The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and
their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions,
as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the
political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those
islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the
close of the nineteenth century,
Volume XLII, 1670-1700
Edited and annotated by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson
with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord
Bourne.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XLII
Preface 9
Miscellaneous Documents, 1670-1700
The Camacho ecclesiastical controversy. [Andres
Gonzalez, O.P.] and others; 1697-1700 25
The Augustinians in the Philippines, 1670-1694. Casimiro
Diaz, O.S.A.; Manila, 1718. [From his Conquistas.] 117
Bibliographical Data 313
ILLUSTRATIONS
Chart of Manila Bay; photographic facsimile from Valentyn's
Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien (Dordrecht and Amsterdam, 1724), i,
p. 152; from copy in library of Wisconsin Historical Society 147
Map of Eastern Islands; photographic facsimile of map in
Coronelli's Atlante Veneto (Venetia, 1696), ii, part 2,
p. 122; from original copy in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 181
View of Strait of Manila; photographic facsimile from Recueil
des voiages Comp. Indes orientales (Amsterdam, 1725), iv,
p. 512; from copy in library of Wisconsin Historical Society 227
PREFACE
The tone of this volume is mainly ecclesiastical, although many
sidelights on the civil government and social life are incidentally
shown. All the intense bitterness that generally accompanies contests
between the regulars and seculars is seen in the Camacho controversy,
in which the former recognize that they are fighting for life and
existence in the Philippines, and hence spare no effort to gain
their ends. As will be seen later this fight between regulars and
seculars is quieted only for the moment, to break out with greater
force under Archbishop Santa Justa y Rufina; while in our own day,
the friar memorial of 1898 (never presented), resorts to the same
threat of the regulars to resign their curacies. This struggle,
as well as the history of the Augustinian order in the latter part
of the seventeenth century (which occupies the greater part of the
volume), forms a rich commentary on the life of the times, and one
can reconstruct easily the Manila of that period, and recognize the
hopes and fears of its various classes.
The noted ecclesiastical controversy between Archbishop Camacho and
the religious orders, which began with the arrival of that prelate in
the islands (1697), was hardly second in bitterness and importance to
that between his predecessor Pardo with the secular government. As
in the latter case, we furnish accounts of this episode by persons
actually concerned therein; but all these are written by members
of the orders, who therefore are opposed to Camacho, no defense of
his side being at present available. The first of these (unsigned)
is apparently the usual record of events by the Manila Jesuits. Soon
after Camacho's arrival, the regulars appeal to him for aid in a
dispute which they have with the secular government regarding their
lands; but he makes such aid conditional on their submitting to
episcopal visitation in those curacies which they serve as parish
priests. They refuse to do so, and appeal from the archbishop to the
papal delegate; then a controversy ensues between the two prelates over
the exemptions claimed by the regulars, each wielding the thunderbolts
of the Church--censures, fines, and excommunications--against the
other, a warfare imitated by some of the ecclesiastical rank and
file with their fists and stones as weapons, all to the scandal of
the commonwealth. Finally the governor interposes, and the affair
is settled for the time, the two prelates absolving each other in
turn. The Audiencia compel the religious orders to pay tithes for the
support of the church, from the incomes of their large estates. This
account is followed by a letter (June 2, 1698) from the delegate above
mentioned to the pope, giving a detailed report of his proceedings
in the affair, and complaining that the archbishop has defied his
authority as delegate, and therefore that of the supreme pontiff
himself. The writer, Fray Andres Gonzalez, advises that new safeguards
be given to the office of delegate in the islands.
In attempting to enforce his visitation of the regulars who act
as curas, Camacho makes such official visits in some of the Indian
villages near Manila, and issues decrees affecting such parishes; two
specimens of these are given. After censuring the prevalent ignorance
of Christian doctrine among the native parishioners, the archbishop
strictly charges the ministers who are over them to give their people
regular and thorough instruction in the faith; to exact no fees for
confession and penance; to keep the registers of births, marriages
and deaths, and records of fees received thereat, more carefully; to
make no distinction between rich and poor in certain functions; and to
keep an itemized record of the church incomes and expenditures. Annexed
thereto is a copy of the revised tariff of fees which may be demanded
by the curas, singers, and sacristans for their respective functions.
In 1700, the five religious orders in the Philippines present to the
king, through their representatives at Madrid, a statement of their
controversy with Archbishop Camacho over his attempt to subject
the regular curas to episcopal visitation; and they make formal
renunciation of the mission curacies which they hold in the islands,
declaring that they cannot longer hold these under Camacho and the
irksome restrictions which he is attempting to impose upon the regular
curas. Their reasons for this procedure are stated at length. They did
not choose service as curas for their calling and profession, yet they
are willing to fill those positions so long as they can do so under the
supervision of their own provincials; but subjection to the archbishop
so changes their estate in life that they cannot endure the additional
burdens and danger thus imposed. Moreover, justice requires that they
should, as parish priests, share the privileges and advantages allowed
to the secular priests, which is not the case. The subjection which
Camacho claims would destroy the rightful liberty of the religious
orders, and render them dependent on the wills of the archbishop and
governor. In case a regular cura shall commit immoral acts, a conflict
of authority will necessarily arise between his provincial and the
ecclesiastical authorities; and the difficulties that ensue therefrom
react to the oppression and vexation of the entire colony. Moreover,
such controversies can seldom be settled by the home government,
on account of the great distance of the Philippines from Spain. In
such case of transgression by a religious another difficulty arises,
that the necessity of referring the case to the public authorities
causes undue disgrace to both the offender and his order. The regulars
are better qualified to save souls than are the secular priests,
but if they are subjected to the ordinary it will be much harder
for them--the authority of their provincials over them being thus
weakened--to observe their priestly vows with due strictness; also,
some would thus be encouraged to undue self-will, to worldliness,
and to intrigues for securing worldly advantages--especially by the
perpetual tenure of ecclesiastical benefices. These arguments are
supported, too, by both history and experience. The orders then
refute certain arguments advanced by the archbishop. Their pious
labors for the benefit of souls, in all ranks and conditions of men,
are recounted; and many of these, especially in Manila, would never
be accomplished if they depended on the secular priests. The conduct
of Camacho in opposing the papal delegate, and in refusing to give
the orders copies of his decrees concerning them, is censured, his
own arguments being dexterously turned against him--as is the case
also with his complaints to the court that his authority, functions,
and usefulness are restricted by the fact that the regular curas
are not subjected to him; and his request to be permitted to resign
his see and return to Europe. The writers support their position by
reference to what the orders have accomplished in the islands, and
by the exemptions and privileges granted to them by the Holy See. In
view of all these things, the orders make formal renunciation of
their mission curacies--especially as the remoteness of the islands
gives them little prospect of relief from Spain in these difficulties;
and even if royal decrees are sent to the islands, the archbishop is
likely to refuse obedience to them. They make complaint of various
acts of the bishop against them, especially of the reprimand given
them by the Audiencia through his influence, and his disregard of
the immunity of their property. The orders are working in Filipinas
in entire harmony and amity, but this does not suit the archbishop;
and they feel that they cannot hope for peace or safety so long
as they act as curas there with Camacho as archbishop. A decree by
Carlos II (May 20, 1700) approves the proceedings of the archbishop,
promises royal aid in adjusting his difficulties with the orders,
and authorizes him to reform and correct the religious when necessary.
