The inquisition in the Spanish dependencies: Sicily—Naples—Sardinia—Milan—the Canaries—Mexico—Peru—New GranadaLea, Henry Charles
History
The inquisition in the Spanish dependencies: Sicily—Naples—Sardinia—Milan—the Canaries—Mexico—Peru—New Granada
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition
Ustáriz also showed his energy, in 1750, by arresting Pierre Fallet, a
Swiss of Neuchâtel and a convert from Calvinism. In 1742 Commissioner
Arechederra had taken from him two indecent prints; in 1748 Commissioner
Juan Alvárez had deprived him of another and denounced him to the
Mexican tribunal as suspect of heresy. The tribunal, on March 14, 1748,
ordered his arrest with sequestration, at the same time dismissing
Alvárez for his indiscretions and replacing him with Ustáriz. The
sequestration showed that Fallet’s property consisted of some
uncollectable credits and many debts but, among his books on history,
voyages and mathematics, in English, French, Flemish, Spanish, Latin and
Greek, were found two prohibited ones--Rapin’s History of England and a
“Historia publica y secreta de la corte de Madrid.” He was duly sent to
Mexico, where he entered the secret prison, January 17, 1752, with
broken health. An accusation of seventy-six articles was accumulated
against him, but his sentence on August 8th consisted merely of
abjuration for light suspicion, three months’ reclusion in the Jesuit
College for instruction and some spiritual penances. This laborious
trifling, so ruinous to the unfortunate subject, was crowned by the
Suprema, which pondered over the case until March 7, 1772, when it
ordered its suspension. Fallet, meanwhile, had been allowed to return to
the Philippines, where his conduct was reported as exemplary.[568]
Censorship of a similarly futile kind was exercised in the denunciation
of objectionable books or passages, which had to be forwarded to Mexico
for action. Of this a single example will suffice. At the end of the
sixteenth century, the Dominican Fray Francisco de San José was one of
the most zealous and successful missionaries. He left a number of works
in Tagal, some of which were printed, while others reposed in MS. Among
the latter was a volume of sermons that had considerable repute, and in
this the Augustinian Fray Juan Eusebio Polo, in 1772, discovered a
passage conveying the Dominican view entertained at the period, as to
the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Not daring to denounce it to
the Dominican commissioner, he did so directly to the Mexican tribunal,
adding that he could not send the MS., because it was borrowed, but he
furnished certificates of two of his Augustinian brethren as to the
accuracy of his translation. This was forwarded to the Suprema which, on
January 27, 1774, ordered a copy of the book to be searched for in
Mexico and Manila, the translation to be examined by experts, the matter
to be voted on and then referred back to Madrid. Apparently this ended
the case.[569]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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