Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/312

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Jaca (Jacca), Diocese of (Jaccensis), in the Spanish province of Huesca. Jaca, the chief town of the mountain tlistriet of Sobrarbe, is situated on the left bank of the Aragon, a tributary of the Ebro, about 2400 feet above sea-level. The population in 1900 was 4934. It was once the capital of the Jacce- tani, a trite mentioned liy Strabo. This territory was the scene of battles between Sertorius and Pom- pey and later between Pompey's son Sextus and Caesar's generals.

Ecclesiastically Jaca belonged originally to the Dio- cese of Huesca. When in 71o the town of Huesca was seized by the Moors, its prelates were replaced by itinerant bishops, sometimes called bishops of Aragon, sometimes bishops of Hue.sca or Jaca, who lived either at Jaca or in the neighbouring monasteries of San Juan de la Peiia, San Pedro de Siresa, and Sasave. A coun- cil held at Jaca in 1063 determined anew the boun- daries of the Diocese of Huesca, which thereafter in- cluded the present dioceses of Huesca, Jaca, and Barbastro, as well as a part of the Diocese of Lerida. Jaca was then made the permanent seat of the diocese. At the same time Sancho II was appointed Bishop of Huesca, and hastened to request the pope to confirm the decisions of the council. Meanwhile, however. King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon (1063-94) had won back from the Moors the city of Barbastro, and had granted it to the Bishop of Roda. Garcia, the new Bishop of Huesca (1076-S6), regarded this as an infringement of the rights of jurisdiction granted the Bishop of Jaca by the Council of Jaca. He therefore renewed his petition to the new pope (Gregory VII) to have the decisions of the council confirmed, which request the pope granted (cf. Jaffe, "Reg. Pont. Roman. ", I, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1.SS5, n. 5098). As, however. Bishop Rai- mundo of Roda also obtained the confirmation of all his privileges from Gregory, a violent dispute arose between the Bishops of Huesca and Roda as to jurisdic- tion over the churches of Barljastro, Bielsa, Gistao, and Alquezar, which in 1080 was decided by the king in favour of the Bishop of Roda. In November, 1096, King Pedro I of .\ragon won back Huesca from the Moors, and Urban II now decreed (11 May, 1089) that, instead of Jaca, Huesca should again be the seat of the bishop (cf. Jaff^, op. cit., I, 5703). But Jaca itself had a separate existence under a vicar-general, inde- pendent of the Bishop of Huesca. It also retained its own cathetlral chapter, which originally followed the Rule of St. Augustine, but in 1270 both this chapter and that of Huesca were secularized. Jaca was again erected into a separate diocese and was made suffragan to the Metropolitan See of Saragossa by a Bull of Pius V (18 July, 1571), which decision was carried into effect on 26 February, 1572. The first bishop was Pedro del Frago, whose forty-second successor is the present bishop, Antolin Lopez y Pelaez (consecrated on 4 April, 1905).

Statistics. — According to the diocesan statistics of 1907 Jaca pos.sesses 73,659 inhabitants, 151 parishes, 151 parish churches, 236 public and 10 private ora- tories, 236 secular priests, 30 regulars, and 54 sisters. The religious orders and congregations in the diocese are; ,\ugnstinian Hermits, one monastery and noviti- ate; Piari.sts, 2 houses for the training of boys; Bene- dictine nuns, 1 convent and IS professefl sisters in the city of Jaca; Sisters of Mercy of St. .\ima, who have charge of the hospital at Jaca; Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, 1 house at Jaca; Sist^'rs of Mercy of


St. Vincent de Paul, with a school at Jaca, and the Little Sisters of the Aged Poor, with a home for the aged in a suburb of Jaca. The cathedral dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin of Pilar is a three-aisled basil- ica in Byzantine style, belonging in the main to the eleventh century; it was consecrated in 1063 and 'altered in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. A religions and ci\'il festival is still held on the first Friday of May; it is called " Primer Viernes de Mayo ", in memory of a victory said to have been won over the Moors in the eighth century by Coimt Aznar aided by the women of Jaca. It is celebrated with a solemn procession in which the entire cathedral chapter takes part. In the environs of Jaca are many hermitages, notably that of San Juan de la Pena. La Vergen de la Cueva is venerated in the same cave in which three hundred nobles gathered at the time of the Arab inva- sion and proclaimed Garcia Ximenez King of Sob- rarbe.

Bl.^sco, Hi»i. de Jaca (Jaca, 18 — ); Ram6n de Huesca, Teatro hist, de las i^lesias del Reyno de Aragiin, VIII: De la Santa Iglesia de Jaca (Pomplona. 1S02) ; Leante t GarcIa, CuUo de Maria en la diocesis de Jaca 6 sea Memoria histurica y religiosa de todos los Santuarias, Eremitas e Iglesias etc. en este Obispado (Lerida, 1SS9): Perez Belloso, Anuario Eclesidstico de Espana, afl0I904 (Madrid), 36.3-7; GuUi del Viajero en una visita ri la Ctttedral de Jaca par S. G. de P. A. (Valladolid, 1906); informa- tion given by the cathedral chapter.

Gregor Reinhold.

Jackson, Henry Moore, knight, b. in Grenada, 1S49; d. in London, 29 August, 1908. The youngest son of the Anglican Bishop of the Leeward Islands, he was edu- cated in England at Marlborough and Clifton Colleges, and at the Royal Military Academy. He entered the Royal.Artillery in 1870,retiring with the rank of captain in 1885. He entered the colonial service in 1880, when he was appointed commandant of the Sierra Leone police. He was commissioner for Turks and Caicos Is- lands, 1885-90, and Colonial Secretary of the Bahama Islands, 1890-93. As Colonial Secretary of Gibraltar, 1894-1901, it fell to his lot to carry out the plans for the new harbour works, which had already received the approval of the .Admiralty and of the War Office. His early scientific training enabled him to point out defects in the plans, and to suggest improvements which saved the Government much useless expendi- ture. In recognition of his efficiency he was made in 1S99 a Knight Commander of the Most Distingtiished Order of St. Michael and St. George. In 1901 he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, and after holding this position for less than one year was ap- pointed Governor of the Fiji Islands and High Com- missioner of the Western Pacific. After a careful study of the difficult problems which he there found awaiting a solution, he drew up an exhaustive report, accompanied with a series of recommendations which were accepted almost without modification by the Colonial Office. In Fiji he showed a very remarkable power of inspiring the natives with a belief in the justice of English rule, and with personal attachment to himself. This power he exhil}ited also in Trinidad, to which he was appointed in 1904. When he landed the colony was still suffering from the consequences of the serious riots, which had recently occurred. .\fter three years of untiring labour the state of feeling in the colony was entirely changed. He became a Catholic in 1880, and from the day of his reception into the Church he never willingly missed daily Mass. In recognition of his services to the Church in the