Juan de Palafox

From Hispanopedia
Blessed
Juan de Palafox y Mendoza
18th Viceroy of New Spain
In office
June 9, 1642 – November 23, 1642
MonarchPhilip IV
Preceded byDiego López Pacheco y Portugal
Succeeded byGarcía Sarmiento de Sotomayor
Bishop of Osma
In office
November 24, 1653 – October 1, 1659
Preceded byAntonio Valdés Herrera
Succeeded byNicolás de Madrid
Bishop of Tlaxcala (Puebla de los Ángeles)
In office
June 28, 1640 – November 24, 1653
Preceded byGutiérrez Bernardo de Quirós
Succeeded byDiego Osorio de Escobar y Mendoza
Personal details
Born(1600-06-24)June 24, 1600
Fitero, Navarre
DiedOctober 1, 1659(1659-10-01) (aged 59)
El Burgo de Osma, Soria
Alma materUniversity of Alcalá de Henares
University of Salamanca
Ordination
April 1629 by Francisco Hurtado de Mendoza y Ribera
Consecration
December 27, 1639 by Agustín Spínola Basadone
Beatification
June 5, 2011 by Benedict XVI
Feast day
October 6

Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (Fitero, June 24, 1600 – El Burgo de Osma, October 1, 1659),[1] was a Spanish bishop who held the bishopric of Tlaxcala (New Spain), with its see in Puebla de los Ángeles, and later that of Osma. He also served as a councilor of the Royal Council of the Indies between 1633 and 1653, and as Viceroy and Captain General of New Spain.

He was beatified in El Burgo de Osma on June 5, 2011, by Cardinal Angelo Amato.

Biography

As José María Blanco White recounts, Juan de Palafox:

Was the illegitimate son of Don Jaime de Palafox y Mendoza (Marquis of Ariza) and of a woman of an illustrious family who, in order to hide her condition, withdrew to the spa of Fitero, in Navarre, and upon giving birth on June 24, 1600, to avoid scandal, took the depraved resolution of drowning the child in the nearby river. But the woman entrusted with the infanticide was discovered and the child was saved and was raised by an old servant of the House of Ariza until his father, upon returning from Rome, helped him and sent him to the Universities of Alcalá and Salamanca. His mother became a nun in the Order of Discalced Carmelite Nuns.[2]

Thus, he was born in Fitero (Navarre) and was raised and supported by a humble family for six years, although he was eventually recognized by his father and was able to study at Alcalá de Henares and at Salamanca. In 1626 he was presented to the Count-Duke of Olivares and was appointed deputy of the nobility in the Cortes of Monzón. Shortly afterward, he obtained the post of prosecutor of the Councils of War and of the Indies. Don Jaime de Palafox y Cardona was his nephew.

So strong an impression did the illness of a paternal aunt, the burial of two illustrious men and the devotion of his mother make on him that he decided to be ordained a priest, and he was chosen chaplain to the Queen of Hungary, Maria Anna of Austria, sister of Philip IV, whom he accompanied on several journeys through Europe (Italy, Germany, Flanders and France).

In 1639 he was chosen in Madrid by the King as Bishop of Tlaxcala (whose see was the City of Angelópolis, or Puebla de los Ángeles), and was confirmed by Pope Urban VIII on October 27 of that same year. He distinguished himself by his efforts to protect the indigenous population, forbidding the use of any method of conversion other than persuasion, and by his frictions and clashes with the privileges of the Jesuits, which in the end obliged the King to call him back to Spain and appoint him Bishop of Osma.[3]

He was also appointed visitador general. Later, in 1640, when the Portuguese Restoration War broke out, he took advantage of the family relationship between the Viceroy Diego López Pacheco y Portugal, Duke of Escalona and Marquis of Villena, and the self-proclaimed King of Portugal, John IV, to cast doubt on the Viceroy's loyalty to his King in Madrid. After months of deliberation in Madrid, Palafox received in Puebla secret royal decrees giving him the power to depose the Duke of Escalona and to provisionally occupy the offices of Archbishop of Mexico and Viceroy of New Spain. In secret, he entered Mexico City and got in touch with trusted members of the Audiencia and the City Council; on the night of July 9, 1642, he ordered the arrest of the Duke of Escalona, who took refuge in the Convent of Churubusco.[4] Having done this, he confiscated and auctioned off his property and sent him to Spain.