The history of the Augustinian order in Filipinas in the latter part of
the seventeenth century is recounted by Casimiro Diaz of that order,
in book iv of his Conquistas (much of which has already appeared in
our series, and which is here concluded); this final part contains
an unusual amount of secular history, for which reason we omit but
little of Diaz's narrative. Beginning with 1671, he gives an account of
each Augustinian provincial chapter-session, and the officers elected
therein, up to 1689; and relates various matters concerning his order
and religious interests generally, with which he interweaves the
secular annals of that time. The troublous times which the Philippine
colony has experienced since the days of Corcuera are turned into
peace under Manuel de León (1669-76). He extends the commerce of
the islands to China, India, and Java, and thus enables the citizens
of Manila to attain unusual wealth and prosperity. He sends Jesuit
missionaries to Siao, but they are afterward seized by the Dutch,
who conquer that island. Unfortunately, the governor interferes with
the election of officers in the Augustinian chapter-session of 1671,
and prevents the election of the father who is desired by the chapter
as provincial. In this year the new cathedral edifice of Manila is
dedicated. Reports are circulated of a coming attack on the city by
Chinese corsairs; due precautions are taken, but no enemy appears. A
French bishop who stops at Manila on his way to China is detained by
the authorities and finally sent to Spain; his representations there
cause the issue of royal decrees which prove troublesome and annoying
to Philippine ecclesiastics, and afterward the ordination of Indian
natives as priests--a practice which Diaz disapproves. A controversy
arises between Archbishop López and Jerónimo de Herrera, chaplain of
the royal military chapel; this and other troubles, with his old age,
cause the death of the archbishop (April, 1674).
The chapter-session of 1674 marks the cessation of various troubles
within the order, occurring within the provincialate of Fray Jerónimo
de Leon, and the beginning of a great increase in the observance
of the rules of the order. José Duque is elected provincial at this
time; he sends a procurator to Europe for more missionaries, a band of
whom arrive in 1679. Diaz enlarges on the prosperity of Manila during
this period; caused by its foreign trade, especially that with China
and India; pleasure and luxury prevail in that city, and fortunes are
spent therein. He describes the people and industries of the Coromandel
coast and the Madras settlements of the English and the Portuguese;
in the former, entire religious toleration prevails, and Christians,
Jews, Mahometans and heathens live together in entire harmony. In 1676
occurs the death of Governor Manuel de León, from excessive obesity;
he leaves all his property for charitable purposes. The election
of provincial in 1677 falls on Fray Juan de Jeréz; in that year
also the Dominican Fray Felipe Pardo becomes archbishop of Manila,
and Auditor Coloma, the acting governor, dies; he is succeeded by
Auditor Mansilla. The majority of Carlos II of Spain is celebrated
at Manila with magnificent fiestas, December 4-7, 1677. At the close
of these gayeties occurs a severe earthquake, which inflicts much
damage--fortunately, with very little loss of life. In 1678 comes
the new governor, Juan de Vargas Hurtado. His government begins well,
but after a time he tires of its burdens, and falls under the sway of
a relative, Francisco Guerrero, who is crafty and selfish, and gains
an influence over the governor which enables him to turn everything to
his own advantage, and to be "the power behind the throne;" afterward,
in time of need, he escapes to Nueva España, and leaves Vargas to
bear the penalties for both of them. During Vargas's term of office
the rich trade with India and other foreign lands is well maintained,
and the prosperity and wealth of Manila are greatly increased. In 1679
arrive two bands of new missionaries, who are Jesuits and Augustinians;
they come (especially the latter) in good time, since the members of
the order are so few that they cannot fill the ministries allotted
to them--which is the condition of the other orders, and even of
the secular clergy. In this galleon comes a political prisoner,
Fernando de Valenzuela, the disgraced favorite of Queen Mariana of
Spain, who is exiled to the Philippines for ten years. The government
of Vargas is successful, and the prosperity of Manila continues. An
embassy comes from the ruler of Borneo to ask for the establishment of
commerce between that island and Manila, and to adjust some disputes
over the relations between the Spaniards and Borneans.
The Augustinians prosper during Jeréz's term as provincial. Just
before the chapter-session of 1680 convenes, some of the friars
who were born in the Indias lay claim to the offices in the order,
and attempt to enforce this pretension by legal proceedings; the
archbishop decides against them, and they are punished for their
rebellion. Fray Diego de Jesús is elected provincial. A bishop for
the diocese of Cebú arrives this year, the only consecrated bishop
whom the islands have had for several years; this prelate confers
holy orders on many who had been waiting for that privilege, and
reconciles several persons with the governor--which official has by
this time become highly unpopular with the citizens, on account of
his greed for gain and his harsh and disagreeable behavior. Charges
against him are sent to Madrid, which later cause his removal from
office. In November, 1680, a wonderful comet appears, which in the
superstitious belief of that time, causes much evil. An envoy is sent
from Manila to make arrangements with the Portuguese of Macao for the
regulation of commerce and "the entrance of Spanish missionaries into
China by that door." With this envoy come to Manila (in 1681) some
clerics to receive ordination; returning to Macao, with some Jesuits,
the vessel is lost and never heard from. In this year arrive at Manila
two assistant bishops, three royal auditors, and a large reënforcement
of Spanish troops. The galleon which sails this year for Acapulco is
driven back to the islands by contrary winds, thus causing great loss
to the citizens. (In each year Diaz relates the departure or arrival
of the galleons, failure in which is a calamity for Manila.) The
provincialate of Fray Diego de Jesús is tranquil, and great progress
is made by the religious in his care; his personal character and piety
are eulogized by our historian. In 1683 Fray José Duque is elected
in his place, for a second term. Some of the brethren go to China as
missionaries; they encounter much annoyance from the requirement there
made that they must be subject to the apostolic vicars of Rome. This
subjection, however, is afterward greatly modified and lessened by
decrees secured (1688) by the procurator of the province at Rome,
Fray Álvaro de Benavente. In 1683 an envoy from Siam comes to Manila,
partly to secure permission for the prime minister of that country
to settle in Manila: this favorite, who was a Greek, intrigues with
the French to surrender Siam to them, but the enterprise fails, and
the Greek loses his wealth and his life. The envoy (an Augustinian
friar named Sousa) encounters shipwreck on another journey, and
spends the rest of his life as a hermit in Siam. The Portuguese
governor of Timor and Solor on his way thither halts at Manila,
ill; Governor Vargas gives him hospitality and medical treatment,
and some Spaniards as an escort; but Ontuñez finds on reaching his
islands that a usurper is holding them with armed men, and is obliged
to return to Manila. In that city, during the exile of the archbishop
(account of which has been here omitted, to avoid repetition), the
ecclesiastical cabildo punish his chief supporters with banishment.
