Palafox De Mendoza, Juan De
PALAFOX DE MENDOZA, JUAN DE (1600-1659), Spanish bishop, was born in Aragon. He was appointed in 1839 bishop of Angelopolis (Puebla dc los Angeles) in Mexico, and there honourably distinguished himself by his efforts to protect the natives from Spanish cruelty, forbidding any methods of conversion other than persuasion. In this he met with the uncompromising hostility of the Jesuits, whom in 1647 he laid under an interdict. He twice, in 1647 and 1649, laid a formal complaint against them at Rome. The pope, however, refused to approve his censures, and aU he could obtain was a brief from Innocent X. (May 14, 1648), commanding the Jesuits to respect the episcopal jurisdiction. In 1653 the Jesuits succeeded in securing his translation to the little see of Osma in Old Castile. In 1694 Charles II. of Spain petitioned for his canonization; but though this passed through the preliminary stages, securing for Palafox the title of " Venerable," it was ultimately defeated, under Pius VI., by the intervention of the Jesuits.
See Antonio Gonzalez de Resende, Vie de Palafox (French trans., Paris, 1690).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
