Chapter VI: Mexico (4)

The political functions assumed by the Inquisition become especially manifest in its trials of the two chief martyrs of the war of independence--Hidalgo and Morelos. The former of these, Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, the parish priest of los Dolores, who first raised the standard of revolt, in conjunction with Allende, Aldama and Abasolo, and who was elected generalissimo of the insurgent army, was a singularly interesting character.[535] Born in 1753, he received his education at the royal university of San Nicolás at Mechoacan, where he became rector and theological professor. In the formal accusation during his trial it is asserted that he was known while there as _el zorro_, or the fox, on account of his cunning, and that he was finally expelled because of a scandalous adventure, in the course of which he was obliged to escape at night through a window of the chapel. Taking orders, he finally settled as _cura_ at los Dolores where, in spite of a large revenue, he encumbered himself with debts. He loved music and dancing and gaming and his relations with women were of a character common enough with the clergy of the period. His abounding energy led him to establish potteries and to introduce silk-culture, which may doubtless account for his indebtedness. He was regarded as a prodigy of learning and kept up his intellectual pursuits, translating tragedies of Racine and comedies of Molière, the latter of which he caused to be acted in his house, his favorite being Tartufe. The priest, García de Carrasqueda, who enjoyed his intimacy for twelve or thirteen years, when on trial by the Inquisition, deposed that they used to read together Cicero, Serri, Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History, Rollings Ancient History and an Italian work on commerce by Genovesi and that he praised highly the orations of Æschines and Demosthenes, Bossuet, Buffon’s Natural History, Pitavak’s Causes Célèbres and various historical works. He was fond of debating questionable points in theology, emitting opinions not wholly orthodox on such subjects as the stigmata of St. Francis, the House of Loreto, the Veronica, whether St. Didymas or Gestas was the penitent thief, the inheritance of original sin, the identity of the three kings and the like, while his high reputation for learning caused him to be regarded as an authority. Altogether he presents himself to us as a man of unusual physical and intellectual energy, not over nice as to the employment of those energies, of wide culture, of vigorous and enquiring mind and of small reverence for formulas or for authority.

Such a character was not likely to escape the attention of the Holy Office. On July 16, 1800, Fray Joaquin Huesca, a teacher of philosophy in the Order of Merced, denounced him to the commissioner of Mechoacan for various unorthodox utterances, at which Fray Manuel Estrada, of the same Order, had been present, and Estrada, on being summoned, confirmed and amplified the accusation. In transmitting these depositions to the tribunal, July 19th, the commissioner reported that Hidalgo was a most learned man, who had ruined himself with gambling and women, that he read prohibited books and, while professor of theology, had taught from Jansenist works. The tribunal necessarily started an investigation, which lasted for more than a year and included the testimony of some thirteen witnesses, resulting in proof of a wide variety of most heretical utterances, any one of which, if pertinaciously maintained, would have sufficed to consign him to the stake. Moreover, he was described as revolutionary in his tendencies, speaking of monarchs as tyrants and cherishing aspirations for liberty; he was well-read in current French literature and had little respect for the censorship--in short he was what was subsequently termed an _afrancesado_. The commissioner of San Miguel el Grande reported, March 11, 1801, much about Hidalgo’s disorderly life and that he carried about with him an Alcoran but, in a second report of April 13th, he stated that in the recent Easter, Hidalgo had reformed, a matter which was widely discussed and seems to have aroused general attention. In due time, on October 2, 1801, the fiscal reported on this accumulated testimony that, if Hidalgo had uttered the propositions ascribed to him, he should be arrested with sequestration of property, but the witnesses were contradictory and Estrada had the reputation of an habitual liar. He therefore recommended that the case be suspended and the papers be filed for future reference, to which the tribunal assented.

The case rested until July 22, 1807, when a priest named José María Castilblane came forward to say that, in 1801, Estrada had told him scandalous and heretical things about Hidalgo. More serious was a denunciation made, May 4, 1808, by María Manuela Herrera, described as a woman of good character who frequented the sacraments. By command of her confessor she deposed that she had once lived with Hidalgo as his concubine, when he told her that Christ had not died on the cross, but that it was another man; also that there was no hell--this latter she supposed being to quiet her conscience, as they had an agreement that she was to provide him with women and he was to provide her with men. This was again laid before the fiscal who reported, June 8th, in favor of awaiting further proof. Then, on March 15, 1809, Fray Diego Manuel Bringas deposed that he had found Hidalgo in possession of prohibited books, such as Serry’s History of the Congregations _De Auxiliis_, under his own name and that of Augustin Leblanc, also his Dissertations on Christ and the Virgin, in which he speaks without measure of María de Agreda; that Hidalgo praised this work and called María a deluded old woman.[536] Still, with singular moderation, no action was taken to restrain Hidalgo’s audacity and, had he been content to let politics alone, it is safe to say that the Inquisition would not have troubled him, so inert had it become in the exercise of its ostensible functions.