In 1684 Governor Curuzelaegui comes to the islands, and with him
Juan de Zalaeta to take the residencias of Vargas and his favorite
Guerrero; but the latter escapes from the islands in time to avoid
this ordeal. A large band of Augustinian religious also arrive. The
new governor restores the banished archbishop to his see. In 1685 a
terrible epidemic of smallpox ravages not only the islands but China
and India, and millions of people die from it; then follows a cruel
famine, and still more deaths.
At this time begins the decline of Manila's commerce with Nueva
España, partly because more European goods are being sent thither,
partly through the heavy taxes and imposts levied on the galleons. The
bishop of Nueva Segovia dies, and that diocese remains sede vacante
until 1704. In the Augustinian chapter of 1686 Juan de Jeréz is again
chosen provincial; he dies within two years, being worn out by overwork
in the visitation of all the houses of his order in the islands. Fray
Alvaro de Benavente is sent to Rome as procurator of the province. The
galleon for Acapulco does not sail this year, for, on the report of
pirates cruising around the Embocadero, it is equipped as a war-vessel
to attack them and drive them away; but it does not find them, and
returns to Manila. In this year of 1686 occurs an abortive insurrection
among the Chinese in the Parián; it is undertaken by Sangleys who are
fugitive criminals from China, but the ringleaders are put to death,
and quiet ensues. Diaz enlarges upon the injurious effects on the
Spanish colony of allowing its business and industries to fall into
the hands of the Chinese. They are unscrupulous in their dealings with
Spaniards; they become Christians through mercenary motives; and they
undermine the faith of the Christian Filipinos. They should not be
allowed to live among the natives. In this same year occur excessive
rains, which ruin the crops and cause great scarcity and suffering;
and for two years no galleons can sail to Acapulco. A large part of
the Chinese settlement near Manila is consumed by fire (March 28,
1688); and the people are harassed by a fearful plague of locusts,
many earthquakes, and a fatal epidemic of influenza. Diaz relates the
way in which the persons most prominent in the Pardo controversy ended
their lives. An expedition is sent to chastise the murderous attacks
made by the Zambals and Negritos; this is partly accomplished, but
the troops are attacked by influenza and so weakened that they are
compelled to return to Manila.
The Audiencia having been broken up by the death or the exile of the
auditors, a new Audiencia arrives in 1688; also a special commissioner
to investigate the proceedings of Vargas and other officials. Vargas
is exiled to the provinces, and afterward sent to Spain, but dies on
the voyage thither; Diaz characterizes his official character. The
exiled favorite Valenzuela is set at liberty, but is accidentally
killed at Mexico. While attending to the despatch of the Acapulco
galleon, Governor Curucelaegui dies (April 27, 1689); he is praised
by Diaz as an excellent ruler. In the chapter of 1689 Fray Francisco
de Zamora is elected provincial. Auditor Abella acts as governor
ad interim, with much prudence and ability. Archbishop Pardo dies
in 1689; the cabildo rule the diocese in his place for a time, but
afterward cede this authority to Barrientos, bishop of Troya. This
leads to much dissension and trouble for a time, Barrientos claiming
supreme authority; but he is induced to yield this claim, and peace
is restored.
In 1690 arrives a new governor, Fausto Cruzat y Góngora. With him
come a band of Augustinian religious, in charge of Fray Alvaro de
Benavente; his adventures and the concessions that he obtains are
recounted. Brief sketches are given of the twenty-seven missionaries
who come this year. Diaz closes his work with some account of Cruzat's
government. He is an upright and honorable man, but very harsh and
severe in collecting the sums due to the government, directing "all
his efforts to the increase of the royal revenues." He has a new
galleon built, the largest ever made; but on its first voyage it is
wrecked on the coast of Lubán--a terrible loss to the islands, since
it was laden with more and richer merchandise than usual. Another
galleon is also lost at sea (1693). A patache is sent from Acapulco,
and on its return trip (1694) encounters an "isle of birds," where
the crew secure enough provisions and water to complete their voyage
to Acapulco. Cruzat's wife dies in this same year; Diaz pays high
tribute to this lady's beauty, goodness, and virtue, which render
her beloved by all the people.
The Editors
August, 1906.
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS, 1670-1700
The Camacho ecclesiastical controversy. [Andres Gonzalez, O.P.],
and others; 1697-1700.
The Augustinians in the Philippines, 1670-1694. Casimiro Diaz,
O.S.A.; 1718. [From his Conquistas.]
Sources: The first of these documents is composed of several parts--the
first, second, fourth, and fifth of which are obtained from the
Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library), iv, pp. 107-115, 119-133, v,
pp. 231-296, and iv, pp. 201-206, respectively; and the third from a
contemporary MS. belonging to Edward E. Ayer. The second document is
from Diaz's Conquistas (Manila, 1890), pp. 440-444, 689-817; from a
copy in the possession of James A. Robertson.
Translations: These are by Emma Helen Blair.
THE CAMACHO ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSY, 1697-1700
News from Filipinas since July, 1697
With the arrival of his illustrious Lordship the archbishop, Doctor
Don Diego Camacho y Avila, [1] were renewed the former claims for
the subjection of the regulars to the visitation. He commenced at
Tondo and Binondo, mission villages of the fathers of St. Dominic
and St. Augustine, in which places he caused edicts to be read,
and appointed secular priests as curas. They broke open the doors of
the said two churches with axes; and on seeing this the provincials,
all agreeing, presented their renunciation [of those mission fields],
and ordered all their subordinates to withdraw from the doctrinas
of these districts, Tagalos, Pampanga, Laguna, and Balayan. When it
was so quickly seen that they were coming into retirement at Manila,
[the ecclesiastical authorities] were obliged to desist from their
purpose, after [having caused the religious] many annoyances.
Claim was made to the [right of] visitation of the hospitals of San
Gabriel and San Lazaro, and the royal hospital. The Franciscans and
the Dominicans concealed the keys, and the bishop had to desist,
as greatly vexed as before. Auditor Don Juan de Sierra, in virtue
of his commission for the adjustment of lands royal and unassigned,
[2] cited the regulars to appear before him. He insisted on legal
proceedings; but they, fortifying themselves with the censures of the
bull De la Cena, [3] decrees 15 and 17, declined his jurisdiction. The
judge proceeded to seize the possessions of the regulars; and they
had recourse to the bishop, in order that he should declare that the
auditor had incurred censure--asking him to defend the immunity of the
said property of the regulars. His illustrious Lordship replied that
first the regulars must submit to his visitation; they would not do
this, and therefore, when they repeated their request, his illustrious
Lordship declared that the secular judge was not committing fuerza.
