Father Montoya never returned to Paraguay, where he had fought so long and done so much for the poor Indians. Apparently it was not written that he should see the results of all his efforts, for, having embarked at Seville for Peru, he was detained at Lima on business of the Order. From thence he went to Tucuman, and, having returned to Lima, died aged seventy. The Viceroy and the chief members of the Audiencia (with whom he had struggled all his life) accompanied his body to the grave, and it is said that several miracles showed forth the glory he enjoyed in heaven.
That may be so, and if they happened (as they well may have done, for, after all, a miracle[112] really exists for those who credit it), if Heaven has honoured him, ’tis more than man has done: for even in Paraguay his name is not remembered, though it remains enshrined in the neglected pages of many a dusty Latin or a Spanish book.
But all the time that Fathers Montoya and Diaz Taño were in Europe a serious danger to the Jesuits was growing up. At the discovery of the New World, the Franciscans had been the first of all the Orders to go out. Some had accompanied Columbus, some were with Cortes in Mexico. Almagro and Pizarro’s hosts had their Franciscan chaplains. In his commentaries, Alvar Nuñez relates how he met some of the Order in Brazil. Lastly, the first of all the saints of the New World was a Franciscan.
In 1638 the Franciscans in the province of Jujuy[113] disputed with the Jesuits the right to certain missions, accusing them, as Padre del Techo says, ‘of putting their sickle into their ripening corn.’[114] What could be more annoying if it were true? As if a Wesleyan mission in the Paumotus Group should, after having shed its Bibles and its blankets like dry leaves, suddenly find an emissary from Babylon itself arrive and mark the sheep!
But from Jujuy the dissensions spread to Paraguay, where the Franciscans had several missions extending from Yuti to Cazapá, thus being almost within touch of the Jesuit Gospellers in Santa Maria, upon the eastern bank of the Tebicuari, which bounds their territory. These jealousies might have gone smouldering on, and never burst out into fire, had not the appointment of a Franciscan to the see of Paraguay caused the flames to flare out fiercely.
Had a firebrand been wanted to stir up strife, none better could have been found than Don Bernardino de Cardenas, who was just then appointed to the bishopric of Paraguay.
Chapter IV
Don Bernardino de Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay—His labours as apostolic missionary—His ambitions and cunning—Pretensions to saintliness—His attempts to acquire supreme power—Quarrels between Cardenas and Don Gregorio, the temporal Governor
Don Bernardino de Cardenas first saw the light in the town of La Plata,[115] capital of the province of Charcas in Bolivia, or, as it was then called, Alta Peru. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it would appear to have been in the early years of the seventeenth century. At an early age he entered the Franciscan Order.
As the Franciscans had had the honour of having furnished to the calendar the first saint canonized in the New World, it seems to have been the dream of Cardenas from his earliest youth to emulate him. In this desire he seems to have acted in good faith, and all his life the dream of saintship haunted him. Charlevoix[116] says ‘he made a rather superficial study of theology, and then engaged in preaching, in which, with memory, assurance, and facility, he found it easy to succeed in a country where brilliant gifts are more esteemed than solid learning.’ Certainly a preacher without assurance, memory, and facility would scarcely have succeeded in any country; and in what country in the world is brilliancy not far esteemed above the deepest scholarship? Besides, ‘he was a man of visions (homme à visions) and revelations, which he took good care to publish.’ Visions are generally, in the case of saints, confined to the soul’s eye, and revelation to the inward ear; if, therefore, the recipient of them does not make them known, they run the risk of being lost. In a word, according to Charlevoix,[117] he was ‘one of the most complete and dangerous ecstatics that ever lived.’ ‘His first successes’ (whether as preacher or ecstatic are not specified) caused his superiors to name him guardian of their college of La Plata. They soon repented of their choice. No sooner was he named Superior than he sought to qualify himself for saintship by a sort of royal road. Saints are of several classes, and, in looking through the calendars, it strikes one how different seem to have been the methods by which they severally attained their goal.