Pedro Moya de Contreras - Ecclesiastical Career

Ecclesiastical Career

Moya de Contreras received the degree of doctor of canon law from the University of Salamanca. Later he became head of the cathedral school in the Canary Islands, and then inquisitor of Murcia.

In 1571 he became the first inquisitor general of New Spain (and thus the first inquisitor general in the New World). He established the Tribunal del Santo Oficio in Mexico City in 1571. As inquisitor general he required people of New Spain, from the oidores (members of the Audiencia), nobles and religious to the most humble members of society, to solemnly swear to defend the Catholic faith and persecute heretics "as rabid dogs and wolves, infectors of spirits and destroyers of the vineyard of Our Lord." He celebrated the first auto-da-fé in New Spain in 1571.

Two years later, on June 15, 1573, Moya de Contreras was chosen Archbishop of Mexico. He served until 1591, the year of his death. In 1585 he convoked and presided at the Third Provincial Council of the Church in Mexico, which established standards for the Church that endured to the end of the colonial era. This council banned the enslavement of the Indians. As both archbishop and viceroy, one of his major concerns was education of the Indians. He founded the Seminary of the Indies, to teach them Christian doctrine, reading, writing, singing and trades.