In the Americas Philip continued the imperial policy initiated under Charles, where non-Spanish priests were forbidden to enter the Americas.  This policy was motivated by the emerging economic importance of the Americas to Spain and the consequent need to protect against foreign enemies who were beginning to exploit Spanish wealth.  Charles’ crown mandate against foreign clergy in 1530 isolated the Church in the Spanish territory from important European currents, most notably the growing Protestant movements of northern Europe.  Philip shared his father’s concern to maintain strict Catholic orthodoxy and to protect Spain’s huge American profits in gold and silver.  This restriction from outside influences -- religious, political, social and economic -- was an attempt to address possible threats to colonial and ecclesiastical control.  Of significant religious importance during this time, the Catholic bishops of Spanish America were not invited to Trent (1545-1563).  Therefore the reforms of the council were implemented even more slowly in the colonial church than in Spain itself.  Although Philip maintained the colonial framework of his father, Charles, he too left a distinctive mark, the most notable of which were his imperial polices around areas of ecclesiastical control.[1]  Philip reacted to the political and religious events in Europe that might have affected the colonies by convoking a junta in 1568 to deal with what he perceived as a challenge by Rome to his colonial control in the Americas.[2]  As a result of the junta, Philip revoked the papal grant of Omnimoda. [3]  Philip’s abolition of Rome’s grant on religious working in the Americas changed ecclesial jurisdiction; rather than being directly under the pope, they answered to bishops who were controlled by the Spanish crown.  In addition no new religious foundations were to be established without royal and episcopal consent, and Indians were to pay the Church taxes.

Finally, four years after the death of Las Casas, Philip II sent the Inquisition officially to Spain’s American colonies in 1570.  Its influence, however, had been felt prior to that date by the activities of clergy working in concert with local political officials who tried individuals for religious and political crimes.  Philip’s inherited concern for orthodoxy in Spain was naturally extended into the empire with the mandated arrival of the Inquisition.  Although founded for religious reasons, it eventually evolved into more of a political instrument under the auspices of the state, with offenses against religious and political orthodoxy meaning practically the same thing. In Spanish America, the grand inquisitor and his tribunal had jurisdiction over local tribunals in colonies such as Mexico and Peru.  Philip’s superior organization and his consistency of support assured that the Inquisition would have a greater impact on religion, politics, and culture than comparable institutions elsewhere in other Catholic parts of the world.  Inquisition trial records and other documents show that historians and philosophers have greatly exaggerated the idea that the sixteenth century was a vast Renaissance humanist movement based on the teachings of Erasmus, Thomas More, Nebrija and others.  In Spain, Christian humanism was acceptable as long as it fused with Thomistic teachings, but when there was a conflict, Thomism won out.[4]  Its use in both Spain and the Americas reflected Philip’s continued Spanish policy of blending the need for both religious orthodoxy and political hegemony in the territories under his control.[5]

B. Specific Historical Context of his Confesionario:
Avisos y Reglas Para Confesores.

During the reign of the aforementioned monarchs, this convergence of theological, political, social, economic and geographic factors combined to create the world that both shaped the general historical environment of Las Casas and his particular responses on behalf of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.  The specific work of Las Casas being considered in this discussion, his Confesionario, was written at the middle of one century, yet it reflects the influences and forces of many historical periods that had shaped Spain’s identity.  Las Casas’ life, straddling the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, expressed the contemporaneous Spanish cultural mentality of the period: expansion and zeal.  Reading his Confesionario, one can perceive Las Casas’ embodiment of the national psyche of the age, a sense of invincibility; he believed that God was with his efforts and behaved accordingly in his advocacy for the rights of the Indians.  Using his Confesionario, along with other writings, he sought to uproot the evil of the encomienda system and to implant the justice demanded by the Gospel message.[6]  Considering the magnitude and duration of his life’s efforts, one can notice the seeds of this passionate commitment in the broader context of the cultural in which he lived. From the beginning of his life in 1484, the mixture of religious fervor, political jingoism, social patriotism, economic desire and geographic enlargement that fueled Spain’s rise to the top inevitably propelled him to stand-up and to challenge the unjust aspects of Spanish imperial practices.  Therefore, it could be asserted that his illustrious life paralleled Spain’s ascendancy during her golden age of global prominence, a period of expansion accompanied by both glory and tragedy, the latter being the focus of Las Casas’ efforts.

Notes