Palafox, Viceroy of New Spain

During this period, Juan de Palafox temporarily held the office of Viceroy of New Spain, acting from June 10 to November 23, 1642. In this brief period, he supported the access of criollos to public offices, proposed reducing taxes to stimulate the economy, and defended trade between colonies, until then very restricted; he expelled the Portuguese (suspected of disloyalty owing to the rebellion for the independence of Portugal) from the mines and the coasts; he raised 12 militias for defense, since he feared that the revolutions of Portugal and of Catalonia might spread; and he held a massive auto-da-fé, with the execution of 150 heretics and crypto-Jews, 50 of whom were Portuguese merchants.[5] He likewise drew up the ordinances for the University, the Audiencia and the lawyers.

As Bishop of Puebla he founded the convent of Dominican nuns of Santa Inés; he drafted constitutions for the seminary of San Juan and established the colleges of San Pedro (for grammar, rhetoric and plainchant) and of San Pablo (for academic degrees), which he endowed with an excellent library, today called the Palafoxiana. He created the girls' college dedicated to the Purísima Concepción and devoted his best efforts to completing the Cathedral, which he consecrated on April 18, 1649.

With the metropolitan see vacant owing to the death of Feliciano de Vega y Padilla (1641) while traveling from Acapulco, the ecclesiastical chapter elected him Archbishop of Mexico on November 12, 1643.

His defense of episcopal jurisdiction is a chapter that can only be understood by bearing in mind the Bishop's responsibility as executor of the provisions of the Council of Trent. The act of appointing conservators (May 1647), who went so far as to declare the see vacant while the Bishop was present in the territory, ignoring three vicars general legitimately appointed to substitute for him in case of absence, was of such gravity that, as Palafox diagnosed it, it threatened the very structure of the Church. Palafox wrote a great deal and very clearly on the subject, obliged to counter the propaganda of his adversaries. However, in ecclesiastical historiography, his version has had less echo than the opposing one.

Because the regulars would not accept submitting to visitation and examination, as several royal decrees provided, Palafox appointed 36 regular curates and established as many parishes.

Owing to his role in the aforementioned dispute, he met with the hostility of the Jesuits (1645), which gave rise to his great animosity toward them. On two occasions (1647 and 1649) he expressed his disagreements through formal complaints before the papacy in Rome. Innocent X, however, refused to uphold his censures, and all he could obtain was a report of May 14, 1648, urging the Jesuits to respect episcopal jurisdiction. Palafox also took an anti-Jesuit position in the Chinese Rites controversy, arguing that the Jesuits' tolerance toward the Chinese who, after their conversion to Catholicism, still practiced the traditional rituals of ancestor worship, was equivalent to heresy. The Costa Rican scholar Ricardo Martínez Esquivel has argued that, although Palafox did indeed have jurisdiction as Bishop over some Asian missions, his position in this controversy was rather motivated by his generalized anti-Jesuit attitude.[6] In 1653 the Jesuits finally obtained his transfer to Spain. In Puebla, he was replaced by Bishop Nicolás Guzmán Briceño around 1647, a descendant on one side of the conquistador Francisco de Orduña, and on the other of Francisco Briceño López, Governor of Guatemala and President of the Real Audiencia of New Granada.

The Viceroyalty of New Spain and the Palafox collection of the Royal Library

With regard to his work of government in New Spain, as a man of the Hispanic Monarchy at a moment of maximum tension within it—the 1640s—when the constitutional crisis in the kingdoms that composed it affected not only Portugal or Catalonia but also, on another level, the viceroyalties of the Indies, the significance of the documentary collection of the Royal Library deserves to be highlighted.[7] It covers various facets of his viceregal government extensively but, above all, the confrontation with the regular clergy and, to a lesser extent, matters such as the works on the Cathedral of Puebla. There are in total twenty-three manuscript volumes that came from the Archive of Simancas on the occasion of the prelate's beatification process, which the Crown itself wished to promote, and after a recataloguing, in which the University of Alicante took part, the collection was presented at the Royal Library in 2001, at a scholarly seminar on the Aragonese prelate.

