Illegitimacy and Racial Hierarchy in the Peruvian Priesthood: A Seventeenth-Century Dispute

ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DISPUTE BY Sabine Patricia Hyland* Introduction In 1624 Francisco Verdugo, newly appointed bishop of Huamanga in Peru, stunned his diocese by declaring that most of the Catholic priests in the rural regions of Huamanga had not been validly ordained and must be removed permanently from office. The priests in question were all of illegitimate birth who, Verdugo argued, could not be validly ordained, despite two previous papal bulls empowering American bishops to raise illegitimate men to the priesthood.1 For Verdugo, the removal of illegitimately born men from the priesthood in his diocese was to be his final measure in a long struggle to ensure the racial purity of the priesthood in Peru. In Peru at this time, illegitimacy was commonly equated with mestizos—children born to European (or creóle) fathers and native mothers. Debate about the role of illegitimate men within the priesthood was stated explicitly to concern the place of mestizos in the Church.After 1588, when the Spanish Crown repealed legislation barring American bishops from ordaining mestizos, those opposed to mestizo ordination tried to use the canonical prohibitions against ordaining illegitimate men to keep mestizos from the priesthood. After years of bitter debate, the matter was finally resolved in 1628. In that year the Council of the Indies decided in favor of allowing bishops to grant dispensations for the ordination of illegitimate men, as had been provided for by two earlier papal bulls. In addition , the Council declared that all previous ordinations of illegitimate men by American bishops had been valid, reversing Verdugo's attempts *Dr. Hyland is an assistant professor of anthropology in Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia. 'See Pedro de Reina Maldonado, El norte claro del perfecto prelado (Madrid, 1653), pp. 372-375. 431 432ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD to remove these illegitimately born men from the priesthood.2 Thus, the final restrictions against investing mestizos with Holy Orders in the Indies were removed. Although numerous scholars have addressed the controversy over creating a native and a mestizo priesthood in colonial Spanish America, the role of the question of illegitimacy in these debates has been overlooked .3 Yet studying the debate over illegitimacy is essential to understanding the complete history of the controversy over mestizos in the Peruvian priesthood. The conflict over ordaining illegitimately born men was a crucial part in the development of the priesthood in colonial South America. Moreover, the analysis of this debate reveals that, contrary to current scholarly opinion, mestizos formed the substratum of the Peruvian clergy in the seventeenth century. In this period mestizos were customarily ordained to serve in rural Indian parishes (doctrinas) from which there was virtually no chance of promotion. Until now it generally has been believed that only Europeans and creóles were ordained as priests in seventeenth-century Peru. The fact that, as analysis of this debate shows, mestizo priests were a common feature of Indian parishes in seventeenth-century Peru, holds profound implications for our understanding of the spread of Christianity in the Andes. 2Juan de Solórzano Pereyra,Política Indiana,\o\. 2 (Madrid, 1972), pp. 306-31 1. 'For discussions on the development of mestizo and native clergy in Latin America, see Juan Alvarez Mejia, "La cuestión del Clero indígena en la época colonial," RevistaJaveriana , 44 (1955), 193-197; 45 (1956), 56-57, 209-2 19; Xavier Albó,"Jesuítas y culturas indígenas , Perú 1568-1606; América indígena, 26 (1966), 249-308, 399-449; Fernando de Armas Medina, Cristianización del Perú (1532-1600) (Seville, 1953), pp. 364-374; Constantino Bayle, "España y el clero indígena de América," Razón y Fe, 94 (February 10, 1931), 213-225; (March 25, 1931), 521-535;Guiüermo¥iguera,Laformación del clero ind ígena en la historia eclesiástica de América 1500-1818 (Caracas, 1965); Antón Hounder, Der einheimische Klerus in den Heidenländern (Freiburg, 1909); León Lopetegui,"FJ Papa Gregorio XIII y la Ordenación de mestizos hispano-incáicos" in Xenia Piaña SSmo Dno Nro Pió Papae XII . . . dicata (Rome, 1943); Juan Oleachea, "Como abordaron...