Difference in the Nonmendicant Aspect of the Jesuits

The main difference was in the nonmendicant aspect of the Jesuits, like the brothers in the previous three orders, and in accordance to their rule, they should have professed personal and private poverty. The Jesuits insisted on individual poverty but recommended the amassing of material wealth for the order to ensure the independence of their schools. In any case, the building of sumptuous churches was justified on the grounds that they were necessary in the evangelization effort, since they were the physical manifestation and the visual expression of God’s magnificence, and they could help substitute for the old deities. Regarding real estate and collecting tribute and riches, the Augustinians and Dominicans were allowed, as needed, to transgress the rule of poverty because doing so would benefit the secular population, which depended on ecclesiastical loans, and so the brothers could concentrate on their spiritual exercises and instruction of the faithful.

 

A Jesuit establishment could maintain itself for a time through alms and had the character of a residence. The school was unincorporated until rents could be obtained, but it could not be categorized as officially “founded” until it achieved a means to support itself in a “dignified” manner. Jesuit schools were opened at the request of the local inhabitants, who contributed to their upkeep. In cities such as Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara, seminaries were founded where resident students could attend either that school or the Royal University. The founders of these schools received multiple indulgences in exchange for their donations: intercession for their souls after death, privileges for their descendants, recognition from the city that benefited from the donation, and the spiritual attention from the Jesuits.

 

Owing to the Jesuits’ late arrival, their initial goal of evangelizing the Indians was difficult, since the mendicant orders had distributed the territory among themselves. The neglect of the hinterlands was a subject of discussion until the last decade of the sixteenth century. Then the systematic advance north began. The first missionaries left from a school in Pátzcuaro, and they later ran their base of operation from a school in Durango. Each mission was run by one or two professed Jesuits, accompanied by a brother coadjutor. The Spanish Crown provided the economic support for the upkeep of the mission, whose success would result to a great extent on the system of reducción (a system of settlements comprised of converted Indians) imposed by the Jesuits. They attracted nomadic Indian tribes, gave them land, seeds, and agricultural implements, and made them sedentary. They taught them trades, organized their rural life, and promoted their products and trade.

 

 

 

Religious and Spain

Almost all the religious came from Spain and therefore depended on the Spanish Crown’s permission for new expeditions. This placed a limit to their activities, but was quickly remedied by the ordination of criollos (native-born Americans of Spanish descent). The Augustinians were the most active in recruiting local vocations and provoked antagonism that extended beyond their convents and even beyond New Spain. The push to control the chapters of each of the orders was exacerbated by the rancor between the peninsular Spanish (those born in Europe) and the criollos. The matter was communicated to Rome, and the pope resolved the issue by imposing a socalled alternative, the taking of turns between groups. He also recommended a measure to distinguish between the groups that had arrived as religious to New Spain and those who had been born in Spain and immigrated as laypersons, but who had taken the habit in New Spain. These groups alternated with a third category, those born in America.

 

At first all religious depended on their respective Spanish or Antillian provinces, until it was necessary to modify their internal organization for greater autonomy, which was followed by later fragmentation. By the middle of the sixteenth century they were founded as independent provinces, and 100 years later others that sprung from these first foundations were consecrated. From the province of the Santo Evangelio de México, a Franciscan order, arose San Pedro and San Pablo of Michoacán, Santiago of Jalisco, and San Francisco of Zacatecas, and the remote province of Yucatán. The preaching orders restructured the province of Santiago of Mexico by giving it San Hipólito of Oaxaca and the Holy Angels of Puebla. The Augustinians had two provinces: the Dulce Nombre de Jesús in Mexico City and San Nicolás de Tolentino in Michoacán.

 

Spanish politics imposed limits to the proliferation of regular orders in the Indies, and only four orders were authorized in the New World. The Mercedarian order had been authorized by the Spanish Crown to go to New Spain from very early on, but declined its evangelical mission and was replaced by the Jesuits through the Great Junta of 1568. This junta assembled in Valladolid, with its goal the creation of future prelates and governors overseas.

 

The arrival of the first Jesuit mission in 1572 was an important event because it increased the systematic attendance of criollos in the cities and the education of youth. Beginning in 1592, the Jesuits devoted themselves to the indigenous missions in the western reaches of the viceroyalty, focused on efficiency and on distancing themselves from Spanish influence. They were better diplomats and more accommodating than the mendicants, and were closer to the circles of power. During local conflicts the Jesuits took sides, alternating between the peninsular Spanish and the criollos. Their inclusion in the religious role in New Spain inevitably led to a shift in the balance between regular clergy and secular clergy.

