The inquisitorial function of censorship was by no means neglected. Even before the establishment of the tribunal, it was felt necessary to guard the faithful from the infection of heretical books and, in 1561, Inquisitor-general Valdés sent to Archbishop Montufar a commission empowering him to examine the book-shops for that purpose.[510] This conveyed no censorial power, but Páramo proudly asserts that, almost at the inception of the Holy Office, calificadores were appointed who exercised a most vigilant supervision over all books introduced into the colony, even over those which had passed the examination of the Suprema itself, and who occasionally had the satisfaction of showing that books widely circulated in Spain required expurgation. In fact, a letter of the Suprema respecting the Index then in preparation shows that, as early as 1573, censures of books were received from Mexico. The position of calificador, like that of inquisitor, seems to have been a stepping-stone to the bishop’s chair, for the first one was Domingo de Salazar, promoted, in 1581, to the archiepiscopate of the Philippines; the second was Bartolomé de Ledesma, who in 1581 became Bishop of Oaxaca, and the third was Pedro de Ribera, who in 1594 was elected Bishop of Panama, but died on the road to take possession.[511] Apparently the office was one not always easy to fill. In a letter of September 1, 1655, the tribunal informed the Suprema that it was in need of correctors of books and calificadores and it sent the genealogy of Padre Juan Hortiz, Rector of the Jesuit College, as a fit person, though he had not studied theology; the tribunal of Logroño thereupon reported favorably as to his _limpieza_ and, on November 11, 1659, after four years of delay, the commission for him was sent.[512] It will be seen from all this that the Mexican Inquisition exercised an independent function of censorship; the earliest printing-press in the New World was established in the city of Mexico and its products were supervised by the tribunal, which condemned them, when necessary, without awaiting a reference to distant Spain. Prohibitory edicts, moreover, emanating from the home censorship, were duly published from every parish pulpit between the Caribbean and the Pacific.[513]