9. The Society Girl Who Married a Priest
Camila O’Gorman (1828 – 1848) was a wealthy Argentinean socialite, who carried on a romantic relationship with a Roman Catholic priest, that scandalized Argentina. A pillar of polite society, Camila was close friends with the daughter of Juan Manuel Rosas, the country’s dictator. When Camila was introduced to a Jesuit priest, Ladislao Guiterrez, something clicked, and in 1847, the duo began an affair. They eventually fled to a small provincial town, where they posed as a married couple, living as husband and wife, and launching the town’s first school.
The scandal soon took on political tones, when the dictator’s opponents used it as an example of the moral decay under Rosas – a notorious womanizer. Camila and Ladislao were eventually tracked down, kidnapped, and returned to Buenos Aires. The dictator himself signed a decree to execute the lovers. Accordingly, on August 18th, 1848, Camila O’Gorman and Father Ladislao Gutierrez were shot by a firing squad. She was twenty years old, and 8 months pregnant. As a last gesture of Christian charity, she was given holy water to drink, so her baby would go to heaven.