Nahuatl-speaking Central Mexico

Pastoral work was first focused in Nahuatl-speaking central Mexico. The first four convents were established in Mexico City, Texcoco, Tlaxcala, and Huejotzingo. Later they were established in all directions, but with preference given to the north and the central areas, which today are the states of Puebla, Morelos, Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas, and parts of Michoacán. With no limits other than their capacity to administer to this vast territory, the Franciscans scattered without bounds. The many missions they founded throughout the century allowed them to establish about 200 convents before 1599, housing roughly 1,000 religious.

 

The Dominicans arrived in 1526, but almost all the members of the first expedition became ill or died, and their reorganization took several years. Their first real activity began in 1529, and they began their work near the established Franciscan convents in Mexico City, Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Morelos. Conflicts over jurisdiction frequently arose, which suggested they should distance themselves from their competition. They petitioned and resolved to penetrate into unoccupied, interior regions. Thus began the evangelization of the Mixtecs, and the Dominicans continued their advance through almost all the lands that today form the state of Oaxaca, and also reached into Chiapas and Guatemala.

 

The Augustinians arrived in 1533; although they did not have access to large, isolated territories, they could establish themselves relatively close to the convents of the other orders, covering areas that others could not attend to. They established themselves in the Huasteca region of Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Veracruz, and the torrid western coast, which is today in the state of Guerrero and part of Michoacán, in addition to settling near the convents close to Mexico City, Puebla, and Morelos, the region with most convents.

 

Like the Franciscan model, the Dominican and Augustinian convents were constructed with large atriums for the catechists; open chapels that enabled the neophytes to witness the divine service without entering the church; convent gardens, on which they depended for produce and provided the training ground for the agricultural training of the Indians; and high walls that lent the air of a fortress to the whole.

 

By the end of the sixteenth century, the Dominican order in Mexico had only slightly more than half as many religious as the Franciscan order, and the Augustinian order somewhat less. Some orders had their own chroniclers to praise the missionary work of their predecessors; however, many of these chroniclers would complain of the decline of their orders’ initial enthusiasm a few years later. The Franciscans confessed that their initial fervor lasted “about 30 years.” By the latter half of the sixteenth century routinized exercise of the norms and hours had taken precedence over the friars’ messianic vocation. This decline coincided with the meeting of the first provincial Council of Mexico. The presence of the archbishop of Mexico and other prelates marked a trend toward increasing secularization of the Mexican Catholic Church. This trend would be confirmed in subsequent synods and the provincial Councils of 1565 and 1585.

Religious in New Spain

The period of the Spanish Conquest and its campaigns in the Americas very quickly gave way to the evangelization and assimilation of the indigenous population. Shortly thereafter there was a movement to rebuild the ancient cities, to urbanize the population, and to foster the religious life of the residents in New Spain. The protagonists of this task were the religious. Although the monarchy later attempted to reduce the privileges of the mendicant orders, the support given to Fernando (Hernán) Cortés and the endorsement from the emperor were sufficient to place the regular orders (such as the Franciscans and Dominicans) in a superior position over the secular clergy (those not belonging to such an order) for several decades.

 

There were many regular and secular clergy in the company of the conquerors. At least one Mercedarian and one Franciscan accompanied Cortés, and others traveled with the captains who came later. Their presence had a personal character and did not lead to the establishment of religious orders in Mexico, which depended on permission granted by the Spanish Crown.

 

Cortés had repeatedly shown his interest in the evangelization of New Spain, and he successfully requested the emperor to entrust this task to the Franciscans. The first three brothers were installed in Texcoco in 1523; they had been born in Flanders, but Hispanicized their names to Pedro de Gante, Juan de Tecto, and Juan de Aora. Their immediate concern was to establish communication with the Indians, and to that end, they learned Nahuatl, the language spoken by the majority of the people living in central Mexico. The second group of religious, considered to be the first mission with official sanction, came from the province of San Gabriel in Extremadura, where the Fanciscan order recently had only been reformed; the changes involved stricter adherence to the rule of the order, increased spiritual fervor, and more solid academic preparation. Fray Martín de Valencia led this group of religious, 12 in number (in imitation of the apostles). They arrived on the coast of Veracruz in 1524.

 

These newcomers, plus two of the Franciscans already living in New Spain, held a meeting, called the Apostolic Junta, in which they agreed on issues of catechism and the administration of the sacraments to the Indians. Other meetings took place in 1532, 1539, 1544, and 1546. They launched a strategy to evangelize, which included geographic expansion and a mandate for the redemption of souls. They aspired to recruit the largest possible number of converts to instruct in the Catholic religion and to reach as many communities as they could, with the conviction that their work was more efficacious than that of the secular clergy or of other regular orders. In later meetings, the regular and secular clergy in the viceroyalty agreed to common objectives and successful methods of indoctrination. These meetings decided the level of doctrinal preparation necessary for baptism of adults, the benefits of offering confession to the recently baptized, the recommended preparation before they could receive the Eucharist.