Originally, the collection consisted of eight bundles, as recorded in its Yndice de los Papeles que comprehenden los ochos Legajos tocantes al Venerable Sr. Palafox que se han trahído de Simancas por orden de S.E. en este año de 1785 (in ms. II/1668 (2)), but the documents were bound into twenty-three bodies, and today they are twenty-three composite manuscripts. The first of the series is made up basically of letters to Philip IV already from New Spain, of 1641 (II/1981); the next consists of letters also by the prelate, up to 1654, and in it there is a note about a decree of José de Gálvez, Marquis of Sonora, concerning these letters, dated at the Royal Archive and Fortress of Simancas in April 1773. The following volumes focus on the question of the regular clergy and royal control, with consultations and decrees on the matter (II/1996), documents on the controversies of the Jesuits with Palafox (II/1987-89), and the collection even includes pieces on these matters produced after Palafox's time, such as II/2000-2001, or II/1997-99. Others concern aspects of the Bishop's Visitation of New Spain (II/1983, 1986 and II/2002) relating to the Real Audiencia and other matters, and there is another documentary group on the works on the Cathedral of Puebla, works in which the heraldic question of the coat of arms that was on the altarpiece of the main chapel had relevance, as can be seen (II/1991, II/1993-95).[8] Therefore, taken as a whole, it is a key collection for understanding the problems of royal government in New Spain in the mid-17th century.

Bishop of Osma

Upon returning to Spain he was appointed Bishop of Osma, where he died a few years later. It was not among the most important sees but it was a representative one; in fact, it had previously been held by other notable prelates such as Honorato Juan, tutor of Philip II and of Don Carlos, the Prince of Asturias. He died on October 1, 1659. His remains are buried in his Cathedral, in a chapel (Chapel of the Venerable Palafox) designed by Juan de Villanueva, and in the Chapel of the Relics of the Cathedral of Puebla de los Ángeles, of which he was a benefactor during his episcopate. In 1666 his body was incorrupt.

Cause of beatification

His beatification process was opened in the Diocese of Burgo de Osma in 1666 and in Puebla de los Ángeles in 1688. The decree authorizing the introduction of the cause in Rome was signed by Benedict XIII in 1726, and the process continued under subsequent pontiffs. However, the French invasion of Rome and the capture of Pope Pius VI prevented the holding of the Second General Congregation on the Heroic Virtues of the Servant of God.

The cause was resumed by Pope John Paul II in 1987. On January 27, 2004, the historical consultors of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the positio presented by the Postulation of the cause in the years 1998–2003. On April 4, 2008, the "Congressus Peculiaris super Virtutibus" took place, with a positive outcome; on the following December 2 the Congregation of cardinals and bishops took place, with the same positive verdict, and on January 17, 2009, the Decree on the Virtues was promulgated.

On February 26, 2009, the Medical Board ruled favorably on the inexplicability of the cure of the parish priest of Fuentemolinos, Don Lucas Fernández de Pinedo, which occurred on November 29, 1766, and was attributed to the intercession of Juan de Palafox. The Special Congress of Theological Consultors gave its favorable opinion on June 27, 2009, and the Congregation of cardinals and bishops pronounced unanimously in favor of the miracle on February 8, 2010; Pope Benedict XVI approved the promulgation of the Decree on the Miracle on the following March 27. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza was beatified on June 5, 2011, in a solemn ceremony presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, which took place in the Cathedral of El Burgo de Osma.

