INTER CAETERA. - Thus begin two bulls that Alexander VI sent on 3 and 4 May 1493: the first called the bull of donation, the second of division (antedated, actually sent at the beginning of June). Christopher Columbus, having returned from his first voyage overseas, in March of that year notified the King of Portugal, John II, of his discovery. He did the same on the 13th of the same month, in Barcelona, with Ferdinand V and Isabella of Spain. A conflict then arose: since Nicholas V had granted to the Portuguese kings the exclusivity of action in the lands discovered by them beyond Cape Bojador (Romanus Pontifex, 8 Jan. 1454). Ferdinand, to cut short any claim of Portugal, asked Alexander VI, in Apr. 1493, for the same exclusivity for the Spanish discoveries. The Pope, interested in the evangelization of those lands, and unable to bring it about, and also wishing to preserve the friendship of the Catholic King, granted the first I.C. which reached Barcelona on 28 May. However, its uncertainty in the division of the zones did not satisfy: therefore the Spanish Kings asked for a more explicit bull: and thus the second I.C. was drafted.
In this document, almost identical to the first in text, a line of division from one pole to the other, passing 100 leagues west of the Azores, marked for Spain the western lands, and for Portugal the eastern ones. John did not comply, and after various diplomatic negotiations agreed to move the line of division 370 leagues east of the Azores (Treaty of Tordesillas, 7 June 1494). Moreover in both bulls the Catholic Kings are urged to send missionaries suited to the new lands.
The explanations of many canonists regarding the document of donation say that the pontifical act is an act of the Pope considered as universal temporal monarch, according to the medieval doctrine of the Hostiensis (d. 1271), Alvaro Pelayo (d. 1354) and others: infidels, after Christ, have been deprived of political dominion and of the true right of property, and the Pope, depositary of both, would have transferred it to the Spanish Kings. Thus John Palacio Rubios (16th cent.), Matia de Paz (d. 1517), John Solórzano Pereira (1575-1653).
The theologians, on the other hand, following St. Thomas and Cajetan, attributed to infidels true and absolute rights of public and private dominion, and in the I.C. saw an exercise of the indirect temporal power of the pontiff, which assigned to Spain zones of evangelization and commerce. Thus John Mair (1469-1550), Bartolomé Las Casas (1479-1565), Francisco De Vitoria (1486?-1546), Domingo Soto (1494-1570), Domingo Bañez (1528-1604), Gregorio de Valencia (1551?-1603).
The clause of the I.C., which urges the Kings to send missionaries, gave rise to certain anti-canonical conclusions: the Pope, supreme pastor, in potentia, even of infidels, would have constituted the Kings as his delegates, or vicars, also in spiritual matters, in the West Indies; the missionaries sent by him would have had ministerial licences independently of any local ordinary. This theory, elaborated by religious (Alfonso de la Veracruz [1504-84], Augustinian, and John Focher [d. 1572], Franciscan) passed to the Council of the Indies (ca. 1622), to the secular councillors (Garci Pérez de Araciel, 1624), and Solórzano Pereira (1629-39) elaborated it in a regalist sense.
Its practice was disapproved by Propaganda (1634); and the doctrine was implicitly prohibited by the Holy Office (1642). This decree was not enforced in Spain, and the theory was treated together with Gallican and Febronian ideas in the 18th century. Philip V, Charles III and Isabella II declared themselves pontifical vicars in the Indies. Dalmacio Vélez Sarsfield (1854) proposed that the presidents of the new South American Republics could consider themselves pontifical vicars in the missions existing in their districts. These theories, however, did not hinder the development of the Church in Central and South America.
Bibliography19 works
Antonio de Egaña