ARRIETA, FRANCISO SALES DE

Peruvian franciscan, archbishop of Lima; b. Lima, Jan. 29, 1768; d. there, May 4, 1843. He joined the Discalced Franciscans in Lima. He was named director of the Franciscan house of exercises in 1813, and later served as inspector of convents of the Lima province and as rector of the Third Order. In 1839 President Gamarra nominated him for archiepiscopal to the See of Lima. Arrieta's secret letter to Gregory XVI asking that he be excused from serving in this post was to no avail. On Jan. 24, 1841, he was consecrated archbishop. Arrieta worked to reform monastic life in Peru, becoming the confessor of many of the regular clergy. Owing to the reorganization he initiated in 1842, the Seminary of San Toribio began gradually to reacquire intellectual influence. Arrieta was indefatigable in his efforts to improve the religious instruction of children. The most serious challenge to Archbishop Arrieta was the shifting attack of Peruvian liberalism against the Church, manifested particularly in the actions of Manuel Lorenzo Vidaurre (1773–1841). As a young man Vidaurre showed a tendency to dismiss the spiritual beliefs of Catholicism, boasting deism and confidence in reason and science. In 1839 he published the Vidaurre contra Vidaurre, allegedly disavowing his own theological errors. The book, however, reflected the new position of Peruvian liberalism, insisting that the Church democratize its organizational structure, questioning papal supremacy, arguing that councils represented the voice of ultimate truth in church affairs, demanding the suppression of ecclesiastical privileges such as private law courts, and affirming the absolute right of the state to supervise the church in all temporal activities. Archbishop Arrieta condemned the widely read book. Thus, were clearly established the main battle lines that Peruvian churchmen and anticlerical liberals defended for the next half century.

Bibliography: j. a. de lavalle, Galería de retratos de los arzobispos de Lima (Lima 1892).

[f. b. pike]