Apostolic Letter of Beatification

We, granting the wish of our brother Gerardo Melgar Viciosa, Bishop of Osma-Soria, as well as of many other brothers in the episcopate and of numerous faithful, having consulted the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, by our Apostolic Authority, grant the faculty that the Venerable Servant of God Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Bishop, tireless herald of the Gospel, devoted shepherd of the flock entrusted to him, courageous defender of the Church, be henceforth called by the name of Blessed and that his feast may be celebrated annually on the sixth day of October in the places and manners established by Law.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on the twenty-sixth day of May, in the year of the Lord two thousand eleven, the seventh of Our Pontificate.

— Benedictus, PP. XVI

Cultural work

The Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla, Mexico.

Juan de Palafox was an enthusiastic patron, and during his episcopate in Puebla the city became the musical center of New Spain. Composers such as Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, chapel master of the cathedral under Palafox and the most famous 17th-century composer in New Spain, brought the newest European musical styles to the New World.

Palafox believed intensely in education and culture, and assembled a library of five thousand books of science and philosophy, called the Biblioteca Palafoxiana. He was a friend of Andrés de Uztarroz, who praised him as a writer in his Aganipe de los cisnes aragoneses en el clarín de la fama. He wrote to Uztarroz asking him to have his Historia real sagrada and his Varón de deseos published.

His works, in 15 volumes, were printed in Madrid in 1762, at the initiative of the Discalced Carmelites. As a writer, he was the author of works of an ascetic character, such as Trompeta de Ezequiel (Madrid, 1658). He was also praised by Baltasar Gracián in Agudeza y arte de ingenio (1648), in discourse LVI, in which he lauds a work titled El pastor de Nochebuena, and in El Discreto, XVIII.

References

  1. ↑ Antonio González de Rosende: Vida del ilustrissimo y excelentissimo señor don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza.
  2. ↑ José María Blanco White, "Apéndice a la carta tercera", in Cartas de España, ed. by Antonio Garnica, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1972.
  3. ↑ The Jesuits owned lands that were subject to the obligation of paying tithes, but they claimed that, since these belonged to their congregation, they were exempt from this burden; another problem came later when they sought to preach without requesting a license from the Ordinary, but since in this they had the protection of the Viceroy of New Spain, Palafox was forced to flee and then wrote some famous letters against his enemies. Despite a papal brief in his favor, he did not escape being called back to Spain by the King, who, to avoid problems should he return with the Jesuits, made him Bishop of Osma.
  4. ↑ Israel, Jonathan (1980). Razas, clases sociales y vida política en el México colonial, 1610-1670 (in español). Fondo de Cultura Económica. pp. 193–219. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  5. ↑ Cayetana, Álvarez de Toledo (2011). Juan de Palafox.Obispo y virrey (in español). Marcial Pons. pp. 195–197.
  6. ↑ “Entrevistas de Bitter Winter: Prof. Ricardo Martínez Esquivel”, Bitter Winter, June 20, 2018; and José Antonio Cervera - Ricardo Martínez Esquivel, “Puebla de Los Ángeles entre China y Europa. Palafox en las controversias de los ritos chinos,” Historia Mexicana 58,1 (2018): 245–284.
  7. ↑ Patrimonio Nacional: Real Biblioteca
  8. ↑ Discovers the lawsuit over the coats of arms and analyzes it: Botella Ordinas, Eva, "Fruto, cruz y árbol de vida. Diseño castellano de un reino de Sobrarbe", Espacio, tiempo y forma. Serie IV, Historia moderna, No. 11, 1998, pp. 179-214.