When, however, he started the revolution, September 16, 1810, this lethargy gave place to the utmost activity. The official Gazette of September 28th asserted that he was disseminating among the people the doctrine that there is neither hell, purgatory nor glory; an extract from this was sent to the commissioner at Querétaro, with instructions to obtain its verification, which he had no trouble in doing, although the evidence was hearsay. Without awaiting this, however, the testimony which had been so long slumbering in the _secreto_ was laid before _calificadores_, October 9th, with orders to report at once. This they did the next day, to the effect that, as he was a sectary of French liberty, they pronounced him a libertine, seditious, schismatic, a formal heretic, a Judaizer, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, and strongly suspect of atheism and materialism. The same day the tribunal resolved that, as he was surrounded by his army of insurgents and could not be arrested, he should be summoned by edict to appear within thirty days. On the 13th the edict was printed, on the 14th it was posted in the churches and was circulated as rapidly as possible throughout the land.

The edict is a singular medley of politics and religion, illustrating the dual character of the Inquisition of the period and the enormous advantage to the Government of possessing control over the ecclesiastical establishment, whereby an attack on the civil power could be made to assume the appearance of an assault on the faith. All the heretical utterances, discredited nine years before by the action of the tribunal, are put forward as absolute facts. It is impiety that has led him to raise the standard of revolt and to seduce numbers of unhappy dupes to follow him. In the inability to reach him personally, he is summoned, under pain of excommunication, to appear for trial within thirty days, in default of which he will be prosecuted _in rebeldía_ to definitive sentence and burning in effigy if necessary. All who support him or have converse with him and all those who do not denounce those who favor his revolutionary projects are declared guilty of the crime of fautorship of heresy and subject to the penalties decreed for it by the canons. When to this are added the proclamations of excommunication issued against the insurgents by the Archbishop of Mexico and the bishops of the disturbed districts, it will be seen how powerful was the restraining influence exercised by the Church over a population trained to submission, and how intense were the passions that braved its anathema.[537]

In fact, the hatred of the creoles and the Indians for the _Gachupines_, or Spaniards, was so bitter that four-fifths of the native clergy espoused the cause of the insurgents, in spite of the censures of the Church, and questions of faith became inextricably involved in the contest between the factions. To the loyalists, Hidalgo became a heretic or indeed a heresiarch, and the confessional was so largely used by them that the insurgents became guilty of a new heresy, by asserting that confession to a Gachupin priest was invalid. They found great comfort, moreover, through their belief in the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who was universally revered, and especially by the Indians, as the sovereign patroness of Mexico. On the fateful 16th of September, when Hidalgo was marching on San Miguel el Grande at the head of his little band of insurgents, in passing through Atolonila, he chanced to take an image on linen of the Guadalupe Virgin and give it to one of his men to carry as a banner. It was adopted by the other bands as they rose and it became the standard of the insurrection, usually accompanied with an image of Fernando VII and of the eagle of Mexico, and the inscription “_Viva nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! Viva Fernando VII! Viva la America y muere el mal gobierno!_” Second in rank as a tutelary power of the insurrection was Our Lady of Puebla and against these the loyalists pitted a new-comer, Our Lady of los Remedios, who was denounced as a Gachupina by the natives. There is a subject of study for the student of mythology in this modernization of the triform Hecate and in the revival of Homeric divinities presiding over the two sides of the battlefield.

The Inquisition labored earnestly to get evidence of sacrilegious acts on the part of the insurgents and, as they were beaten back, it had its emissaries in the territory from which they had been driven, collecting testimony as to individuals who had sympathized with them or had opposed the posting of its edict. The most active of these was Fray Simon de la Mora, who accompanied the royal army in its advance. He reported that it was useless to attempt to enumerate the common people, but he sent the names of fifty-nine persons of standing, many of them ecclesiastics, with the evidence against them, and the notes on the margin of the MS. show that they were forthwith entered for prosecution.

The edict was duly posted in the towns occupied by the army but, in the course of a night or two, it was generally torn down or defaced with paint, in spite of the heavy penalties incurred for thus impeding the Inquisition. Hidalgo felt it necessary to issue a manifesto in defence, protesting that he had never departed from the faith and pointing out the contradictory character of the heresies imputed to him. To this the Inquisition replied with another edict, January 26, 1811, reiterating its charges, stigmatizing him as a cruel atheist and prohibiting certain proclamations issued by the insurgents.[538]

Meanwhile his trial, _in absentia_, was proceeding through its several stages as deliberately as though he were an ordinary heretic in time of peace. On November 24, 1810, the tribunal declared that, having evidence that, on October 27th, he had knowledge of the edict, the thirty days’ term should run from October 28th. On November 28th, therefore, the fiscal demanded that he should be treated as _rebelde_, or contumacious, and that ten days, as usual, should be allowed him to appear in person. The prescribed three terms of ten days each, with two days additional, were scrupulously observed. Then further delay followed and it was not until February 7, 1811, that the formal trial began with the presentation by the fiscal of the accusation. This was in the ordinary form, reciting that Hidalgo was a Christian, baptized and confirmed, and as such enjoying the privileges and exemptions accorded to good Catholics, “yet had he left the bosom of holy Church for the filthy, impure and abominable faith of the heretic Gnostics, Sergius, Berengar, Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Nestorius, Marcion, Socinus, the Ebionites, Lutherans, Calvinists and other pestilential writers, Deists, Materialists and Atheists, whose works he has read and endeavored to revive and to persuade his sect to adopt their errors and heresies, believing wrongly, like them, as to various articles and dogmas of our holy religion and revolutionizing the whole bishoprics of Mechoacan and Guadalajara and great part of the arch-diocese of Mexico, being moreover the chief cause of the great abominations and sins, which have been and still are committed. All this and more, which I shall set forth, constitute him a formal heretic, apostate from our holy religion, an atheist, materialist and deist, a libertine, seditious, schismatic, Judaizer, Lutheran and Calvinist, guilty of divine and human high treason, a blasphemer, an implacable enemy of Christianity and the State, a wicked seducer, lascivious, hypocrite, a cunning traitor to king and country, pertinacious, contumacious and rebellious to the Holy Office, of all of which I accuse him in general and in particular.” The fiscal then proceeds to recite the evidence taken since 1800, followed by a long statement of Hidalgo’s share in the insurrection and winding up with the customary petition that, without requiring further proof, the accused shall be condemned to confiscation and relaxation, in person if he can be had and, if not, in effigy; or, if the evidence be deemed insufficient, he shall be tortured if attainable.

