AN account has been already given of the persecutions of Don Ferdinand de Talavera, first Archbishop of Granada; of Juan Davila, surnamed the Apostle of Andalusia; and of San Juan de Dios, founder of the congregation of Hospitallers. The following is a list of other holy persons who have been prosecuted by the holy office:—
St. Ignacius de Loyola was denounced as an illuminati to the Inquisition of Valladolid; and when the inquisitors were about to arrest him, he went to France, afterwards to Italy, and arrived at Rome, where he was tried and acquitted; after having been so likewise in Spain by a juridical sentence of the vicar-general of the Bishop of Salamanca. His real name was Iñigo.
Melchior Cano says, in an unpublished work written during the life of Iñigo, "that he fled from Spain when the Inquisition intended to arrest him as a heretic of the sect of Illuminati. He went to Rome, and wished to be judged by the Pope. As no person appeared to accuse him, he was discharged."
It is certain that St. Ignacius was arrested at Salamanca in 1527, as a fanatic and illuminati, and that he recovered his liberty in about twenty-two days; he was enjoined in his preaching from qualifying mortal or venial sins, until he had studied theology four years. It is also true that when the inquisitors of Valladolid learnt that the saint was in prison, they wrote to cause an inquest to be made of the words and actions which caused a suspicion that he was one of the Illuminati.
But it is not proved that Ignacius quitted Spain to escape from punishment; it appears that he only fulfilled his intention of studying theology at Paris. The humility of the saint was so great, that when he was denounced a second time in that city, to Matthew d'Ory the apostolical inquisitor, he surrendered himself voluntarily, and had no difficulty in proving his orthodoxy.
It is not more certain that he went to Rome at that time, since he was still at Paris in 1535, and he afterwards returned to Spain, where he remained a year without being molested, though he preached in several provinces. He then embarked for Italy, went first to Bologna, and then to Venice, where he was a third time denounced as a heretic, but justified himself to the papal nuncio, and was admitted into the priesthood in that city. Ignacius arrived in Rome in 1538.
It cannot be proved that he was acquitted at Rome because he had no accuser, since any criminal may be prosecuted by the minister of the public and punished. It is true that there was not at that time a particular tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome; but the civil judges could punish heretics, and the procurator-fiscal impeached the criminals. St. Ignacius was again denounced by a Spaniard named Navarro. The informer deposed that Ignacius had been accused and convicted of several heresies in Spain, France, and Venice, and charged him with some other crimes. Fortunately his three judges knew his innocence, and he was acquitted. His accuser was banished for life, and three Spaniards who had supported his evidence were condemned to retract.
Thus it appears that Melchior Cano was misinformed when he wrote, ten years after, that Iñigo was acquitted because no accuser appeared.
St. Francis de Borgia, a disciple of Loyola, and third general of his order, succeeded Lainez, in 1565, and died 1572. He had been the Duke de Gandia, and was cousin to the king in the third degree, by his mother, Jane of Arragon.
In 1559, the Inquisition of Valladolid tried several Lutherans, who were condemned. Many of these heretics, who endeavoured to justify themselves by supporting their doctrine by the opinions of St. Francis de Borgia, whose virtue was well known, related some discourses and actions of this saint, to prove that they thought as he did on the justification of souls by faith, on the passion and death of Jesus Christ; and added, to strengthen their defence, the authority of some mystic treatises. Among these involuntary persecutors, was Fray Dominic de Roxas, his near relation, and advantage was taken of a former denunciation of his Treatise on Christian Works, which he composed while he was known as the Duke of Gandia.