<P> Before Las Casas returned to Spain, he was also appointed as Bishop of Chiapas, a newly established diocese of which he took possession in 1545 upon his return to the New World . He was consecrated in the Dominican Church of San Pablo on March 30, 1544 . As Archbishop Loaysa strongly disliked Las Casas, the ceremony was officiated by Loaysa's nephew, Diego de Loaysa, Bishop of Modruš, with Pedro Torres, Titular Bishop of Arbanum, and Cristóbal de Pedraza, Bishop of Comayagua, as co-consecrators . As a bishop Las Casas was involved in frequent conflicts with the encomenderos and secular laity of his diocese: among the landowners there was the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo . In a pastoral letter issued on March 20, 1545, Las Casas refused absolution to slave owners and encomenderos even on their death bed, unless all their slaves had been set free and their property returned to them . Las Casas furthermore threatened that anyone who mistreated Indians within his jurisdiction would be excommunicated . He also came into conflict with the Bishop of Guatemala Francisco Marroquín, to whose jurisdiction the diocese had previously belonged . To Las Casas's dismay Bishop Marroquín openly defied the New Laws . While bishop, Las Casas was the principal consecrator of Antonio de Valdivieso, Bishop of Nicaragua (1544). </P> <P> The New Laws were finally repealed on October 20, 1545, and riots broke out against Las Casas, with shots being fired against him by angry colonists . After a year he had made himself so unpopular among the Spaniards of the area that he had to leave . Having been summoned to a meeting among the bishops of New Spain to be held in Mexico City on January 12, 1546, he left his diocese, never to return . At the meeting, probably after lengthy reflection, and realizing that the New Laws were lost in Mexico, Las Casas presented a moderated view on the problems of confession and restitution of property, Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga of Mexico and Bishop Julián Garcés of Puebla agreed completely with his new moderate stance, Bishop Vasco de Quiroga of Michoacán had minor reservations, and Bishops Francisco Marroquín of Guatemala and Juan Lopez de Zárate of Oaxaca did not object . This resulted in a new resolution to be presented to viceroy Mendoza . His last act as Bishop of Chiapas was writing a confesionario, a manual for the administration of the sacrament of confession in his diocese, still refusing absolution to unrepentant encomenderos . Las Casas appointed a vicar for his diocese and set out for Europe in December 1546, arriving in Lisbon in April 1547 and in Spain on November 1547 . </P> <P> Las Casas returned to Spain, leaving behind many conflicts and unresolved issues . Arriving in Spain he was met by a barrage of accusations, many of them based on his Confesionario and its 12 rules, which many of his opponents found to be in essence a denial of the legitimacy of Spanish rule of its colonies, and hence a form of treason . The Crown had for example received a fifth of the large number of slaves taken in the recent Mixtón War, and so could not be held clean of guilt under Las Casas's strict rules . In 1548 the Crown decreed that all copies of Las Casas's Confesionario be burnt, and his Franciscan adversary, Motolinia obliged and sent back a report to Spain . Las Casas defended himself by writing two treatises on the "Just Title"--arguing that the only legality with which the Spaniards could claim titles over realms in the New World was through peaceful proselytizing . All warfare was illegal and unjust and only through the papal mandate of peacefully bringing Christianity to heathen peoples could "Just Titles" be acquired . </P> <P> As a part of Las Casas's defense by offense, he had to argue against Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda . Sepúlveda was a doctor of theology and law who, in his book Democrates Alter, sive de justis causis apud Indos (Democrates Alter, or on the just causes of War against the Indians) had argued that some native peoples were incapable of ruling themselves and should be pacified forcefully . The book was deemed unsound for publication by the theologians of Salamanca and Alcalá for containing unsound doctrine, but the pro-encomendero faction seized on Sepúlveda as their intellectual champion . </P>

Who published an influential book titled a brief account of the destruction of the indies