The inquisitors received the accusation and gravely ordered, according to form, that a copy be given to Hidalgo and, in view of his contumacious absence, that due notification be made in the halls, which was accordingly done and record made. Then, on February 19th, the fiscal accused the contumacy of the absent and fugitive Hidalgo in not answering and asked that the case be concluded and received to proof. The inquisitors assented and the proof was presented. May 20th, the fiscal demanded the publication of evidence, which was duly ordered to be made, with the ordinary suppression of their names. A large portion of this consisted of evidence taken during the insurrection, showing acts of sacrilege, contempt for the Inquisition and its edicts and the like, on the part of Hidalgo and his followers. A copy of this was ordered to be given to him and that he answer it in the next audience, of which announcement was made in the halls and duly recorded. It was not until June 14th that the next step was taken, in ordering a copy of both accusation and testimony to be given to him and that by the third day he put in his answer, with the assent of his advocate, an advocate being provided for him in the person of the Licenciado José María Rosas. Then another witness was found in the priest García de Carrasquedo, a prisoner on trial, to whom allusion has been made above. His evidence was taken June 21st and, on the 27th, was submitted to calificadores who, on August 12th, presented a long and learnedly argumentative report, in which they characterized the several propositions with the customary choice selection of objurgatory epithets, as _falsa_, _impia_, _temeraria_, _blasfema_, _malsonante_, _sapiens hæresim_, _llena de escandalo_, _erronea_, _sapiens errorem Lutheranorum_, _Judaica y formalmente hæretica_, _injuriosa al espiritú de la S. M. Iglesia_, and they concluded that, if he who uttered them did so with full knowledge of their import, he was a formal heretic. This was practically the last act of the long drawn-out comedy, although some additional testimony concerning Hidalgo was taken and recorded, February 10 and 20, 1812, in the trial of the habitual liar, Fray Manuel Estrada. Events had moved faster than the Inquisition. After the disastrous day of the Bridge of Calderon, Hidalgo in his flight had been captured, March 21, 1811, at Bajan, and carried two hundred leagues farther north to Chihuahua, where he was executed, July 31st, before the calificadores had finished their formulation of his heresies. No notice of this was given to the Inquisition, which was treated with a singular discourtesy, savoring of contempt. The explanation of this probably is that, if it had been apprised of the capture, it could rightly have claimed the prisoner as a heretic, primarily subject to its supreme and exclusive jurisdiction; there might have been danger in escorting him back through the recently disturbed provinces; the processes of the Inquisition were notoriously slow and, after it had tried the culprit and he had abjured and been penanced in an auto de fe, he would still have to be condemned in a military court. It was in every way wiser to try him and despatch him in far-off Chihuahua, and the local military and ecclesiastical authorities coöperated to this result, leaving the Inquisition to find out what it could, and not even forwarding a supplication which Hidalgo addressed to it, on June 10th.

The tribunal waited patiently for eleven months after the catastrophe and then, on June 25, 1812, it wrote, with much solemnity, to its two commissioners in Chihuahua, reminding them that the edict of October 13, 1810, rendered it their duty to keep it advised of the capture of Hidalgo and of all subsequent occurrences. They should have gone to him in prison and exhorted him to make a declaration on all points contained in the edict and whatever else weighed upon his conscience. All signs of repentance should have been observed and reported, and at least his confession to his judges, in so far as the Inquisition was concerned, should have been sent to it. The alcaide, the ecclesiastics and the military officers must now be examined as to his state of mind during his imprisonment, so that the tribunal may be informed as to his repentance or impenitence and thus be enabled to render justice. The two commissioners are to work in harmony, with power of subdelegation, and they are made responsible, before God and the king, for the due discharge of their duties.

