FONTE, PEDRO JOSÉ

Thirty-first archbishop of Mexico; b. Linares, Aragon, May 13, 1777; d. June 11, 1839. In 1802, the year of his ordination, Pedro José de Fonte y Hernández de Miravete was invited by the archbishop of Mexico, Francisco Javier de Lizana y Beaumont, to become his vicar-general and provisor.

After Archbishop Lizana died in 1811, the See of Mexico remained vacant until Fonte was consecrated June 29, 1816. When Mexico became independent, Archbishop Fonte returned to Spain. Following the recognition of Mexican independence by Spain in 1837, Pope Gregory XVI ordered him either to return to his see or to resign. Fonte chose resignation.

The first four years of his reign passed uneventfully since the movement for independence had all but collapsed with the execution of Morelos. In April of 1820 news of the Riego revolt in Spain and the readoption of the Constitution of 1812 reached Mexico. Fundamentally, the archbishop espoused political conservatism, but loyalty to the crown overrode his personal convictions. All Church leaders swore allegiance to the constitution, and in July the archbishop defended its freedom of the press, guarantees of political liberty and equality, and suppression of the Inquisition. In spite of the increasing anticlericalism demonstrated by the Spanish Cortes, Fonte remained loyal, even when all his suffragans during 1821 swore allegiance to Agustín de Iturbide, the conservative army commander who declared for independence.

When Iturbide's victory seemed assured, Fonte prepared to leave the country, but Capt.–Gen. Juan O'Donojú persuaded him to delay his departure. The archbishop agreed to remain if the King would accept the Treaty of Córdoba signed by Iturbide and O'Donojú in late August. When Iturbide entered Mexico City in triumph, the archbishop met him at the doors of the cathedral and intoned a solemn Te Deum of thanksgiving. He counseled his clergy to obey the new government, but he himself refused to participate.

His last important act as reigning archbishop was to report to the regency on Oct. 19, 1821, the results of his deliberations with his cathedral chapter and a junta of bishops on the question of filling ecclesiastical vacancies. The consensus was that patronage had ended with independence, and that until Mexico received a new concession from the Holy See, the bishops had the power to appoint. In April of 1822 the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs rejected this contention, but by this time the Spanish government had repudiated the Treaty of Córdoba and Fonte was ready to depart.

Bibliography: j. trinidad basurto, El arzobispado de México (Mexico City 1901). k. m. schmitt, "The Clergy and the Independence of New Spain," Hispanic American Historical Review 34 (1954) 289–312.

[k. m. schmitt]