Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo
(Santo Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo; Mayorga, Valladolid, 1538 - large Sana, Peru, 1606) Spanish prelate. Councillor of the Inquisition at Granada, was named Archbishop of Lima in 1579. Arriving in Peru, he met the III Council Provincial de Lima (1582-1583), who published a catechism translated to quechua and aymara. He founded also the conciliar seminar of Lima, the first in America. He learned the quechua, the guajivo, the guajoya and the tuncha to preach to the Indians in their own language.
Turibius of Mongrovejo studied law and theology at the universities of Salamanca and Coimbra (Portugal), and in 1568 was named Inquisitor of Granada. The special skills they showed in this post (not abused its prerogatives and was rather flexible in prosecutions) presented it as an ideal candidate for the apostolate on American soil. Following the proposal of his name to the Archdiocese of Lima, Toribio in 1579 took Holy orders and, once elevated to Bishop, arrived in this American city in may 1581.
During the following years Santo Toribio carried out a huge work to the Organization of its vast Archdiocese, so toured it four times, learned quechua and other indigenous languages in order to achieve better communication with the indigenous people and encouraged the missionaries to follow their example; He also edit the first American Catechisms, both in Spanish and in various indigenous languages. In this way, without violent imposition and using their own language, was able to spread the Gospel among the Indians Quechua and Aymara.
Toribio convened three important councils provincial (1591, 1582 and 1601) whose records were collected in the ecclesiastical code of Peru, and the first American Seminary founded in Lima in 1591. It gave further confirmation to Santa Rosa de Lima, San Martin de Porres and San Juan Macías. Beatified in 1679 by Pope Inocencio XI (1676-1689) and canonized in 1726 by Benedicto XIII (1724-1730), Juan Paul II proclaimed him patron of the Latin American episcopate in 1983. His feast is celebrated on April 27.
Surely this is one of the most remarkable persons of the 300-year Spanish Colonial era.
ReplyDeleteToribio's work to convert AND ELEVATE the natives of his new country is most remarkable when contrasted to the legacy of the Conquistadores of just a few decades before. They were only interested in gold and silver, and did not regard the native population as human.
In the mid-1970s I met Francisco Wiese, head of the family who owned the 3rd largest copper mine in the world. He was in New York negotiating with David Rockefeller and his ilk, seeking fairer treatment (in business) from the world's reigning oligarchs. Francisco was of Incan descent.
He told me how Pizarro's men sent the conquered men into underground mining chambers, working them till they died. The bodies of the dead were then stuffed together to prop up the walls of the excavations. Imagine the air quality.
As Francisco told me this he stared at me with the force of 400 years of bitterness. He was the richest man I had ever met but he could not keep himself, in that moment, from seeing me as anything more than an heir to European tradition.
The clergy in Peru in 1580 was corrupt, as were other Spaniards who were milking the colony. Toribio was able to clean house while building God's house. Truly a saint.
I never heard of him until yesterday, when I acquired a small silver votive medal of him, probably made in Italy, maybe for his canonization in 1726. (I am a rare coin dealer.) I could send pictures to any interested person who eMails me.
--Paul J. Bosco
Manhattan