctity.