Note 331 — Chapter LXIII

Fray Geronimo Loayza was appointed bishop of Lima in 1540, and was the first archbishop from 1548 to 1575. When Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled, he sent the archbishop as his envoy to Spain, but, meeting La Gasca at Panama on his way, that prelate returned with him, and accompanied him throughout the campaign, which ended in the overthrow of Gonzalo Pizarro in 1548. This Friar Loayza was a cruel fanatic. The inquisition was not introduced into Peru until 1569, but the archbishop had previously held three autos de fé at Lima on his own account, at one of which, John Millar, a Fleming, was burnt as a Lutheran heretic. The first auto de fé held by the inquisition at Lima took place in 1573, two years before the death of Loayza, when a Frenchman was burnt as a heretic. Loayza presided over two provincial councils, one in 1552 and the other in 1567. There have been twenty-two archbishops of Lima since the death of Loayza. The present one, Dr. Don Sebastian de Goyeneche, who succeeded in 1860, is probably the oldest bishop in Christendom, having been consecrated bishop of Arequipa in 1817, and is also one of the richest men in South America. He is now seventy-nine years of age.