In virtue of the decree of Gregory XIII, [issued] at the instance of
Felipe II, relative to appeals from the Indians, [4] the regulars
appealed to the delegate of Camarines, who sent letters to the
archbishop requiring the latter to send him the documents [in the
case], with [threats of] censures, and of deprivation ab ingresu
eclesiæ [i.e., "of entrance into the church"]. Seeing that these
orders were not obeyed, the regulars again appealed to the delegate,
Don Fray Andres Gonzalez, who came in person. He demanded aid from
the governor, and, meeting delays, proceeded to make the necessary
notifications; then, not being able to obtain from the archbishop
the acts from which appeal had been taken, the delegate posted him as
having incurred excommunication, and added the threat that he would
impose an interdict.
At the same time, the archbishop officiated publicly, and published the
delegate as excommunicate. But, seeing that various scandals ensued,
and that contests, not only with their hands but with stones and
weapons, occurred between some clerics and regulars--some attempting
to protect, and others to tear down, the writings and censures posted
on the [church] doors by the delegate--the governor and other persons
finally interposed, and an agreement was reached by the parties. The
two prelates absolved each other ad invicem [i.e., in turn], in the
presence of the governor; and, as Auditor Sierra desisted from his
proceedings, the two prelates and the regulars continued to maintain
harmony among themselves. In this condition, therefore, affairs
remained; and, without proceeding to new acts or investigations,
each party sent to España an account of what had been thus far done,
in order to await the decision and sentence from the other side [of
the world]. This was the attitude of the delegate and the superiors of
the regulars; the archbishop, nevertheless, continued to bring suits
against some regulars, whom he censured as agitators. Investigations
in these cases were made, penalties of censure being imposed on the
witnesses to secure their secrecy. The fact of this proceeding was,
however, guessed; and the regulars, aided by the delegate, brought
forward counter-information of their innocence. But as the case was
not one for appeal, and did not belong to the delegate, it did not
admit any recourse to him; so the delegate only caused his notary to
give an official statement of this [attempt at] recourse, in order that
the regulars might repair with it to España and Roma, and the generals
of their orders, to relate these occurrences and the innocence of the
religious--and, not least, to complain of the opposition and hindrances
which had been employed here by the tribunals, both ecclesiastical and
secular, against his use and exercise of the power delegated to him.
Even before the arrival of the said delegate, various other
investigations had been secretly made in the archiepiscopal court--not
only against the regulars at large (de vita et moribus [i.e.,
"in regard to their lives and morals"], and as to their trading and
trafficking, etc.), but against certain individual religious. In these
cases, the provincials had, according to their rights, demanded from
the archbishop that he refrain from further proceedings and surrender
to them the documents therein, since the said provincials were the
legitimate superiors and judges of those religious; but this received
scant attention. It had also previously occurred that the father
minister of the hospital of San Gabriel (who is a Dominican) refused
to allow the episcopal visitation, and the [arch]bishop had declared
him incontinent, and posted him as excommunicate, without paying any
attention to the appeal which that father immediately made. The said
father minister amended his conduct, in time; but his name was left
on the list of excommunicates until, upon the arrival of the delegate,
the matter was settled and the censure laid on him was raised.
Upon the origin of so many storms in so short a space as eight
months there was much gossip, with a variety [of opinions]. Some
attributed the trouble to the influence of the bishop of La Puebla,
[5] in whose palace the archbishop was a guest for several months;
others to the promise that the latter had given, on leaving Nueva
España, to various personages with whom he was intimate in La Puebla
and Mexico, that he was coming to reduce the regulars of these islands
to submission or else destroy them. Others blamed the bishop of La
Puebla; for he had warned the archbishop, in order to render him firm,
of the disparity of what had been accomplished there by Don Juan de
Palafox--who met less resistance there because most of the regulars
in Nueva España were natives of that country, while in Filipinas
nearly all of them were born in other countries. Others (and these
were the majority) blamed the senior auditor, Don Geronimo Barredo,
because with little gratitude for the many thousands [of pesos obtained
from the orders] as loans and gifts (although he had been so greatly
benefited thereby), he had repaid the regulars by abandoning [them]
to the two recently-arrived auditors, Don Francisco Guerruela and
Don José Pabon. On the one hand, the Audiencia being inclined to
the opposing side, the regulars were deprived of the recourse which
they, as vassals, ought to have in the royal tribunal; and on the
other, it was reported that the said senior auditor made exceedingly
frequent visits, at unseasonable hours, to the archbishop's palace,
which were returned by that prelate at the auditor's house. As the
gossip ran, the auditor directed all the acts and proceedings of the
archbishop's court.
Still others, reflecting upon the governor and the limits of his term
of office, regarded him as timorous, considering that, since the
[commission to take the governor's] residencia [6] had come to the
said senior auditor in the year 97, the fear of the governor was
occasioned by the apprehension that the auditor might do him some
harm in his residencia. Some others (but only a few) attributed these
many disturbances to the cousin of his illustrious Lordship, named
Don Juan Camacho, for the sake of his own advantage; and on this
account, knowing his disposition, people said that Master-of-camp
Don Francisco Guerrero de Ardila had made strenuous efforts, and had
even offered to his illustrious Lordship in Mexico considerable sums
of money, to procure that, by sending this cousin [7] to Badajoz,
his Lordship should not come to these islands with a companion who
could not render his government peaceable.
Nor must I pass over in silence the fact that on the sixteenth day
of May the royal Audiencia cited to appear in its hall all the five
provincials, to whom--without the courteous observances and respectful
address which his Majesty himself observes in his decrees--the
Audiencia gave a severe reprimand, throwing on them the blame for the
late disturbances, and treating them as violators of the peace. The
most remarkable thing about this censure was, that it proceeded from
the lips of that very senior auditor who, in especial, was regarded
as the entire source of the disturbances; and, without permitting
the provincials to speak, they were, with the same lack of respect,
dismissed by this same official--who some day will have to give an
account, before the tribunal of truth, of all these unjust acts.
By the end of the said month, under the compulsion of the threat
made against the provincials, by the first, second, and third royal
decrees, of banishment and [privation of their] secular incomes,
the old-time writ of execution regarding the tithes was enforced,
and the religious were obliged to obey. No hearing was given to their
repeated protests, or the petitions interposed for the royal Council;
nor to their allegations of their rights of prescription in these
islands, of their apostolic privileges, of the fact that nearly all
who minister here are regulars, and that they have come to these
islands not at his Majesty's expense only, but with the greater part
of those expenses paid by the religious themselves.