The Holy Office evidently took itself seriously and considered that judgement as to Hidalgo’s heresies still lay in its hands. There must have been a flush of indignation and wounded pride when, on January 2, 1813, the inquisitors received from Sánchez Alvarez, one of the commissioners, an answer dated October 27, 1812, reporting that he had applied to Nemesio Salcedo, the commandant-general, who had ordered him to suspend all action and that he, Salcedo, would explain the absolute necessity for this. The tribunal had to wait until February 27th before it received Salcedo’s explanation, dated October 22d, showing how its supreme jurisdiction had been overslaughed with as little ceremony as that of a pie-powder court. With profuse expressions of respect, Salcedo stated that the peace and prosperity of the provinces required that the matter should not be agitated. Hidalgo was not a heretic and would not have been permitted to receive the sacraments and ecclesiastical burial, had he not been duly absolved and reconciled to the Church. A royal order, he said, of May 12, 1810, had conveyed papal inquisitorial faculties to the bishops, and the Bishop of Durango had subdelegated Doctor Francisco Fernández Valetin, the doctoral canon of his church, thus constituting him a papal inquisitor.[539] To him, as such, were communicated the answers of Hidalgo on his trial, who ratified them in his presence; he also verified the manifesto of Hidalgo, which was published, and he absolved him. In addition he saw the supplication of Hidalgo to the Inquisition, which would have been forwarded sooner but for the danger of its being intercepted and which was now enclosed, together with the other necessary papers. These were extracts from Hidalgo’s examination, his manifesto to the insurgents and the supplication in question.

It was somewhat brutal to have kept the tribunal so long in the dark on a matter touching its highest privilege and to have detained for sixteen months, on a frivolous pretext, a supplication addressed directly to it, but its position was becoming precarious and it dared not complain. Napoleon’s suppression of the Inquisition of Spain, in 1808, did not count for much, but the Córtes of Cádiz had enacted a liberal Constitution in 1812 and simultaneously the preliminary skirmishing for the abrogation of the Inquisition preoccupied all minds. It was enacted February 22, 1813, and, though the news had not as yet reached Mexico, the result could scarce have been doubted when the tribunal took action on March 13th. It evidently placed no faith in the story of a papal inquisitor, suddenly created in the wilds of Chihuahua, for it wholly ignored his action. The fiscal reported to the tribunal that, in spite of Hidalgo’s supplication for pardon and endeavors to satisfy the charges against him, there were not merits enough to absolve his memory and fame nor, at the same time, to condemn him, as it appeared that he had made a general confession and had been reconciled, whereupon the tribunal ordered the case to be suspended and the papers to be filed in their proper place--an expression of dissatisfaction and an admission of powerlessness. On March 29th it acknowledged Salcedo’s letter and drily thanked him.

Hidalgo’s supplication to the Inquisition, written in his prison on June 10, 1811, is a long and dignified declaration of submission, calmly and clearly reasoned and manifesting full command of his theological learning. But for his confinement, he said, he would hasten to throw himself at the feet of the tribunal, not only to seek pardon for his insubordination, but to vindicate himself from the charge of heresy and apostasy, which was insufferable to him. He answered the various accusations of the edict, denying that he had led an immoral life and exculpating himself with much dexterity from the heresies imputed to him, but if, he added, the Inquisition deemed his utterances heretical, although he had not hitherto so considered them, he now retracted, abjured and detested them. He concluded by begging to be relieved from the disgrace of heresy and apostasy; the tribunal could repose entire faith in his statements for, if he had committed those crimes, the circumstances in which he now found himself would impel him to confess them freely, in order to gain the pardon and absolution that would open to him the gates of heaven and would close them, if withheld, in consequence of his denial.

The frame of mind revealed in this document, which is unquestionably genuine, serves to refute the imputation of forgery so generally ascribed to Hidalgo’s manifesto of May 18th, addressed “A Todo el Mundo” and published in order to quiet the population. Its effusiveness and extravagance of repentance, and the earnestness of its exhortations to his followers to submit, have not unnaturally created suspicion, from their violent contrast to the deep convictions and reckless energy with which he precipitated and sustained the insurrection, but it can be accepted as authentic without impugning his good faith. He was impulsive and enthusiastic and was liable to the revulsions incident to his temperament. His cause had been disowned by God; he had been captured as a fugitive within a few months after he had been at the head of eighty thousand men. The grave was yawning for him, as the portal to the hereafter, in which there was, in his belief, no escape from eternal torment for one who died as a rebel to the Church. He was a fervent Catholic, whose excommunication cut him off from the sacraments essential to salvation, unless he could prove himself worthy of them by earnest repentance and by the amendment which could only be manifested through zeal in undoing that which had brought upon him the anathema. That under such pressure he should seek to avert the endless doom by heart-felt contrition was natural, however strange it may seem to those brought up in a different faith, who can sympathize with his aspirations for liberty but cannot realize the emotions enkindled by his religious convictions.

* * * * *

The decree of the Córtes of Cádiz, February 22, 1813, suppressing the Inquisition was published in Mexico June 8th. Under it the property of the tribunal was applicable to the treasury for the reduction of the public debt and was forthwith sequestrated; there were no prisoners, the few political ones having been transferred to various convents some days in advance. We have an authentic account of the transaction, made December 20, 1814, after the Restoration, by the alcaide of the secret prison. He says that the decree had been eagerly expected; the tribunal and its ministers were regarded with contempt and its privileges were set at defiance. Immediately after the publication, Viceroy Calleja announced to the senior inquisitor the cessation of its functions; the next day the official commissioned for the purpose came to take possession and commenced an inventory. The building was thrown open to gaping crowds, who gave free vent to their detestation of the institution. On the 11th, the money in the chest was removed; the records concerning the faith were delivered to the Archbishop Bergosa y Jordan, while the papers connected with property were taken by the Intendente of the Government, who confided them to the writer and allotted to him offices in which to keep them. In the Inquisition building was established the lottery, and the adjacent houses of the inquisitors served to lodge its officials, while the main building was used as a barracks and the prisons were turned into shops for tailors, shoemakers and other workers for the army. The total amount sequestrated was 1,775,656 pesos, 5-1/2 reales, consisting of--

Money in the coffers 66,566 pesos, 2-1/2 reales. Capital invested 1,394,628 “ 1-1/2 “ Due on income of censos 181,482 “ 1.7 gr. Fifteen rented houses 125,000 “ Furniture, etc., sold at auction, July 19 8,000 “ --------- ----- 1,775,676 “ 5-1/2 reales.

