Francis Quiñones (
Kingdom of LeónKingdom of León was an independent country situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in 910 AD when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their main seat from Oviedo to the city of León...
, c. 1482 –
VeroliVeroli is a town and commune in province of Frosinone, Lazio, Italy.-History:Veroli became a Roman municipium in 90 BCE. It became the seat of a bishopric in 743 CE, and was occupied by Spanish milices, allied to the Colonna family, in the 16th troops....
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, November 5, 1540) was a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
cardinalA cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually a bishop, of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and making themselves available...
.
He was the son of Diego Fernandez de Quiñones, Count of Luna, was educated as a page of
Cardinal XimenesFrancisco Jiménez de Cisneros, O.F.M. was a Spanish cardinal and statesman...
, and at the age of sixteen entered the
Order of Friars MinorThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
in the convent of Los Angeles (Spain), taking the name of Francis of the Angels (1498). Having completed his studies, he successively discharged all the various offices of his orders as custos, commissary general, and minister general.
Francis Quiñones (
Kingdom of LeónKingdom of León was an independent country situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in 910 AD when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their main seat from Oviedo to the city of León...
, c. 1482 –
VeroliVeroli is a town and commune in province of Frosinone, Lazio, Italy.-History:Veroli became a Roman municipium in 90 BCE. It became the seat of a bishopric in 743 CE, and was occupied by Spanish milices, allied to the Colonna family, in the 16th troops....
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, November 5, 1540) was a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
cardinalA cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually a bishop, of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and making themselves available...
.
He was the son of Diego Fernandez de Quiñones, Count of Luna, was educated as a page of
Cardinal XimenesFrancisco Jiménez de Cisneros, O.F.M. was a Spanish cardinal and statesman...
, and at the age of sixteen entered the
Order of Friars MinorThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
in the convent of Los Angeles (Spain), taking the name of Francis of the Angels (1498). Having completed his studies, he successively discharged all the various offices of his orders as custos, commissary general, and minister general. In 1521 he had obtained special permission and faculties from Leo X to go to the missions in
AmericaThe Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America...
, together with Father Glapion, confessor of
Charles VCharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
, but Glapion died in the same year, and Quiñones was elected commissary general of the Ultramontane Franciscans (1521-23). In the general chapter of the order at Burgos, in 1523, he was elected minister general (1523-27). As general, he visited the convents of Spain (1523-25), and a great part of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
and
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
(1525-27), promoted studies, maintained general discipline, and was not less active in behalf of missions. In 1524 he sent twelve missionaries to
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, among them Father Juan Juarez, who later became the first bishop within the present territory of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
After the
sack of RomeThe Sack of Rome on 5 May 1527 was a military event carried out by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, then part of the Papal States...
and the imprisonment of Clement VII (May, 1527), Quiñones, who was distantly related to Emperor Charles V, and also his confidant, seemed the aptest man to effect the release of the pope, and a full reconciliation between him and the emperor. He was thrice sent to the emperor for this purpose, and his efforts were crowned with success by the deliverance of Clement (December, 1527), and the treaties of Barcelona (1528) and Cambrai (1529). As these embassies rendered his effective government of the order impossible, Quiñones renounced the generalship in December, 1527, and in September of the following year he was created cardinal of the title of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, hence his name "Cardinal of the Holy Cross". From 1530 to 1533 he was also Bishop of Coria, in Spain, and for a short time, in 1539, administrator of
AcernoAcerno, is a town and in the province of Salerno in the region of Campania in south-western Italy.-Geography:Acerno, population 2,867 at the end of March 2009, is a small town, or large village, located 40 km north-east of the provincial capital of Salerno at 727 metres above sea level in the...
(
NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
), but he was never Cardinal Bishop at
PalestrinaPalestrina is an ancient city and comune with a population of about 18,000, in Lazio, c. 35 km east of Rome...
, as some authors assert.
Cardinal Quiñones always occupied a distinguished position in the Sacred College and closely followed the movement of the
ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 although a number of precursors such as Jan Hus predate that event...
in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. When
Paul IIIPope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Reformation...
contemplated assembling a general council at
MantuaMantua is a city in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name.Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes created during the 12th century. These receive the waters from the Mincio, which descend from Lake Garda...
, he sent (1536) the Cardinal of the Holy Cross to
Ferdinand IFerdinand I was a Central European monarch from the House of Habsburg. He was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558, King of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526. He ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs most of his public life, at the behest of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and...
, King of the Romans and of
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
, to promote that cause. The cardinal, however, did not live to see the opening of the
Council of TrentThe Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. Considered to be one of the Church's most important councils, it convened in Trento between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...
in 1545. His body was brought from
VeroliVeroli is a town and commune in province of Frosinone, Lazio, Italy.-History:Veroli became a Roman municipium in 90 BCE. It became the seat of a bishopric in 743 CE, and was occupied by Spanish milices, allied to the Colonna family, in the 16th troops....
to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
and buried in his titular church in a tomb which he had prepared himself.
Quiñones left some legislative compilations for his order, but is best known for his reform of the Roman
BreviaryA breviary is a liturgical book of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by, bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office...
undertaken by the order of Clement VII.