As late as 1770 the diocese of Guadalajara included Jalisco, Zacatecas, Chiametla, Culiacan, Sonora, and Sinaloa, to which was added afterward Lower California. All the Spanish settlements and many of the Indian towns were under curates before 1767, the only missions established being those of Nayarit.[1] The cathedral is of plain exterior, but handsomely decorated internally. The first stone was laid by Ayala, the fourth bishop, on the 31st of July, 1571, and the building was completed on the 19th of February, 1618, and consecrated by Bishop Mimbela.[2]
The bishopric of Durango was founded by bull of Paulus V. dated October 11, 1620.[3] The first bishop. Friar Gonzalo de Hermosilla, an Augustinian, was in charge of the see from October 1621 until his decease in January 1631. At the time of the foundation the diocese embraced Nueva Vizcaya, Sonora, Sinaloa, and New Mexico. The cathedral of this diocese is of the Tuscan order. Its construction was begun about 1695 by the ninth bishop, García de Legaspi, who labored under great difficulties for want of architects.
- ↑ The chapter of this see in the middle part of the eighteenth century consisted of the dean, archdeacon and precentor, the doctoral and magistral, and two other canons. Villa-Señor, Theatro Am., ii. 205. It seems to have had also since very early days four racioneros. Gonzales Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 179.
- ↑ Iglesias y Conv., 302. Among the most distinguished prelates were Alonso de la Mota, a native of Mexico, who was an efficient protector of the Indians against Spanish usurpations, and Friar Antonio Alcalde, who had been bishop of Yucatan. The donations of the latter for the founding of a university and other educational purposes, for hospitals, churches, and convents, for relief of the poor in times of famine and epidemic, aggregated $1,000,000; his clothes, food, and furniture were of the meanest; at his death the furniture of his house was valued at $267. Juan de Santiago de Leon Garavito, another bishop, was so poor that at his death he was buried by charity. The last of the nineteen prelates of Guadalajara, Juan Cruz Ruiz de Cabanas y Crespo, was distinguished for his generosity, and at his death bequeathed his own patrimony, about $23,000, to the poor. He was in charge of the diocese from 1796 to 1824.
- ↑ Concilios Prov., 1° y 2° 368. Cortes, Diario, 1812, xii. 348. Escudero, Not. Est. Son., has it in 1626. Frejes, Hist. Breve, gives 1631.
general, was nominated for bishop; but the pope never confirmed the nomination. Others were: Friars Francisco de Rivera and Márcos Ramirez del Prado, the latter of whom spent over $1,000,000 in alms and pious endowments; Friar Payo Enriquez de Rivera, who became archbishop and viceroy; Juan Ortega Montañez, who also became archbishop of Mexico; aud Friar Antonio de San Miguel, who greatly befriended the Indian portion of his flock during the famine of 1786, and the subsequent epidemic of small pox.