Bibliography

  • Álvarez de Toledo, C. Politics and reform in Spain and Viceregal Mexico: the life and thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600-1659. Oxford, 2004.
  • Álvarez de Toledo, C. Juan de Palafox: obispo y virrey. Madrid, Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2011.
  • Arco y Garay, R. del. La erudición española en el siglo XVII, I, Madrid, 1950, pp. 367 ff.
  • Castro Ramírez, J.E. Palafox, su pontificado en Puebla, 1640-1649, Puebla de los Ángeles, 2000.
  • Congreso Internacional del IV Centenario del Nacimiento de Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Palafox: Iglesia, cultura y Estado en el siglo XVII. Pamplona, Universidad de Navarra, 2000.
  • Cristina de la Cruz Arteaga y Falguera, OSH. El venerable Palafox, Madrid, 1930.
  • Cristina de la Cruz Arteaga y Falguera, OSH. Una mitra entre dos mundos, Seville, 1985.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. Don Juan de Palafox, promotor y mecenas de las artes. Exhibition catalog El virrey Palafox. Madrid, Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deporte, 2000, pp. 127–161.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. En las entrañas del atardecer de Palafox en Puebla. Deberes y afectos encontrados. New York, Institute of Golden Age Studies, 2020.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. Iconografía de Juan de Palafox: imágenes para un hombre de Estado y de Iglesia. Pamplona, Gobierno de Navarra, 2002.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. Juan de Palafox. Talento, pasión y compromiso. Pamplona, Fundación TW, 2023.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. Juan de Palafox y Navarra "et alia studia". Pamplona, Gobierno de Navarra, 2011.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. Los Dictámenes de Juan de Palafox. “Con todos hablan en general y con cada uno en particular”. New York, Institute of Golden Age Studies, 2015.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. Teoría y promoción de las artes. Pamplona, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, etc., 2000.
  • Fernández Gracia, R. (Coordinator). Varia palafoxiana: doce estudios en torno a Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Pamplona, Gobierno de Navarra, 2010.
  • Galí Boadella, M. La pluma y el báculo: Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos. Puebla de los Ángeles, 2004.
  • Grañén Porrúa, M.I. El legado de Juan de Palafox. Mexico, Fundación Afredo Harp Helú. It is an exhibition catalog.
  • Israel, J. Razas, clases sociales y vida política en el México colonial, 1610-1670. Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, pp. 193–219.
  • Martínez, G.B. A Juan de Palafox: más de 2000 versos, del abate Tommaso Campastri, capellán de Carlos IV a favor de la beatificación del Venerable, sacados de un manuscrito de la Real Biblioteca. Soria, Centro de Estudios Sorianos, 2010.
  • Martínez, G.B. Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: obispo de La Puebla de los Ángeles y de Osma, Soria, 2001.
  • Martínez, G.B. Jaque mate al obispo virrey. Siglo y medio de sátiras y libelos contra don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Mexico, 1991.
  • Moriones, I. OCD. Historia del proceso de beatificación y canonización del Venerable Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, in Ricardo Fernández Gracia (coordinator), Palafox: Iglesia, Cultura y Estado en el siglo XVII, Pamplona (2001), pp. 515–558.
  • Moriones, I. OCD. "La causa de beatificación de Juan de Palafox. Historia de un Proceso contrastado". Second edition, corrected and enlarged. Puebla, UPAEP, 2011.
  • Ortega, P. OCD. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y los carmelitas descalzos, in Revista de Soria, 2011, no. 72, pp. 45–55.
  • Palou, P.A. Breve noticia histórica de la Biblioteca Palafoxiana y de su fundador Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y los colegios de San Juan, San Pedro y San Pantaleón. Puebla de los Ángeles, 2002.
  • Portillo Capilla, T. El desierto y la celda en la vida y muerte del Obispo Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Almazán, 1989.
  • Puebla Gonzalo, A. Palafox y la espiritualidad de su tiempo, Burgos, 1987.
  • Salazar Andreu, J.P. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Barcelona, Planeta, 2004.
  • Salazar Andreu, J.P. Manuscritos e impresos del venerable señor don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. León, 2000.
  • Sánchez-Castañer, F. Don Juan de Palafox, Virrey de Nueva España, Madrid, 1988.
  • Tellechea Idígoras, J.I. Coordenadas históricas, políticas y religiosas del siglo XVII en que vivió el Obispo Don Juan de Palafox, in VV. AA., El Venerable obispo Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Semana de estudios histórico-pastorales y de espiritualidad (2-7 de agosto de 1976), Soria, 1977, pp. 24–38.
Retrieved from "https://en.hispanopedia.com/index.php?title=Juan_de_Palafox&oldid=1916"