The regulars petitioned for, and took measures to push, a demand upon
the royal treasury for more than 300,000 pesos, the amount spent by
the religious since the conquest; and another, for another 300,000,
the amount which was due to them on account of stipends as religious
teachers, which the government had failed to allow them for a period
of more than a century--declaring that if these accounts were paid,
they would pay the tithes which were claimed from them; but no hearing
was given them. In hatred to the regulars, the tenants on their estates
were compelled to pay tithes, the amount of these being deducted from
the value of the rent-money.
Letter from Andres Gonzalez to the Pope
Most Holy Father:
After kissing with due submission the feet of your Holiness (whom
may God preserve, for the prosperous government of His Church), in
fulfilment of the obligations of my office as pastor I set forth to
your Holiness a very serious controversy in regard to jurisdiction,
which at this time has arisen between me and the very reverend
archbishop of this city of Manila in these Filipinas Islands, Doctor
Don Diego Camacho y Avila. I do so in order that your Holiness,
as the person who is most interested in the peace and tranquillity
of this church, may apply suitable remedy, and fix an end and limit
to this controversy--the origin and course of which I will relate as
briefly as possible, in all matters referring to the authentic copy
of the acts which I send you with this.
To Licentiate Don Juan de Sierra Osorio, former auditor of this royal
Audiencia, and at present judge of criminal cases in the Audiencia of
Mejico, was subdelegated the cognizance and settlement of [questions
relating to] the lands and possessions which, by sale or gift,
have been alienated from the royal patrimony and dominion of our
Catholic king and sovereign. In a proclamation which he issued he
cited and summoned, with the rest of the holders of the said lands
and possessions, the holy religious orders of these islands, ordering
them to present, within the limit of one year, the titles, documents,
and credentials which they hold for these lands--with the warning that
if these papers were not presented by the end of that period the lands
would be reunited to the crown. The superiors of the said religious
orders, mindful of the immunity and exemption of their persons and
worldly possessions, did not present their documents at the said
time; therefore the said auditor actually proceeded to appropriate
the said property. The said superiors had recourse to the said very
reverend archbishop, asking him to forbid to the said auditor the
cognizance of the said cause, and to protect the said property as being
ecclesiastical. The said very reverend archbishop took up the matter,
and, having drawn up acts, by his definitive sentence (which is found
in the said authentic copy) refused ecclesiastical immunity to the said
property. The said superiors appealed twice from the said sentence
to me, as being the delegate of your Holiness in cases of appeal
from this archbishopric, in virtue of a brief by his Holiness Gregory
XIII--issued at the instance of our Catholic king Felipe II (whom may
God keep). He denied them both these appeals; and, in order to place
some limit to these proceedings, they presented themselves before me,
with only the authentic official statement of this denial of the said
appeals, in course of appeal from that sentence. Having admitted
this appeal, in order to proceed to the trial of it I addressed to
the said very reverend archbishop, from my episcopal see and city
of Nueva Caceres, a compulsatory act in which, as the delegate of
your Holiness with apostolic authority, I commanded him to order his
secretary (before whom the said cause took place) within twenty-four
hours to send me his original acts, or else to begin the copying of
them and send it to me when completed. Considering the great distance
which lies between this city of Nueva Caceres and that of Manila, the
danger and expense of the journeys, the delay of the suit, and the
injury to the party therein, I laid these commands on the said very
reverend archbishop under the penalty of suspension from the priestly
office, latæ sententiæ, and warned him of heavier and still heavier
censures and penalties in case of his opposition and contumacy. He
was notified of this act on the twentieth day of last March, by a
religious of the Society of Jesus, to whom I gave commission for this
office; for I had learned that no secular priest would dare to make
this notification. The said very reverend archbishop, having heard the
[reading of the] act, replied that the said father could not perform
judicial acts in his archdiocese without presenting a warrant from
his notary; and, even supposing that the father could thus act, he
appealed from the said command--for which he implored the royal aid
against fuerza, and demanded that an official statement be given him,
and that meanwhile no detriment be caused him. When the statement
was refused to him he again appealed, and threatened [to procure]
royal aid against this fuerza; and this alone he gave as his reply,
before the said notary--without giving any reason for his appeal,
or reducing it to writing, or arguing it in the superior court [8]
in legal form, or asking for apostolic letters, up to the present
time. Nevertheless, he then had, and for twenty-three days had
kept, the acts in his archives, as appears from a sworn statement
by Lerma, the secretary of the royal Audiencia, which is sent with
the documents. On that same day (March 20) and the following, he
caused to be published and posted on the doors of the churches in
this city two edicts against my authority as delegate--in which,
with penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, he commanded
(in the first edict) that no one, whether secular or regular, in his
churches should permit the reading, publication, or posting of any
edicts, or of any other kind of letters or bills whatsoever, except
those of his provisor, or of the tribunals of the Holy Inquisition
and the Crusade--as if my tribunal, jurisdiction, and authority,
which is that of the supreme head of the Church, and resides in me,
were inferior to those of the said provisor and the said tribunals. In
the second edict, increasing the penalty of major excommunication with
the reservation to himself [of absolution], he commanded that no one in
his archiepiscopal territory should exercise any jurisdiction--whether
ordinary, delegate, or subdelegate--even if it were from your Holiness,
unless the originals of the bulls or despatches that he carried be
first presented to his Lordship, in order that he might give them the
license and fulfilment which by right they should have. But he does
not consider that my bull and brief is, and has been for more than 140
[9] years since the foundation of the bishoprics of these islands,
current and put into practice in them, as also has been its free and
independent exercise in this archiepiscopal territory. And I have
exercised this freedom, on the only two occasions which have been
presented to me--the first time, while the very reverend archbishop
Don Fray Felipe Pardo was alive, and the second in the year 91--with
the knowledge and approbation of the cabildo close by, sede vacante,
both which are proved by authentic documents. These I do not send at
this time, as they are in my archives in the city of Nueva Caceres,
which is distant from this city of Manila sixty leguas; but I
promise to send them at the first opportunity, which will be next
year. Notwithstanding all this, the said very reverend archbishop
published the said two edicts, endeavoring to impede and embarrass,
by all possible measures, means, and ways, the said my jurisdiction as
delegate, and to subordinate it to his own, in order that I should
not exercise or avail myself of it, either in person or through
intermediate persons. On account of this, the superiors of the said
religious orders found themselves obliged to resort again to me;
and they entreated me to come in person to this city of Manila,
to defend my jurisdiction, and with it the ecclesiastical immunity
of their property. I did so, notwithstanding my advanced age [10]
and the painful infirmities that I suffer, since both these causes
are so important a part of my responsibility and obligation. I came
to this city on the twelfth day of the past month, May, and with my
secretary went to a house on the river where the said very reverend
archbishop was residing. After a short conversation, I begged him
to be pleased to listen peaceably to an act of which I had come,
as delegate of his Holiness, to notify him. I told him that this
business should not be conducted more castrorum [i.e., in hostile
manner], but that we should listen to each other, and each should
state his rights. He agreed to this, and my secretary read the said
act, which contains three points. In the first, I declared the
said very reverend archbishop to be disobedient, rebellious, and
contumacious, considering that he had not obeyed as he should the
said my compulsory act, sent to him from the city of Nueva Caceres;
