Pedro Moya de Contreras

Pedro Moya de Contreras (sometimes Pedro de Moya y Contreras) (c. 1528, Pedroche, Córdoba Province, Spain – December 21, 1591, Madrid) was a prelate and colonial administrator who held the three highest offices in the Spanish colony of New Spain, namely inquisitor general, Archbishop of Mexico, and Viceroy of Mexico, September 25, 1584 – October 17, 1585. He was the 6th Viceroy, governing from September 25, 1584, to October 16, 1585. During this interval he held all three positions.

Ecclesiastical career

Moya de Contreras received the degree of doctor of canon law from the University of Salamanca. Later he became head of the cathedral school in the Canary Islands, and then inquisitor of Murcia.

In 1571 he became the first inquisitor general of New Spain (and thus the first inquisitor general in the New World). He established the Tribunal del Santo Oficio in Mexico City in 1571. As inquisitor general he required people of New Spain, from the oidores (members of the Audiencia), nobles and religious to the most humble members of society, to solemnly swear to defend the Catholic faith and persecute heretics "as rabid dogs and wolves, infectors of spirits and destroyers of the vineyard of Our Lord." He celebrated the first auto-da-fé in New Spain in 1571.

Two years later, on June 15, 1573, Moya de Contreras was chosen Archbishop of Mexico and consecrated bishop on November 21, 1573, by Antonio Ruíz de Morales y Molina, Bishop of Tlaxcala (Puebla de los Angeles).