The alcaide proceeds to give us details as to the organization and finances of the tribunal. Besides the inquisitors and fiscal there were seven secretaries, a messenger, a treasurer, a contador, a purveyor of the prison, an alcaide and his assistant, a notary of the sequestrations, two officials of the _secreto_, an advocate of the fisc and an advocate of prisoners--a largely superfluous force for the trivial work to be performed. The pay-rolls amounted to 33,000 pesos per annum, the subvention to the Suprema was 10,000, and the expenditure for maintaining prisoners, repairs, church functions, etc., brought the annual outlay to 55,000 or 60,000, while the income was 85,000, to which was added 32,000 from the canonries, amounting in all to 117,000--about double the expenses, showing how profitable had proved the purification of the faith.[540]

On August 31st the archbishop reported to the Government that the decree of suppression had been read in the cathedral on the three Sundays following its receipt. The sanbenitos were at once removed from the places where they were hung; the Prior of the Hospital of San José asked for them to clothe the insane, but the viceroy took them for the troops. The Archbishop requested to have the prohibited books, which were stored in four rooms of his palace, and they were given to him. He was an old inquisitor and lost no time in assuming the jurisdiction over heresy restored to the episcopate by the decree of suppression. As early as June 10th, he issued a pastoral ordering denunciation to him of all persons suspect of heresy and, on September 27th, he published another calling for the surrender of all prohibited books by those who did not hold licences.[541]

The decree of suppression provided for the continued salaries of the officials and after this the two senior inquisitors disappear--Bernardo de Prado y Obejero and Isidoro Sainz de Alfaro y Beaumont--probably returning to Spain, where refugees from the American tribunals were taken care of. The junior, Manuel de Flores, remained and was ready to resume his functions whenever the “suspension,” as he called it, was removed. His foresight was speedily rewarded, for one of the first acts of Fernando VII on his restoration was the decree of May 4, 1814, abrogating the Constitution of Cádiz, declaring invalid all laws enacted under it and even menacing with the death-penalty all who should keep copies of them. This of itself virtually revived the Inquisition, but legislation was required to reorganize it and this was effected by a decree of July 21.[542] Inquisitor Flores had not waited for this, as we find that he had already for some time been gathering evidence against Manuel Abad y Queipo, Bishop-elect of Mechoacan, which he transmitted, August 31st, to the Suprema for its action.[543]

It was not until December 23d that Viceroy Calleja notified him to re-establish the tribunal, in execution of the royal decree of July 21st; this he followed on January 4, 1815, with a proclamation embodying the decree and announcing that the tribunal had been restored to its jurisdiction and that its property had been returned to it. The archbishop also issued a pastoral requiring all denunciations to be made to it and Flores, on January 21st, published an Edict of Faith ordering the denunciation, within six days, of all heresies, prohibited books and all words of disrespect towards the Holy Office that might subsequently be uttered.[544] The tribunal however, was in a sadly dilapidated condition. The alcaide in a letter of December 30, 1814, reports that the restoration of property consisted in the written securities and the real estate, but only 773 pesos of the money had been returned. Notice had been given that the fruits of the canonries and interest on the censos were to be paid as formerly to the tribunal. The purchaser of the furniture, which had been sold at auction in July, was nominally a merchant but in reality the Count of la Cortina, from whom they were endeavoring to get it back at the price which it had brought, but much had been resold; the building had to be refitted for their use and altogether they were in great distress.[545] To add to their troubles, the tribunal was so thoroughly discredited that its jurisdiction was invaded on all sides in a manner indicating the contempt in which it was held. Viceroy Calleja issued a proclamation condemning to the flames the Constitution adopted by the insurgents October 22, 1814, at Apatzingan, together with various of their sermons, addresses, etc., and ordering them to be denounced to him under pain of death. Then, on May 24, 1815, he sent a copy of this to the tribunal, inviting it to take action and use all rigor for their suppression. This provoked the liveliest resentment of Flores who complained bitterly to the Suprema, June 29th, of the intrusion on his jurisdiction and of the discourtesy manifested in not previously submitting to him the offending papers. He also enlarged on the harshness with which the decree of suppression had been enforced in 1813 and of the imperfect restitution of property which Calleja had publicly asserted to have been made. He had also endeavored to compel the officials to render military service, but this had been successfully resisted. In spite of all this indignation, however, the insurgent documents were duly censured by the calificadores and, on July 9th, Flores issued an edict condemning them and specifying their errors. The chapter of the cathedral (_sede vacante_) had also on May 26th published an edict requiring the surrender of these documents to it under pain of excommunication and threatening all priests and beneficiaries who should not exert themselves against the rebels. This was a palpable intrusion on inquisitorial jurisdiction which was deeply resented, and there was also a quarrel with the royal Audiencia which the tribunal accused of invading its jurisdiction and disregarding its _fueros_ in the matter of a pasquinade of which the Audiencia had taken cognizance.[546]