likewise, I declared that he had incurred the penalty of suspension
from the priestly office latæ sententiæ, under which I had commanded
him to order his secretary within twenty-four hours to surrender the
acts for which I had asked, or to make an authentic copy of them. And
because he had exercised the said priestly office on Holy Thursday,
consecrating the sacred oils; and on Holy Saturday, in conferring
the higher orders of the ministry; [11] and likewise on other days,
in saying mass while he was under suspension: I declared that he was
under censure as irregular. In the second part of the said act, I again
commanded him, under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ,
and of a fine of two thousand pesos to be applied according to law,
to order his secretary within six days to deliver up the papers as
aforesaid, or make an authentic copy of them. And in the third part,
under penalty of being considered rebellious and contumacious, in
order to place him under greater obligation, I prohibited to him
in the interim the cognizance of this cause and legal proceeding
therein. After the said very reverend archbishop had heard the act,
he appealed from it, in writing, and on the following day brought this
appeal into court. I did not on this account defer the declaration
of the said censures, since the appeal was frivolous and useless;
and I yielded in the matter of the copy of the documents only for
the reason that he alleged, that the originals of these were in the
Audiencia. After he had interposed the said appeal, he immediately
ordered his secretary to notify me of an act by himself, in which he
commanded me, under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ,
and a fine of 4,000 pesos, to depart instantly and without delay
from this archdiocese, to go to reside in my own bishopric, and
not to meddle with his jurisdiction. To this I replied that I had
received this notification, and asked him to give me a copy of the
said document, solely for the purpose of showing in what consisted his
illegal and unwarranted act; and I took leave of him and returned to my
house. On the following day, the thirteenth of the said month of May,
the said very reverend archbishop sent his secretary to notify me of
another act, in which also he again commanded me, under penalty of
major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, and of another 4,000 pesos,
to depart within two days from the archdiocese. To this I replied
that I had come [to Manila] on account of the appeal [made to me];
that I was a delegate of your Holiness, and moreover superior to the
said very reverend archbishop, and as such I did not listen to his
acts or censures. On the next day, the fourteenth of the said month
of May, he sent to me notification of another act; and as I refused
to listen to it, for the same reason as before, about two o'clock in
the afternoon he posted on the doors of the churches, and in other
public places, notices in which he declared me, to the great scandal
of all this community, to be publicly excommunicated.
On the said thirteenth day of May, in the morning, immediately
after I had been notified of the second act of the said very
reverend archbishop, I sent my secretary to his house on the river
to notify him of another act of mine, in which I commanded him,
under penalty of major excommunication and another 2,000 pesos,
to withdraw within twenty-four hours the said edicts which on the
twentieth and twenty-first days of March he had ordered posted and
published against my apostolic authority as delegate; and, besides,
to withdraw the two acts in which, with the said penalties of major
excommunication and 8,000 pesos, he had commanded me to depart from
the archdiocese. The said my secretary was told by the servants that
he was not at home; and I, as this seemed to me only an excuse, and not
the truth, went in person to the said house. They told me that he had,
that very morning, gone back to Manila. I came to the city after him,
and remained at his house, waiting for him, until twelve o'clock;
and seeing that he had not come by that time (although he came in
afterward), I went away, leaving a message for him, that he might
expect me in the afternoon. I returned a little before sunset, but did
not find him at home this time. My secretary began to read the said
act in the main room of the archbishop's house; but such disorderly
yelling and clamorous talk was raised by his servants that my secretary
could not make himself heard. I therefore determined to wait for him,
and finally he came--making loud complaints that I was injuring the
respect and observance due to his house, person, and dignity. I replied
that his illustrious Lordship had showed greater incivilities to me;
and that he could and ought to do [what I had done], if I had gone
about all day, avoiding him [huyendo el cuerpo]. In conclusion, we
agreed that my secretary should go again, alone, to notify him of the
act; but, when he went to the house, his illustrious Lordship refused
to give him entrance. As I was now weary of so much artfulness and
craft, unworthy of such a station and dignity, I put aside this act,
and despatched another of like tenor. In this, I summoned him, from
that hour, under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ,
and its publication, to withdraw within half an hour the said two
acts and two edicts. Notification of this act was made by a Dominican
religious, my notary, in the archbishop's hall, in the presence of
many persons, because the said very reverend archbishop had refused
to listen to it. When the said half-hour had expired, a little while
after this was told to me I declared and posted him also as publicly
excommunicated. On the fifteenth of the said month of May, I ordered
that he be notified, and he was notified in his archiepiscopal hall,
of another act, in which I repeated the command contained in the
preceding one--and, still more, that he should take down the notices
posted against me, under penalty of a general interdict throughout
his archiepiscopal diocese, latæ sententiæ, giving him a limit of
twenty-four hours' time; and, in case of his opposition and contumacy,
I would proceed to the cessation of all divine worship. But, as I
reflected that it was very near the feast of Corpus Christi, and
that all the religious orders of this city and a great number of
secular priests, who were on my side, would not take part in the said
festival and in the procession, in order not to have communication
in sacris with the said very reverend archbishop; and on account of
the commiseration which I felt for this commonwealth; and finally,
because the governor and captain-general of these islands, and some
of the auditors of this royal Audiencia interfered in the matter, with
the stipulations which I will send with the acts: I absolved the said
very reverend archbishop from the excommunication and suspension which
he had incurred; and he did the same, without my consent, absolving
me from his excommunication. I dispensed him from the censure that he
had incurred as irregular, and, finally, I suspended the declaration
of the interdict. The whole matter was then left as it was, for the
time being, until information of all could be given to your Holiness,
in order that you may take suitable measures in this case. These
are as follows: That the archbishop (or the cabildo, sede vacante)
who at the time shall officiate and rule in this archbishopric of
Manila shall not hinder, restrain, or limit the delegate of your
Holiness; that, likewise, he who shall be at the time delegate shall,
in cases of appeal to be taken from the said archbishopric, have the
free use and exercise of his apostolic authority as delegate in this
archiepiscopal territory; and that he shall not need, in order to
enter the said territory or to perform judicial acts in it, whether in
person or through intermediate persons appointed by him, any license,
consent, or approbation from the said archbishop or from the cabildo,
sede vacante. [These things should be done] in order that thus the
like controversies may be avoided in the future. And I entreat your
Holiness to be pleased and to deign to command that consideration be
given to a legal opinion by the reverend father master Fray Juan de
Paz, of the Order of Preachers, which I send with this; for it may
be of service for the point at issue, and for your rights. I also
inform your Holiness that from the day when the said very reverend
archbishop set foot in these islands--that is, from last September
to the present time--this entire commonwealth has been a perplexing
labyrinth of contentions and acts of violence which he has performed
against the holy religious orders of these islands. For his disposition
and nature is very hasty, quarrelsome, and bold; and he is, finally,
a man who does not care for or defend the ecclesiastical immunity--as
appears from the authentic copy of the acts which I send. May God
our Lord grant him better judgment; and may He guard and prosper
your Holiness, as I entreat in my sacrifices and prayers, and as the
universal Church has need. Manila, June 2 of the year 1698.
