“In this land all is death:” Don Diego Vázquez de Mercado, first secular archbishop of Manila (1608-16) and the Vacant See (1617-20)

Abstract

This paper deals with the figure of Don Diego Vázquez de Mercado, the first secular archbishop of Manila. While most scholars have analyzed the religious orders’ firm opposition to episcopal visits in their district parishes, I would additionally bring to the fore other aspects of his tenure, such as his relations with the cathedral chapter and his tense relations with the governor of the Philippines, Don Juan de Silva y Enríquez (16091616). In dialogue with the historiography of ecclesiastical institutions in the early modern Philippines, this essay analyzes the government of Don Diego Vázquez de Mercado and the cathedral chapter beyond a strictly spiritual motivation, placing these zealous defenders of the principle of the Royal Patronage within a confessional paradigm of ecclesiastical contentiousness.