El caso de los obispos de Santiago de Chile en el siglo XVII

Abstract

This article reveals certain resources that Chilean bishops presented to the Holy See in the seventeenth century, in order to strengthen their diocesan governments. The exchange path that I refer to here is the visita ad limina, an opportunity that bishops had to inform the Pope about the state of their dioceses. In the case of local Spanish American churches, relations with Rome were affected by the royal patronage, which despite being a real limitation to a more decisive influence of the Holy See in the ‘New World’, allowed the circulation of relevant information. Reviewing the Chilean case, it becomes clear that bishops used this mean of communication to clarify doubts about canonical normativity, accuse disobedience from a large spectrum of the local society, and denounce transgressions to their episcopal authority