[Andres Gonzalez, of the Order of Preachers].
[This letter is followed by the following memoranda, apparently notes
by Ventura del Arco of other letters found in the Jesuit papers in
the Academia Real de la Historia:]
On the fourth day of June in the same year of 1698 the bishop of Nueva
Caceres, Don Fray Andres Gonzalez, addressed to the king an explanation
similar to the preceding one which is addressed to his Holiness. On
the eleventh of June in the same year, he sent to his Holiness another
account, in the same form; and on the twenty-first of June of the
same year he wrote another to his Holiness, and another to the king.
The provincials of St. Dominic and St. Augustine, and those of the
Jesuits and Recollects in Manila drew up [to send] to his Majesty the
king a statement, dated June 25, 1698, complaining of the defenseless
condition in which they found themselves against the proceedings
of the archbishop, who neither heeded nor allowed their appeal; and
they requested that the Council examine the documents which they sent
for that purpose, relating to various suits against their religious
orders--which continued or were renewed, in spite of the agreement
made with the delegate of his Holiness, the bishop of Camarines. For
this purpose they sent a copy of the documents.
[On pp. 207, 208 of the same volume is the following abstract:] In
a letter dated June 9, 1700 the Jesuit Luis de Morales wrote from
Manla to Father Antonio Jaramillo, procurator-general at Madrid,
that in the year 1698 the bishop of Troya and Auditor Don Juan de
Sierra died, on the voyage from Manila to Acapulco. The governor not
only showed little favor to the missions in the Marianas Islands,
but in the year 98 he did not send a patache there with succor;
in 99 he sent the vessel late, and it was driven by storms first
to China and then to Manila, with damage to its cargo; and he had
ordered that the ship from Acapulco should not touch at those
islands. The governor had claimed that the conciliar seminary
[12] should be placed next to the college of San Jose, to which
the superior of the Society had answered that there was no room for
it. All the provincials [of the religious orders] had been commanded to
present to the archbishop all their bulls and privileges for granting
dispensation in case of impediments to marriage, for the purpose of
ascertaining whether these were perpetual or temporary; they presented
the documents extra-judicially. It seems that the viceroy of Mexico,
Conde Montezuma, [13] had undertaken that the regulars who were going
to Filipinas should first take an oath of obedience to the bishops,
[when the said regulars should act as curas] in the Indian villages;
in which case, he [i.e., Morales] said, it was preferable to abandon
the missions. The bishop of Cebu, Don Fray Miguel Bayot, [14] had
commanded that no layman should possess a slave girl eleven years old
or upward; and that if such slave were not liberated he declared her
free--in regard to which some persons had complained [to the] alcalde.
Preamble of the decree [15] which it has been commanded to place in
the books of San Pedro Tunasan.
In the village of San Juan de Calamba in the province of Bay, on
the sixteenth day of the month of November in the year one thousand
six hundred and ninety-eight: I, Licentiate Don Francisco Sanctos de
Oliveros, secretary in matters [secretario del Govierno y gracia] of
this archbishopric, and a racionero of the holy metropolitan church of
Manila, in obedience to the decree of his most illustrious Lordship
below mentioned, do certify and attest that his most illustrious
Lordship, having come to make the visitation of this district of
Tabuco, issued the decree of the following tenor:
Decree: In the village of Calambo in the province of Bay, on the
sixteenth day of the month of November in the year one thousand
six hundred and ninety-eight, the most illustrious lord Doctor Don
Diego Camacho y Avila, archbishop of Manila and metropolitan of these
Philippinas Islands, and ruler of the suffragan bishopric of Nueva
Segovia, now vacant, and member of the Council of his royal Majesty
and my master, having come here in conformity to the regulations
of the holy [Church] councils (and especially of the holy general
Council of Trent), and for the enforcement thereof, to visit this
district of Tabuco and the places connected with it (which are the
two villages of San Pedro Tunasan), and its churches, ministers,
and parishioners, has observed in them a great deal of ignorance of
the Christian doctrine, even of the doctrines most essential for
salvation--through the agency of Licentiate Don Juan Melendez, a
priest whom his most illustrious Lordship the archbishop, my master,
has brought with him as his assistant for the sole purpose of giving
examinations and instruction in the Tagálog language (in which the
said licentiate is very expert) to the Indians of both sexes, to the
old people as well as to the children, of the villages and districts
through which his most illustrious Lordship will be passing. This duty
he has performed and fulfilled in the presence of a great many people,
assembled in the above-mentioned churches of San Pedro Tunasan and
Biñan. After the questions which he has asked regarding the principal
mysteries of the faith, and the explanation which he has made of each
separately--some in the morning, and some in the afternoon, according
to the opportunity afforded him by the time--he has preached to them,
and continues to preach, exhorting them to the love of the virtues
and to horror for sins. He also gives to all individual instruction,
and an accurate knowledge of the mysteries of the holy sacrifice of
mass, and of the virtues and graces which it communicates, as also
of those which are required in order to resist the temptations of
the devil; and how to secure, with great ease and confidence, the
divine aid, by fulfilling and observing the precepts of the Decalogue,
and the ordinances of our holy Mother Church in the holy sacrament
of confirmation, which his most illustrious Lordship has solemnly
conferred and is conferring. Therefore he said that he must command,
and he did command, the master Licentiate Don Manuel de Leon, cura
in his own right of the village of Tabuco; and his coadjutor Bachelor
Nicolas Godiño, who administers the holy sacraments in the village of
Biñan; and Father Miguel de Salas, a religious of the Society of Jesus,
who likewise administers the holy sacraments in the village and estate
of San Pedro Tunasan, which is part of the territory and a visita of
the cura of the said village of Tabuco; and the curas and ministers
who shall hereafter officiate in the said villages, and in that of
Sancto Thomas (which is being administered ad interim by the said
master Licentiate Don Manuel de Leon): that on all the prescribed
feast-days--especially on Sundays, on which all the parishioners
assemble in their churches to hear the holy sacrifice of mass--they
shall question the people, and explain to them the Christian doctrine,
conformably and pursuant to the Tagálog catechism which is accepted and
approved in this archbishopric; and that in no form or manner, and for
no cause or pretext, shall they omit this on any of the above-mentioned
days, especially Sundays. They shall make the explanations of the
Christian doctrine to their parishioners before saying mass (which
all must hear)--not employing the fiscal or any other person for the
performance of this duty, but doing it themselves--explaining certain
mysteries of the faith on some Sundays, and others at other times; in
everything accommodating their speech to the limited capacity of their
parishioners, in order that these may be more readily instructed, and
sooner become capable of receiving all the mysteries of our holy faith.
