AN account has been already given of the persecutions of Don Ferdinand de Talavera, first Archbishop of Granada; of Juan Davila, surnamed the Apostle of Andalusia; and of San Juan de Dios, founder of the congregation of Hospitallers. The following is a list of other holy persons who have been prosecuted by the holy office:—
St. Ignacius de Loyola was denounced as an illuminati to the Inquisition of Valladolid; and when the inquisitors were about to arrest him, he went to France, afterwards to Italy, and arrived at Rome, where he was tried and acquitted; after having been so likewise in Spain by a juridical sentence of the vicar-general of the Bishop of Salamanca. His real name was Iñigo.
Melchior Cano says, in an unpublished work written during the life of Iñigo, “that he fled from Spain when the Inquisition intended to arrest him as a heretic of the sect of Illuminati. He went to Rome, and wished to be judged by the Pope. As no person appeared to accuse him, he was discharged.”
It is certain that St. Ignacius was arrested at Salamanca in 1527, as a fanatic and illuminati, and that he recovered his liberty in about twenty-two days; he was enjoined in his preaching from qualifying mortal or venial sins, until he had studied theology four years. It is also true that when the inquisitors of Valladolid learnt that the saint was in prison, they wrote to cause an inquest to be made of the words and actions which caused a suspicion that he was one of the Illuminati.
But it is not proved that Ignacius quitted Spain to escape from punishment; it appears that he only fulfilled his intention of studying theology at Paris. The humility of the saint was so great, that when he was denounced a second time in that city, to Matthew d’Ory the apostolical inquisitor, he surrendered himself voluntarily, and had no difficulty in proving his orthodoxy.
It is not more certain that he went to Rome at that time, since he was still at Paris in 1535, and he afterwards returned to Spain, where he remained a year without being molested, though he preached in several provinces. He then embarked for Italy, went first to Bologna, and then to Venice, where he was a third time denounced as a heretic, but justified himself to the papal nuncio, and was admitted into the priesthood in that city. Ignacius arrived in Rome in 1538.
It cannot be proved that he was acquitted at Rome because he had no accuser, since any criminal may be prosecuted by the minister of the public and punished. It is true that there was not at that time a particular tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome; but the civil judges could punish heretics, and the procurator-fiscal impeached the criminals. St. Ignacius was again denounced by a Spaniard named Navarro. The informer deposed that Ignacius had been accused and convicted of several heresies in Spain, France, and Venice, and charged him with some other crimes. Fortunately his three judges knew his innocence, and he was acquitted. His accuser was banished for life, and three Spaniards who had supported his evidence were condemned to retract.
Thus it appears that Melchior Cano was misinformed when he wrote, ten years after, that Iñigo was acquitted because no accuser appeared.
St. Francis de Borgia, a disciple of Loyola, and third general of his order, succeeded Lainez, in 1565, and died 1572. He had been the Duke de Gandia, and was cousin to the king in the third degree, by his mother, Jane of Arragon.
In 1559, the Inquisition of Valladolid tried several Lutherans, who were condemned. Many of these heretics, who endeavoured to justify themselves by supporting their doctrine by the opinions of St. Francis de Borgia, whose virtue was well known, related some discourses and actions of this saint, to prove that they thought as he did on the justification of souls by faith, on the passion and death of Jesus Christ; and added, to strengthen their defence, the authority of some mystic treatises. Among these involuntary persecutors, was Fray Dominic de Roxas, his near relation, and advantage was taken of a former denunciation of his Treatise on Christian Works, which he composed while he was known as the Duke of Gandia.
This book, the discourse of Melchior Cano, and the Dominicans, caused him to be accused as favouring the heresy of the Illuminati. Neither his merit, nor his near relationship to the king, would have saved him from the prisons of Valladolid, if he had not hastened to Rome the moment he was informed that his trial had commenced, and that his enemies would endeavour to secure his person. He escaped from the Inquisition, but he had the mortification of seeing his work twice placed in the Index, in 1559 and in 1583.
Juan de Ribera was a natural son of Don Pedro Afan de Ribera, Duke of Alcala, and Viceroy of Naples and Catalonia. In 1568, he passed from the bishopric of Badajoz to the archbishopric of Valencia. His life was irreproachable; but his great charity and ardent zeal, in endeavouring to reform the clergy, made him many enemies.
In 1570 Philip II. commanded him to visit the University of Valencia, and reform some of its rules. The archbishop began to fulfil his commission, but offended some of the doctors, who conspired against him. They circulated defamatory libels concerning him, during a whole year, and the affair was carried so far that a monk prayed for his conversion publicly in the church of Valencia. Ribera was denounced to the Inquisition, as a heretic, fanatic, and one of the Illuminati.
