Exponi nobis nuper fecisti, known in New Spain as Omnimoda, was a papal bull commissioned by Charles V and promulgated by Adrian VI on 10 May 1522. [1] [2] The bull allowed members of mendicant orders in the New World to exercise "almost all episcopal authority" when no diocesan bishop was within two days' travel. [1] These powers were later confirmed at the Council of Trent. [3]
Under the authority of Omnimoda, missionary priests such as Martín de Valencia and Diego de Landa acted as agents of the Inquisition in the Americas. [1] The bull also gave missionaries the authority to dispense local Catholics from impediments to marriage. [4]
The history of Christianity follows the Christian religion as it developed from its earliest beliefs and practices in the first century, spread geographically in the Roman Empire and beyond, and became a global religion in the twenty-first century.
The Inquisition was a judicial procedure and a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered deviant. Violence, torture, or the simple threat of its application, were used by the Inquisition to extract confessions and denunciations from heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment. The Inquisition had its start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, with the aim of combating religious deviation, particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other groups investigated during the Medieval Inquisition, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.
Year 1571 (MDLXXI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.
The Franciscans are a group of related mendicant religious orders of the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi, these orders include three independent orders for men, orders for nuns such as the Order of Saint Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis open to male and female members. They adhere to the teachings and spiritual disciplines of the founder and of his main associates and followers, such as Clare of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, and Elizabeth of Hungary. Several smaller Protestant Franciscan orders or other groups have been established since late 1800's as well, particularly in the Anglican and Lutheran traditions.
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews".
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; to remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law, they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their reign was called by W.H. Prescott "the most glorious epoch in the annals of Spain".
Juan de Zumárraga, OFM was a Spanish Basque Franciscan prelate and the first Bishop of Mexico. He was also the region's first inquisitor. He wrote Doctrina breve, the first book published in the Western Hemisphere by a European, printed in Mexico City in 1539.
The Goa Inquisition was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in Portuguese India. Its objective was to enforce Catholic orthodoxy and allegiance to the Holy See. Conversions took place through the Goan Inquisition with the persecution of Hindus and the destruction of Hindu temples.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition, along with the Roman Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North America and South America. According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, approximately 2.7 percent of all cases. The Inquisition, however, since the creation of the American courts, has never had jurisdiction over the indigenous. The King of Spain ordered "that the inquisitors should never proceed against the Indians, but against the old Christians and their descendants and other persons against whom in these kingdoms of Spain it is customary to proceed".
The Catholic Church during the Age of Discovery inaugurated a major effort to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the indigenous peoples of the Americas and other indigenous peoples. The evangelical effort was a major part of, and a justification for, the military conquests of European powers such as Portugal, Spain, and France. Christian missions to the indigenous peoples ran hand-in-hand with the colonial efforts of Catholic nations. In the Americas and other colonies in Asia, and Africa, most missions were run by religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Jesuits. In Mexico, the early systematic evangelization by mendicants came to be known as the "Spiritual Conquest of Mexico".
Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, parishes and dioceses would be organized worldwide, often after an intermediate phase as an apostolic prefecture or apostolic vicariate. Catholic mission has predominantly been carried out by the Latin Church in practice.
The patronato system in Spain was the expression of royal patronage controlling major appointments of Church officials and the management of Church revenues, under terms of concordats with the Holy See. The resulting structure of royal power and ecclesiastical privileges, was formative in the Spanish colonial empire. It resulted in a characteristic constant intermingling of trade, politics, and religion. The papacy granted the power of patronage to the monarchs of Spain and Portugal to appoint clerics because the monarchs "were willing to subsidize missionary activities in newly conquered and discovered territories."
Christianity and colonialism are often closely associated with each other due to the service of Christianity, in its various sects, as the state religion of the historical European colonial powers, in which Christians likewise made up the majority. Through a variety of methods, Christian missionaries acted as the "religious arms" of the imperialist powers of Europe. According to Edward E. Andrews, Associate Professor of Providence College Christian missionaries were initially portrayed as "visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery". However, by the time the colonial era drew to a close in the later half of the 20th century, missionaries were viewed as "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them", colonialism's "agent, scribe and moral alibi".
The Spanish missions in the Americas were Catholic missions established by the Spanish Empire during the 16th to 19th centuries in the period of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Many hundreds of missions, durable and ephemeral, created by numerous Catholic religious orders were scattered throughout the entirety of the Spanish colonies, which extended southward from the United States and Mexico to Argentina and Chile.
Juan de Arechederra, O. P. was a Venezuelan friar and member of the Dominican Order who served as the Rector of Colegio de San Juan de Letran from 1725 until 1735 and University of Santo Tomas from 1735 to 1737 and from 1743 to 1745 and Bishop-elect of Nueva Segovia from 1745 and in turn, the Bishop from 1750 until his death in 1751. In Philippine history, he is best remembered as being the Governor-General from 1745 to 1750 who baptized Alimuddin I, the only Catholic Sultan of Sulu.
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance, carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries, of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning.
Francisco Manuel de Silva Nieto was Governor of New Mexico at a time when it was a province of New Spain.
Estéban de Perea was a Spanish Franciscan friar who undertook missionary work in New Mexico, a province of New Spain, between 1610 and 1638. At times he was in conflict with the governors of the province. He has been called the "Father of the New Mexican Church".
Nicolás de Freitas was a Franciscan missionary to New Spain.