 As these embassies rendered his effective government of the Order impossible, Quiñones renounced the generalship in December 1527, and in September of the following year he was created cardinal of the title of "S. Croce in Gerusalemme", hence his name "Cardinal of the Holy Cross".From 1530 to 1533 he was also Bishop of Coria, in Spain, and for a short time, in 1539, administrator of Acerno (Naples), but he was never Cardinal Bishop at Palestrina, as some authors assert.As a cardinal, Quiñones always occupied a distinguished position in the Sacred College and closely followed the movement of the Reformation in Germany.