St. Juan de Ribera would not demand the punishment of his slanderers; but the procurator-fiscal being informed that Onuphrius Gacet, a member of the college, was the principal author of the intrigue, denounced him to the provisor and vicar-general of the archbishop. Gacet being convicted, was imprisoned. The archbishop did not think it proper that a judge belonging to his own household should take cognizance of offences which concerned him personally; and in order to remove all suspicion of partiality, he wished that the trial should be transferred to the Inquisition of Valencia, as some of the libels and texts of Scripture were employed in so scandalous a manner, that they came under the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
St. Juan de Ribera communicated his design to the Cardinal Espinosa, inquisitor-general, who commanded the inquisitors of Valencia to continue the trial. The inquisitors had already begun the preparatory instruction against the archbishop according to the denunciations; witnesses were found to support them, which is not surprising, since every accuser caused the men devoted to his party to sign his deposition as witnesses. The trial, however, took a sudden turn; instead of proceeding in the usual forms, the inquisitor caused a decree to be read in all the churches of Valencia, enjoining every individual to denounce all those who employed passages of the Holy Scriptures in a scandalous manner, on pain of excommunication. The informations began, and the inquisitors arrested both priests and laymen. The affair was carried on as a matter of faith; some of the accused were already condemned, and others on the point of being so, when the procurator of the holy office declared that doubts existed of the competence of the inquisitors, and advised that the affair should be referred to the Pope, who would appease the scruples.
The tribunal approved of the proposition, and in 1572, Gregory XIII. expedited a brief, which contained all that has been here related, and authorized the inquisitor-general, and the provincial inquisitors, to decide in similar cases, and at the same time sanctioned all that had been done. The inquisitors then condemned several persons, some to corporal punishments, others to pecuniary penalties, declaring that they should have been more severe, but from consideration for the archbishop, who had solicited the pardon of the criminals, that no person might suffer from an injury done to him.
St. Theresa de Jesus, one of the most celebrated women in Spain for her talents, was accused before the Inquisition of Seville. She was not imprisoned, because the trial was suspended after the preparatory instructions. She was born at Avila, in 1515.
St. Juan de la Crux, who united with St. Theresa in reforming the Convents of Carmelites, was born at Ontiveros in the diocese of Avila, in 1542. He was prosecuted by the Inquisitions of Seville, Toledo, and Valladolid. He was denounced as a fanatic, and of the Illuminati: the proceedings did not go farther than the preparatory instruction. St. Juan de la Crux died at Ubeda, in 1591. He composed several works on mental orisons.
St. Joseph de Calasanz, founder of the institute of regular clerks of the Christian schools. He was imprisoned in the dungeons of the holy office as a fanatic, and of the Illuminati; but he justified himself and was acquitted. He died some time after, at the age of ninety-two. He was born in 1556.
The venerable Fray Louis de Grenada, born in 1504, was the disciple of Juan d’Avila; he was of the order of St. Dominic, and left several works on religion. He was implicated in the trial of the Lutherans at Valladolid; Fray Dominic de Roxas defended his opinions, by saying that they were the same as those of Fray Louis de Grenada, Carranza, and other good Catholics. The procurator-fiscal made Fray Dominic renew his declaration, with the intention of producing him as a witness in the trial of Fray Louis: Fray Dominic was burnt five days after. A sentence condemning some of his works was also brought against Fray Louis.
He was denounced a third time as one of the Illuminati, but was acquitted. Fray Louis died in 1588. His works are well known: it is singular that the Index in which his condemnation was published, was afterwards prohibited by the inquisitor-general Quiroga.
The venerable Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, the natural son of Don James Palafox, afterwards Marquis de Hariza and of Donna Maria de Mendoza (who soon after became a Carmelite); he was born in 1600. He was made Bishop de la Puebla de los Angelos, in America, in 1639; afterwards Archbishop and Viceroy of Mexico; and lastly, Bishop of Osma, in Spain, in 1653. He died in 1659, leaving several works on history, devotion, and mysticity, and with so great a reputation of sanctity, that his canonization is pending at Rome.
Don Juan had great disputes with the Jesuits in America, on account of the privileges of his rank, of which the Fathers wished to deprive him. The most important of his writings, is his letter to Pope Innocent X., who terminated their disputes, to a certain degree, by a brief, in 1648. The Jesuits did not consider themselves vanquished; they denounced the archbishop as one of the Illuminati and a false devotee, at Rome, at Madrid, and at Mexico. The provincial inquisitors of the last city applied to the Supreme Council, and the venerable Palafox suffered everything from them which they could inflict, except imprisonment. They condemned and prohibited the writings which the archbishop had published in his defence, and circulated those of his adversaries, and some libels which they had framed to ruin Don Antonio Gabiola, procurator-fiscal to the Inquisition, who openly disapproved of the conduct of the Jesuits.
This officer wrote to Palafox in 1647, exhorting him to make every effort, that the trials before the Inquisition of Mexico should proceed in a regular manner, according to the spirit of the institution, and encouraging him to oppose his formidable enemies.
The Jesuits, by their intrigues, succeeded in causing some of the works of Palafox to be placed in the Index, but the congregation of cardinals having afterwards declared that they contained nothing reprehensible, or which could impede his beatification, the inquisitors were obliged to efface them from the catalogue.