It is scarce worth while to follow in detail the further weary progress of this affair, in which Spanish tenacity was pitted against the wily diplomacy of Rome. Pertinacious efforts continued for years to get the case remitted back, or at least to have the papers returned, in order to create the belief that it had been remitted. Stimulated by energetic instructions of August 24, 1658 from Philip, his ambassador Gaspar de Sobremonte had a stormy interview with Alexander VII, in which the pope finally told him that the case had never been considered by the Congregation of the Inquisition and that the king must content himself with the brief of October 12, 1652. To this Sobremonte retorted that that brief settled nothing, when the pope said vaguely that he would see whether any satisfaction could be given to the Inquisition. So it continued until Alexander, grown weary of the urgency which promised to be interminable, cut it short, March 29, 1660, by a brief to the king in which he said that the case had been finally concluded by Innocent X, as appeared from his letters to Philip and Arce of March 12 (October 12, 1652). There was nothing more to be said about it, as would be fully explained by the Archbishop of Corinth, the nuncio, to whom full credit was to be given.[404]
This ended the case which, from its inception in 1628, had lasted for thirty-two years. Cabrera had spent nearly twelve years in Rome and had richly earned the bishopric of Salamanca which rewarded his labors, but his efforts while there had cost the Suprema nearly a hundred thousand ducats, at a time when it was representing itself as wholly impoverished. Arce had succeeded in removing Villanueva from the court and in blackening his memory, but the victory remained with the papacy, which had vindicated its appellate jurisdiction, for, although it never decided the case it retained possession of it and the papers which were the symbol of its rights.
With its customary unscrupulousness, the Suprema endeavored to evade the precedent when, in 1668, it was alleged in the quarrel with the Bishop of Majorca (Vol. I, p. 501). In a consulta of that year it gives a summary of the case up to the delivery of the papers to the pope, who then, it proceeds to state, sent a brief full of favors to Arce, approving of Villanueva’s sentence and the method of procedure; there was, it is true, an irregularity in allowing the papers to remain in Rome, but the pope excused himself because the originals were in Spain; the evil example led several powerful men to seek appeals to the Holy See, but the pope refused to entertain them, recognizing that it was injurious to the faith. When, in the same quarrel, it boasted of the bulls which it held prohibiting appeals, the Council of Aragon pointed out that the popes always preserved their reserved rights by a clause excepting cases in which they should insert in their letters the text of the bulls thus derogated.[405]
BOURBON RESISTANCE
In the subsequent quarrel with the canons and clergy of Majorca, in 1671 (Vol. I, p. 503) the latter appealed to the Holy See, under the brief obtained in 1642, and procured letters declaring void the excommunications fulminated by the tribunal and valid those uttered by the executors of the brief. The nuncio exhibited these letters to the inquisitor-general with a paper arguing that these appeals should be allowed and asking, in case there was a privilege or regalía to the contrary, that it should be shown to him. This was a test which the Suprema could not meet and, after a long delay, it sent, June 11, 1676, to the king all the documents bearing on the subject and asked him to assemble a junta to consider them and advise him what to do. It must have been impossible to solve the question favorably for, in a consulta of July 28, 1693, on the occasion of a fresh disturbance, it expressed its profound regret that the junta had failed to reach any conclusion.[406]
Two centuries of bickering thus left the Holy See in possession of its imprescriptible jurisdiction, but the Bourbons were less reverential than the Hapsburgs. In 1705, the hostility of the papacy led Philip V to forbid the publication of papal briefs without the royal exequatur and to prohibit all appeals to Rome. He held his ground in spite of the furious manifestos of Monroy, Archbishop of Santiago, proving that obedience was due to the pope rather than to the king, and the more temperate argumentation of Cardinal Belluga, then Bishop of Cartagena.[407] We hear little after this of appeals of individuals and, indeed, the experience of Villanueva, while apparently a defeat for the Inquisition, was in reality a victory, for it showed how hopeless was the contest of a prisoner against the whole power of the Inquisition and of the crown. Even when the Holy See had the advantage of being in possession of the person in dispute it could only fight a drawn battle, as in the case of Manuel Aguirre who, in 1737, escaped from the prison of the Inquisition, made his way to Rome, and presented his appeal in person. When the curia demanded the papers necessary for his trial, the Inquisitor-general Orbe y Larrategui did not in terms deny the papal rights but argued that the Inquisition was privileged to conclude a case before forwarding the papers for review and offered that, if the Holy See would return the prisoner, his flight should not be held to aggravate his offence and in due time all the desired information would be furnished to Rome. The acceptance of such a proposition was impossible, but the papacy was in no position to contest the matter. After the death of Orbe, in 1740, the curia took the case up again for discussion, but the only course open seemed to be to instruct the nuncio to persuade the Inquisition to obedience and we may safely conclude that Aguirre escaped without a trial.[408]
The ecclesiastical organizations, as in the Majorca cases, were in better position to engage in such conflicts, but Philip V was as little disposed as his predecessors to permit them. The multitudinous quarrels over suppressed prebends and the benefices held by officials of the Inquisition had always been a fruitful source of such appeals and the curia was never loath to entertain them. A typical case was that of Francisco Vélez Frias, private secretary of Inquisitor-general Camargo, who obtained the dignity of precentor in the cathedral of Valladolid, much to the disgust of the chapter. It applied to the inquisitor-general for the papers in the case, alleging that it would reply, but returned them without comment and appealed to Rome, where it obtained a rescript from Benedict XIII, committing the case to an auditor of the Camera and inhibiting the inquisitor-general from its cognizance. When Philip was informed of this he intervened in the spirit of Ferdinand. By his order the Marquis de la Compuesta wrote to the dean and chapter, June 19, 1728, expressing in vigorous terms the royal displeasure at an act so offensive to the inquisitor-general, whose jurisdiction in such matters was exclusive, and so contrary to the will of the king and to his regalías. They were ordered, without making a reply, to abandon the appeal and to apply to the inquisitor-general and the Suprema who would render justice in the case. It is safe to assume that they did not venture to disobey.[409]
The papacy of the eighteenth century was in no position to contest the growing independence of the temporal powers, while the revival of Spain under the Bourbons rendered hopeless any struggle against the resolve of the monarchs to regulate the internal affairs of the kingdom. Yet in this the Holy See was deprived of its inviolable rights, for the latest authoritative utterance of the Church, in the year 1899, tells us that it is an article of faith that the Roman pontiff is the supreme judge of the faithful and that in all ecclesiastical cases recourse may be had to him. It is therefore forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to appeal from him to a future council or to impede in any way the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, whether in the internal or external forum. Moreover it is against right reason to exalt human power over spiritual power, which is supreme over all powers.[410]