Under these circumstances it is easy to understand how eagerly Flores seized the opportunity of asserting himself afforded by the capture, November 15, 1815, of the insurgent chief José María Morelos, who shares with Hidalgo the foremost place in the Mexican Valhalla.[547]

Born in 1764 of humble parents, he was an agricultural laborer up to the age of 25, when he returned to his native Mechoacan and applied himself to the study of grammar, philosophy and morals. Entering the Church, he took full orders and, after serving temporarily the cure of Choromuco, he obtained that of Caraguaro, which was under the rectorship of Hidalgo. It must have been a slender benefice for, in his examination, he explained his not having taken the indulgence of the Santa Cruzada by the plea that before the insurrection he was too poor to pay for it and afterwards the insurgents regarded it as invalid and as merely a device to raise money for the war against them. His morals were those of his class; he admitted to having three children, born of different mothers during his priesthood, but he added that his habits, though not edifying, had not been scandalous, and the tribunal seemed to think so, for little attention was paid to this during his trial and, in the _calificacion_ which preceded his sentence, it is not even alluded to. He joined Hidalgo, October 28, 1810, and must have quickly distinguished himself, for that chief gave him a commission to raise the Pacific coast provinces and, after the rout of the Bridge of Calderon, the burden of maintaining the unequal war fell mainly on Morelos, who was raised successively to the grades of lieutenant-general and captain-general, with the title of Most Serene Highness.

Unlike Hidalgo, who was hurried off to Chihuahua, Morelos when captured was brought to the city of Mexico for trial and execution, arriving there on November 21st. He was carried to the Inquisition, not as its prisoner, but for safe-keeping “on deposit” and Flores, to preserve the secrecy of the Holy Office, made it a condition that the guard accompanying him should not go up stairs or penetrate beyond the first court-yard. It was not until 1.30 A.M. of the 22d that he was lodged in the secret prison, in a cell so dark that he could not read the breviary, which was given to him on his request. The 22d was occupied with an effort to get permission to try him--a competencia carried on in a spirit very different from the masterful audacity of old. Viceroy Calleja desired that Morelos should be degraded from the priesthood, within three days, by the episcopal jurisdiction, in order that his execution should be prompt, and testimony for that purpose was already being taken by the secular and spiritual courts acting in unison. Flores therefore had no time to lose in putting forward the claim of the tribunal, and the fiscal drew up an elaborate paper showing that there were points in the case which came within its jurisdiction. On the 23d a _consulta de fe_ was assembled, consisting of the episcopal Ordinary of Mechoacan, and the consultores of the Inquisition, which represented to the viceroy that, although Morelos was subject to both the secular and spiritual courts, it was persuaded that for other crimes he was justiciable by the Inquisition and that his trial by that tribunal would redound to the honor and glory of God as well as to the service of the State and the king and be efficacious in undeceiving the rebels. Moreover, it promised that the trial should be concluded within four days. Somewhat unwillingly, Calleja granted the request and no time was lost in commencing the most expeditious trial in the annals of the Holy Office--a grim enough comedy to gratify the vanity of the actors, for it could have no influence on the fate of the prisoner, save perhaps in removing the excommunication under which he inferentially lay. Flores, in boasting of this activity, adds that they were much embarrassed by Morelos being frequently taken from them for examination in the other courts, which indicates that the authorities regarded the Inquisition as merely a side-show.

Hurried as were the proceedings, there was due observance of all the formalities required by the cumbrous methods of the Holy Office. That same day, November 23d, the fiscal presented his _clamosa_, basing it on Morelos having signed the constitutional decree of November 22, 1814, as well as various proclamations condemned as heretical by the Inquisition;[548] also on his celebrating mass while under excommunication, and his reply to the Bishop of Puebla, when reproached for so doing, that it would be easier to get a dispensation after the war than to survive the guillotine; also on an edict of Bishop Abad y Queipo of Mechoacan, July 22, 1814, declaring him to be an excommunicated heretic. There was still time for a morning audience and the prisoner was brought before the tribunal, where he was subjected to the customary examination as to his genealogy and whole career, and the first monition was given to save his soul by confessing the truth. In the afternoon he had his second audience and monition. On the morning of the 24th came the third audience and monition, during which he admitted that, at Teypan, he had captured a package of the edicts against Hidalgo and had utilized them to make cartridges. The pompous formulas, urging him to discharge his conscience so that the Inquisition might show him its customary mercy, must have seemed a ghastly jest to a man who knew that his captors would shortly have him shot, and they contrast grotesquely with the feverish anxiety of the tribunal to have a share in the performance.

