Santiago Manuel de Alday y Aspée (1712, Concepción – 1789,

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

) was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

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priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

. He served as Bishop of Santiago from 1755 to 1788. He is considered the most important bishops of Santiago during the eighteenth century.

Moral diatribes

Alday is best remembered for his frequent

polemics Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

on moral issues, and campaigned against particular aspects of women's fashion at the time –such as short skirts reaching down to the calf of the leg or very short sleeves. He also opposed the opening of the theater in Santiago; he claimed that attending comedies there was a

mortal sin A mortal sin ( la, peccatum mortale), in Catholic theology, is a gravely sinful act which can lead to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. A sin is considered to be "mortal" when its quality is such that it leads t ...

. He also condemned the game known as ''palín'' or ''chueca'', a form of

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Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

origin, as well as the thick winter clothes worn by some clerics during cold weather, and the use of the

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by some people as a

sealing wax Sealing wax is a wax material of a seal which, after melting, hardens quickly (to paper, parchment, ribbons and wire, and other material) forming a bond that is difficult to separate without noticeable tampering. Wax is used to verify something ...

on letters. Alday, in a famous pastoral letter about women's fashions, ordered in 1782 that "...all women of whatever station or class extend the length of their clothes, employing round petticoats or half circle shaped skirts both inside and outside of their homes in a manner that reaches their ankles… and also, in the same manner, that women cover their arms up to the mid-point between the elbow and the wrist every time they leave the home or when they receive visitors at their home."

Administrative work

In 1780, Alday revitalized the building program associated with the Cathedral of Santiago de Chile, placing the program in the hands of the architect

Joaquín Toesca Gioacchino Toesca e Ricci (1745–1799; known as Joaquín Toesca in the Spanish Empire) was an Italian architect who worked at the service of the Spanish Empire, mainly in Chile. He was mainly a Neoclassical architect although he also built Baro ...

. Alday was also concerned with the building of new churches in

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, including the third church built in the

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sanctuary of Andacollo as well as the completion and consecration of the principal church in

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, in 1760. Alday founded new parishes as he traveled across his extensive diocese, visiting, for example,

Copiapó Copiapó () is a city and commune in northern Chile, located about 65 kilometers east of the coastal town of Caldera. Founded on December 8, 1744, it is the capital of Copiapó Province and Atacama Region. Copiapó lies about 800 km nort ...

and Cuyo. He founded San Lázaro (1775) in the suburbs of Santiago, and parishes in more distant areas, such as

Paredones Paredones is a Chilean town and commune in Cardenal Caro Province, O'Higgins Region. Demographics According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, Paredones spans an area of and has 6,695 inhabitants (3,562 men and 3,133 women ...

(1765), Combarbalá (1757), Pelarco (1787) and

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(1764). He organized a diocesan synod in 1763, hoping to enact clerical reforms and discuss the immoral customs of his flock.

Theological work

He received a good education, receiving a doctorate in Law at the University of San Marcos de Lima. He possessed one of the largest libraries in Chile during the colonial era of 2,058 volumes, which today is conserved in the Museum of Carmen de Maipú. He wrote various treatises and participated in a discussion on

Probabilism In theology and philosophy, probabilism (from Latin ''probare'', to test, approve) is an ancient Greek doctrine of Academic skepticism. It holds that in the absence of certainty, plausibility or truth-likeness is the best criterion. The term can ...

, in the synod of

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

of 1772, in which he opposed this philosophy. He was a major participant in this synod.

Works

* ''Regla de la gloriosa virgen Santa Clara: según la observan las religiosas, que no son descalzas, aprobados por la santidad de Urbano IV'' (1773) * ''Visitatio ad limina apostolorum Illmi. D. D. Emmanuelis de Alday Episcopi Chilensis, Catholicae Majestatis à Consiliis'' (1763) * ''Synodo discesana'' (1763) {{DEFAULTSORT:Alday Y Aspee, Santiago Manuel De 18th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Chile Roman Catholic bishops of Santiago de Chile 1712 births 1789 deaths People from Concepción, Chile