Diego Morcillo Rubio de Auñón

Diego Morcillo Rubio de Auñón as Archbishop of Lima

Diego Morcillo Rubio de Auñón OSsT (born January 3, 1642 in Villa Robledo de la Mancha, Spain ; † March 11, 1730 in Lima , Peru) was a Spanish religious priest who served as Archbishop of Lima and in 1716 temporarily and from 1720 to 1724 regularly officiated as Viceroy of Peru .

Life

Morcillo came from a family of the lower Spanish nobility. At a young age he joined the Order of the Most Holy Trinity ( Santísima Trinidad ) in Madrid . He studied theology at the University of Alcalá and was called to the royal court by King Charles II as chamber preacher.

On November 21, 1701 King Philip V appointed him bishop of Nicaragua ; the papal confirmation followed on March 15 of the following year. The Bishop of Panama , Juan de Argüelles , donated him episcopal ordination in 1703 . On May 14, 1708 he was appointed Bishop of La Paz .

On March 21, 1714 he was appointed Archbishop of La Plata o Charcas . In this office he took over the position of Peruvian viceroy on an interim basis from Mateo de la Mata Ponce de León , President of the Real Audiencia of Lima , in 1716 , which he passed on to the regular new incumbent, Carmine Nicolao Caracciolo , the Prince of Santo Buono, after just fifty days , gave. Morcillo returned to his diocese in Charcas for another four years.

In 1720, at the age of 78, the court appointed him regular successor as viceroy. He took office in Lima on January 26, 1720. On May 12, 1723 he was also given the office of Archbishop of Lima , which was vacant for more than a year after the death of Antonio Zuloaga . The inauguration took place on December 18 of the same year.

In the course of the reorganization of the Spanish colonial administration, the viceroyalty of New Granada was dissolved in 1723 , which roughly corresponded to the area of ​​today's states Panama , Colombia and Venezuela . The administration and jurisdiction were transferred to the viceroyalty of Peru .

The increased responsibility led Diego Morcillo to hand over part of his ecclesiastical responsibility to his nephew, Pedro Morcillo, whom he appointed auxiliary bishop in Lima.

His tenure as viceroy was marked by efforts to stabilize and increase state revenues. He also focused on repelling the ongoing pirate attacks on the Pacific coast, including a. by the English privateer John Clipperton . Morcillo also increased the Spanish military presence in southern Chile , where the Spanish were in ongoing war against the indigenous peoples.

During the Morcillos tenure, Pope Benedict XIII. two Peruvians as saints of the Roman Catholic Church: Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo and Francisco de Solano .

In 1722 a settler revolt against the deposition of the governor took place in Paraguay . In the course of the crown's struggle against the settlements and measures of the Jesuit order , the governor Diego de los Reyes Balmaseda , who had advocated the Jesuit cause, was deposed by a court, with the chief judge himself being his successor. Morcillo turned against this practice in several letters, in which he saw a violation of the principle of judicial independence.

In 1724, at the age of 82, Morcillo was allowed to retire. José de Armendáriz took over his office as viceroy . Morcillo died in Lima in 1730 and was buried in the cathedral there.

literature

• Manuel de Mendiburu (1805-1885): Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú . tape 5 . Imprenta J. Francisco Solis, Lima 1885, p. 357-367 ( Cervantes Virtual [accessed March 6, 2015]).

Web links

• Entry on Diego Morcillo Rubio de Auñón on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Short biography (Spanish)
• Biography (spanish)
• Biography (spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Mateo de la Mata Ponce de León	Viceroy of Peru 1716	Carmine Nicolao Caracciolo
Carmine Nicolao Caracciolo	Viceroy of Peru 1720–1724	José de Armendáriz