That same afternoon the fiscal presented the accusation and, considering the haste in which it was prepared, its long accumulation of rhetoric is creditable to the industry of the draughtsman. He describes Morelos as abandoning the Church for the filthy and abominable heresies of Hobbes, Helvetius, Voltaire, Luther and other pestilent writers, rendering him a formal heretic, an apostate from the holy faith, an atheist, materialist, deist, libertine, seditious, guilty of divine and human high treason, an implacable enemy of Christianity and the state, a vile seducer, hypocrite, traitor to king and country, cunning, lascivious, pertinacious and rebellious to the Holy Office. He shows how rebellion is heresy and all rebellious acts are directly or indirectly heretical. To Morelos, in the bottom of his heart, Christ and Belial are equal; he is even suspect of toleration and, as usual, the accusation concludes by asking for confiscation and relaxation. The remainder of the afternoon and the morning audience of the 25th were occupied with the defendant’s answers to the twenty-four articles of the accusation. From what he said it appears that insurgents claimed to be opposing the French domination in Spain, and that Ferdinand’s restoration in 1814 was largely disbelieved or was assumed to be only another phase of Napoleon’s supremacy, showing that Ferdinand could not be a sincere Catholic.

That same morning the publication of evidence was made, consisting wholly of documents, such as the Constitution of October 22, 1814, sundry proclamations signed by Morelos and his printed letter to the Bishop of Puebla, together with the letter of the Bishop of Mechoacan declaring him to be an excommunicated heretic. He was ordered to answer with the advice of his counsel and the three advocates of prisoners were named to him, of whom he selected Don José María Gutiérrez de Rosas. He was sent to his cell to be brought back directly for an interview with his counsel, who was sworn in as customary. There was no time to make copies of the papers, so the unusual course was adopted of entrusting the originals to Rosas, with instructions to return them and present the defence within three hours. In the afternoon he did so and the result showed him to be a ready writer, but he was more occupied in justifying himself for undertaking the defence than in making a plea for Morelos. He savagely denounced the insurrection and the Córtes of Cádiz, whose principles it represented, and he concluded abruptly with a few lines, alleging the repentance of the defendant, from which he hoped for absolution. The inquisitor thereupon ordered the fiscal to be notified and the case to be concluded.

The next morning, November 26th, Flores assembled his calificadores and exhibited to them the proceedings and the condemnations of the insurgent Constitution and proclamations. Fray Domingo Barreda opined that the accused savored of heresy, but the rest were unanimous that he was a formal heretic, who denied his guilt and was not only suspect of atheism but an atheist outright. In the afternoon was held the _consulta de fe_ to decide upon the sentence. Without a dissentient voice it agreed that a public auto should be held at 8 o’clock the next morning in the audience chamber, in the presence of a hundred prominent persons to be designated by Flores. That Morelos should there be declared guilty of malicious and pertinacious imperfect confession, a formal heretic who denied his guilt, a disturber and persecutor of the hierarchy and a profaner of the sacraments; that he was guilty of high treason, divine and human, pontifical and royal, and that he should be present at the mass in the guise of a penitent, in short cassock without collar or girdle and holding a green candle, which, as a heretic and fautor of heretics, he should offer to the priest. As a cruel persecutor of the Holy Office, his property should be confiscated to the king. Although deserving of degradation and relaxation, for the crimes subject to the Inquisition, yet, as he was ready to abjure he was, in the unlikely case of the viceroy sparing his life, condemned to perpetual banishment from America and from all royal residences and to imprisonment for life in the African presidios, with deprivation of all preferment and perpetual irregularity. His three children were declared subject to infamy and the legal disabilities of descendants of heretics. He was to abjure formally, and be absolved from the excommunications reserved to the Holy Office; he was to make a general confession and through life to recite the seven penitential psalms on Fridays and a part of the rosary on Saturdays. Moreover a tablet was to be hung in the cathedral, inscribed with his name and offences.[549]

The next morning, November 27th, as Flores reports, the auto was duly celebrated in the most imposing scene ever witnessed in the audience chamber, which was crowded with five hundred of the most important personages of the capital. The mass was followed by the impressive ceremony of degradation from the priesthood, performed by the Bishop of Oaxaca. Morelos was delivered to the royal judge and returned to the secret prison whence, at 1.30 of the following night, he was transferred to the citadel. Flores might proudly claim to have vindicated the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, at some sacrifice of its dignity, in the shortest trial of a formal heretic to be found in its records. The object of the indecent haste required by Calleja is scarce apparent, for Morelos was not executed until December 22d.

The tribunal continued to perform its functions. In 1817, the prosecution of Don José Xavier de Tribarren, for reading prohibited books, revealed that Don Cayetano Romero of Guetaria in Guipúzcoa was equally guilty, and the Suprema in Madrid forthwith ordered the tribunal of Logroño to take action against him.[550] The latest notable victim was Fray Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra. After holding him for some time in prison, the tribunal, in anticipation of its extinction, sent him to the viceroy as an important offender against the State, with a paper describing him as hating, from the bottom of his heart, the king, the Córtes and all legitimate government, and even as lacking respect for the Holy See and the councils of the Church, his dominant passion being revolutionary independence, which he had vigorously promoted in both North and South America, by his writings full of passion and venom.[551]

