4381 Francisco Vazquez (an4381)
4381 Francisco Vazquez
A Peruvian friar (1703-1785) who was Augustinian Prior General in 1753-1785.
The second Augustinian appointed as Prior General for life served for a record term of thirty-two years. He was Francisco X. Vazquez O.S.A. (1703 – 1785), who has been the only Peruvian-born Prior General. He served in that role from 1753 until his death in 1785.
His considerable achievements are even more noteworthy for having taken place during the particular difficulties experienced by the Church and Augustinian Order in the 17th and 18th centuries. Vazquez worked energetically on many fronts. He was determined to reform the internal spirit of the Order. He successfully called for a compilation of Augustinian theology, and the publication of the works of the outstanding Augustinian theologian of the time, Gianlorenzo Berti O.S.A.
He saw to a revision of the Augustinian Constitutions, and greatly increased the already famous Augustinian library in Rome, the Biblioteca Angelica. Vazquez faced well the difficulty of being Prior General for thirty-two years at a period when the so-called enlightened despots of Europe were very aggressive towards the monastic and mendicant religious orders of the Church.
The long term of office as Prior General by Vazquez happened during the European historical period called the Enlightenment, which saw a secularization of society. Under this pressure imposed by absolutist rulers who are sometimes described as "enlightened despots," new Augustinian provinces were established to suit the boundaries of civil jurisdictions, and some semi-autonomous Augustinian observant congregations were suppressed.This indicates the extent to the Order's provinces, and hence the Order itself, were in a fluid state under the insistence of secular rulers determined to reduce the church to the role of being an instrument of the state.
This attitude was called Josephism, after the name of its chief practitioner, Joseph II of Austria, who had no time for the religious orders except insofar as their activities coincided with the prevailing ideas of the Enlightenment period about the public utility of institutions. Vazquez was an energetic administrator himself, and was fortunate to have had four reputable Assistants General to convey and magnify his impact on various sections of the Augustinian world. These Assistants General in the Augustinian Curia (central governing committee) were from Italy (Emmanuele Piognoine O.S.A. of Carretto), France (Joseph Andre Goubert O.S.A.), Spain (Francisco Gutierrez O.S.A.), and Germany (Kosmas Schmalfus O.S.A.).
The fact that Vazquez was appointed to be Prior General for life was almost unique in the 750 years of the history of the Order of Saint Augustine. The only other instance was that of his immediate predecessor, Agostino Gioia O.S.A. of Giovinazzo, Italy. Elected in 1745, he died unexpectedly in 1751; this made his term of office no longer in fact that many other persons on the long list of Augustinian Priors General. At this period in Church history, newer Post-Reformation religious orders such as the Jesuits (Society of Jesus) had lifelong generalship as their standard practice, just as in a parallel way the position of abbot in Benedictine monasteries had for centuries been a lifelong appointment.
After this experiment in the cases of Gioia and Vazquez, the Augustinians reverted to the earlier constitutional practice of a term of office equalling the duration between General Chapters.
The European Augustinians in 1776, by John Gavigan O.S.A.. Rome: Analecta Augustiniana, Vol XXXVIII (1975), pp. 231-294.
4301a Augustinian Saints
4304 Bernard André
4305 Richard Annibaldi
4306 Anonymous Florentine
4308 Andrea Biglia
4309 Bartholomew of Urbino
4310 Manuel Blanco
4311 Bonaventure Baduario
4313 Augustine of Canterbury
4316 Osbern Bokenham
4317 John of Basel
4318 John Capgrave
4319 Matthew Carr
4321 Clement of Osimo
4320 William Estouteville
4322 Filippo di Leonardo di Cola
4323 Pope Eugene IV
4324 William Flete
4325 Giles of Rome
4395 Giles of Viterbo
4327 Henry of Friemar
4328 Geoffrey Hardeby
4329 Diego de Herrera
4330 Thomas Herrera
4333 Leos Janacek
4334 Jordan of Saxony
4335 Jacques Legrand
4336 Pope Leo XIII
4337 Luis de Leon
4339 John Lowe
4341 Martin Luther
4345 Nicholas of Alessandria
4346 Sebastian Manrique
4347 Lukas Martinec
4348 Luigi Marsigli
4349 Ambrose Massari da Cori
4350 Mariano de la Mata
4351 Nicholas Melo
4352 Gregor Mendel
4353 Juan Mendoza
4357 Pacifico Neno
4359 Jean Pasquerel
4360 Thomas Penketh
4361 Francesco Petrarch
4362 King Philip II of Spain
4364 Martin de Rada
4367 Gregory of Rimini
4368 Jerome Santisteban
4369 Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro
4370 Andrea del Sarto
4371 Girolamo Seripando
4372 Diego Soria
4374 Johann von Staupitz
4375 Robert Stokes
4377 Thomas of Strasburg
4378 Augustine of Tarano
4380 Andrés de Urdaneta
4382 Alonso de la Vera Cruz
4384 Robert Waldeby
4388 William of Cremona
4389 William of Monklane