Jurisdictional patriarchate attempts King
Ferdinand V of Castile asked
Pope Leo X to establish a patriarchate for the ecclesiastical government of the American territories discovered by the Spaniards. The
Holy See was not keen to accept the establishment of such an autonomous
Spanish American church and, on 11 May 1524,
Clement VII agreed to create it but only as honorific, without jurisdiction and without
clergy. In addition, the patriarch was banned from actually residing in the Americas. Antonio de Rojas,
archbishop of Granada and
bishop of Palencia, was the first patriarch. The following patriarchs were the
bishop of Jaén,
Esteban Gabriel Merino (1530–1535) and the archbishop of Granada,
Fernando Niño y Zapata (1546–1552). After Niño's death, the office remained vacant because
Philip II, against the Holy See policy, wished an actual jurisdictional patriarchate. Finally, the king agreed in 1591 to propose the
archbishop of Mexico City (but who was actually resident in
Madrid as president of the
Council of the Indies),
Pedro Moya de Contreras. However, the new patriarch died before he could take the oath of his new office. In 1602, Philip III abandoned the idea of a jurisdictional patriarchate and used it as an honorific title for noble clergymen. Philip III gave the honorific title to Pedro Manso de Zuñiga y Sola, brother of
Francisco Manso de Zuñiga y Sola.
Merger with the Spanish Military Vicariate In 1705,
Pope Clement XI named Patriarch Carlos de Borja Centellas the
Military Vicar (General) of the Spanish Armies. Beginning in 1736, Pope
Clement XII merged the office of
vicar general of the Spanish Armies with the Patriarchate of the West Indies
pro tempore et ad septennium, that is, "temporarily for seven years", and added to those titles the Royal Palace's Chaplaincy in 1741. By 1816, in recognition of the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santo Domingo being the first established in the
Western Hemisphere,
Pope Pius VII declared that its resident archbishop can use the title "Primate of the Indies." The previous year, the
Spanish republican government had abolished the military vicariate. Thus, the patriarchate remained vacant. During the
Spanish Civil War, the
Nationalists organized a religious military service and the Holy See appointed
Cardinal Isidro Gomá, the
archbishop of Toledo, as interim
pontifical delegate. In 1940, Gomá died and the auxiliary bishop Gregorio Modrego was commissioned with the deceased cardinal's military duties. In 1942, Modrego was appointed
bishop of Barcelona. During all that time, the patriarchate remained vacant. == List of patriarchs of the West Indies ==