This useless prolongation of existence was soon to end. One of the first measures of the revolution of 1820, which restored the Constitution of 1812, was the royal decree of March 9th, suppressing the Inquisition. Before this reached Mexico officially, the Viceroy Count of Venadita had seen it in the _Gaceta de Madrid_ and had arranged for the extinction of the tribunal. The officials ceased their functions on May 31st; as before, they had transferred their political prisoners to the public prison and those for matters of faith to various convents, the archives were delivered to the custody of the archbishop and the officials hastened to find other homes. Then, on June 14th, the viceroy sent orders for compliance with the decree and, on the 16th, the Inquisitor Antonio de Pereda reported that the tribunal had ceased in all its functions and remained in a condition of absolute extinction. The papers of pending trials were distributed among the appropriate diocesans and the Intendente took possession of the property.[552] The officials straggled back to Spain, where they were provided for in common with those of the Peninsula. In the accounts of 1833 there still appear as in receipt of salaries the senior inquisitor, Antonio de Pereda, the secretaries Venancio de Pereda y Cassolla and José María Briergo, and the _nuncio y portero_, Tomás del Perojo.[553]

Thus forlorn and discredited passed away the tribunal which had in its prime cast terror over all the provinces between the two oceans, but the impression which it had produced did not disappear with it. In 1821 Don Celestino de la Torre reprinted a savage attack issued in Spain, under the title of “Memorial de la Santa Inquisicion,” which he says, in a prefatory note, is for the disillusionment of the _serviles_ who sigh for the restoration of the Holy Office. It is still more significant that, in the agitation caused, in 1833, by the effort of the Government to reduce the Church to acquiescence in the new order of things, there appeared a little anonymous tract entitled “Mientras no haya Inquisicion se acaba la Religion”--“Without the Inquisition, Religion is destroyed”--arguing that heresy can never be suppressed without the use of force; excommunication, censures and argument are of no avail and the faith of Christ can only be preserved by arming the bishops with all the powers and methods of the Inquisition and enforcing their penal sentences by the State. The bishops, in fact, were quite ready to assume its functions as far as they could for, as late as 1850, on the appearance of a translation of Féréal’s _Mystères de l’Inquisition_, with notes by Don Manuel de Cuendias, a diocesan _junta de censura_ was held which, without hearing the accused, passed a sentence of excommunication on the editor and on all who should read the book, all of which was publicly proclaimed by edict. This was based on a consulta presented to the junta by Doctor Sollano, who lamented the abolition of the Inquisition and proved satisfactorily that heresy merits the death-penalty.[554]

THE PHILIPPINES.

When Spain, in 1566, undertook the conquest of the Philippines, they were not erected into a separate government but were placed under the vice-royalty of New Spain or Mexico, with a governor or captain-general in command. When, in 1581, the bishopric of Manila was founded, it was suffragan to the archbishopric of Mexico and was not erected into a metropolitan see until 1595. The islands therefore were included in the district of the Mexican Inquisition, but they were too sparsely occupied by Europeans for the tribunal to think it necessary to establish an organization there. When, however, the first bishop, the Dominican Domingo de Salazar, reached his see in 1572, his zeal led him at once to establish an episcopal Inquisition with a fiscal and other officials, and the regular inquisitorial procedure; he soon found culprits and held a formal auto de fe, exercising his assumed authority with excessive severity. Don Francisco de Zuñiga, a youth of 20, in a discussion, had thoughtlessly declared fornication to be no sin; then on reflection he denounced himself, but notwithstanding this he was obliged to appear in an auto with a gag, and was banished for ten years, with a threat of two hundred lashes if he returned. Canon Francisco de Pareja, suspected of being one of the Alumbrados of Llerena, when arrested for solicitation, hanged himself in prison. Some of Salazar’s penitents on reaching Mexico complained to the tribunal and thus aroused its attention to this invasion of its jurisdiction, when it lost no time in vindicating its rights. March 1, 1583, it sent a commission as commissioner to the Augustinian Fray Francisco Manrique, a man of prominence in his Order, which was the most influential in the islands, and at the same time it notified Salazar that it had done so in consequence of his having assumed to act as inquisitor.[555]

Bishop Salazar, who was on the point of celebrating an auto de fe, was by no means disposed to abandon the authority which he had assumed. He refused to recognize the commission of Manrique and threatened with excommunication all who should do so. The Licenciado Juan Convergel Maldonado, who supported Manrique, was thrown into prison so harsh that he became insane, when Salazar sent him to Mexico, and Benito de Mendiola, who had served as Maldonado’s messenger, was likewise imprisoned. The traditional rivalry between the seculars and regulars and between the different Orders brought to the bishop ample support from the clergy, the Franciscans and the Jesuits--a high authority among the latter, Padre Alonso Sánchez, even declared that those who recognized the commissioner committed mortal sin. For six months Fray Manrique kept up the struggle and then abandoned it, writing to the tribunal, April 1, 1584, that, to avoid scandal he would do nothing more until it should have provided a competent remedy. The tribunal took prompt and effective steps. It wrote to Manila revoking all the acts of the bishop and to the Suprema, January 17, 1585, reciting the circumstances and pointing out the grave consequences that would follow when Salazar’s success should lead other bishops to follow his example. Through the Suprema it also addressed a letter to Philip II, who responded, May 26th, with a cédula to the bishop, telling him that he had invaded the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and ordering him to abstain from interfering in any way in affairs pertaining to it or with the duties of its commissioners. This was decisive but it was uncalled for. Salazar had already seen his error, had recognized Manrique and had handed over to him the papers in all the cases--seven in number--then pending before him. Thus the jurisdiction of the Mexican tribunal was permanently established over the islands, although subsequently there were one or two attempts made to organize an independent Inquisition there.[556]