Moreover, considering the great abuses which his most illustrious
Lordship has known from actual observation, and of which he has been
informed with all certitude and proof, and the still worse losses,
both temporal and spiritual, which have resulted to the persons of the
unhappy Indians, with very great injury to their consciences and almost
certain peril to the salvation of their souls, his most illustrious
Lordship must command, and he did command, that the above-mentioned
persons who are now the curas and ministers of the said villages,
and those who shall officiate in them hereafter, shall not oblige
their parishioners, for any cause or pretext, either personally or
by any agent, to offer them anything for the administration of the
holy sacrament of penance, especially throughout the season of Lent,
in which the Indians ordinarily make their confessions in order
to comply with the precept of the Church. And the said persons who
now are, or shall hereafter be, curas of the said districts shall
observe and fulfil all the above commands, under penalty of major
excommunication, latæ sententiæ, ipso facto incurrenda, and of legal
proceedings against their persons and goods with the fullest rigor
of justice, in future visitations.
And his most illustrious Lordship, employing his pastoral kindness
and clemency, and desiring to secure the salvation of his flock and
the service of God our Lord, and the greater honor and glory of His
Divine Majesty, granted and did grant forty days of indulgence to all
the parishioners of the said villages; who, with devotion and desire
to profit thereby, attend the explanation of the Christian doctrine in
their parish churches. And in order that this may be made known to all
the people, his most illustrious Lordship commanded and did command
that the above persons who now are, and those who hereafter shall be,
curas of the said districts shall make publication of the grant of
the said forty days of indulgence, on every Sunday of the month,
before or after the explanation of the Christian doctrine, always
making known to their parishioners the great riches and strength
contained therein, so that they may obtain and enjoy the indulgence
with profitable results--in regard to which his most illustrious
Lordship lays strict charge upon their consciences.
And considering that the visitas of the villages of San Pedro
Tunasan and Biñan pertain to the cura of the said village of
Tabuco, his most illustrious Lordship commanded and did command
that the master Licentiate Don Manuel de Leon, proprietary cura of
that village, cause this decree to be observed by his coadjutor,
Bachelor Nicolas Godiño, in the said church and village of Biñan;
and by Father Miguel de Salas, the present minister of the village of
San Pedro Tunasan--sending each a copy, signed with his name, of this
decree by his illustrious Lordship, which will be left, certified
and authorized, in the book of burials, baptisms, and marriages of
the said village of Tabuco. This being done, the said ministers,
Bachelor Nicolas Godiño and Father Miguel de Salas, will also make in
the books in their charge a certified copy of the decree--which is to
be sent immediately, with autograph signature copied at the foot of
the letter--so that it may be made known to all persons who hereafter
shall be ministers and curas of the said districts, San Pedro Tunasan,
Biñan, and Sancto Thomas. And by this decree, accordingly, the above
is ordained and commanded, and it is signed by his most illustrious
Lordship the archbishop, my master, as I attest.
Diego, archbishop of Manila.
Before me:
Francisco Sanctos de Oliveros, secretary.
The above, a copy from the original decree issued by his most
illustrious Lordship the archbishop, my master, which is one of
the acts of the visitation of the village of Tabuco--which are
in my charge, and to which I refer--is a faithful, accurate, and
truthful copy, corrected and compared. The witnesses to the copying,
correction, and comparison were Licentiate Don Diego Martin de la
Sierra and Bachelor Ignacio Gregorio Manasay, a cleric in minor orders;
and this document is signed in this village of Calamba, on the said
day and month and year. In attestation of its correctness, I sign it:
Francisco Sanctos de Oliveros, secretary.
Licentiate Don Manuel de Leon
[Another decree, dated December 7, 1698, concerns the curacy of
Balayan, with its visitas the village of Nazugbu and the ranch of Lian;
the curate there was Bachelor Don Juan de Llamas, with proprietary
appointment. After a preamble like that of the former decree, this
one continues thus, relative to the registers of the parish:]
He declared that he must command, and he did command, that the practice
be continued, as hitherto, of the separation and division [of the
records] in three different books: one for recording the baptisms and
confirmations only, another for the marriages and nuptial benedictions,
[16] and a third for the deaths; and that in no case should these be
recorded in one book only; and that in the book of baptisms the names
of the parents and the sponsors of the person baptized must always
be set down, and whether he were a legitimate child; and note must
be made of a child of unknown parents, or of the Church. [17] At the
same time, they must never fail to set down in the margin the names
of those who are baptized, and of the villages to which they belong,
so that it may be easier to search for and find them. In no case
shall men be allowed to stand as sponsors [saquen de pila] for women,
or women for men, on account of the grave difficulties which have
been experienced from this cause, especially among Indians. Moreover,
in the records of weddings and burials must be set down the fees of
the minister, so that in future visits it may be easy to compute the
eighths [18] which belong to the churches, in consideration of having
a new tariff to which their fees must conform. With this, in the said
records must be noted in the margin the names of both deceased and
married persons; and in every instance it must be explained whether
the deceased person received the sacraments at the hour of death,
and, if he did not receive them, the reasons therefor. Likewise, in
the records of marriages not only must the names of the contracting
parties be set down, and those of their parents, and those of their
former consorts, if the parties are widowed; but also those of the
witnesses who made affidavits in the investigations which always ought
to precede a marriage--whether these be verbal, in the case of ordinary
Indians; or in writing, when practice [in that art] enables this to
be done. Thus, if at any time [a legal] impediment should remain,
those persons can be found and punished as perjurers. Also it must be
specified whether the three publications of the banns [19] preceded,
which the law ordains.
Moreover, in the ministries of this province of Balayan his most
illustrious Lordship has found another abuse introduced therein, that
the curas and ministers of the Indian villages are accustomed to keep,
for baptisms and burials, two crosses assigned for this use--one of
wood, and the other of silver. The wooden one they take out for common
baptisms and burials, and those of poor persons; and that of silver for
the baptisms and burials of the rich--as if both crosses ought not to
have the same value, veneration, and efficacy for the object to which
they are directed; or as if the silver cross, on account of being of
richer material, ought to be esteemed more highly than that of wood,
on which died Christ our Redeemer (a thing which is disgraceful to
be said or thought among Christians). Therefore his most illustrious
Lordship, mindful of uprooting thoroughly this almost superstitious
abuse, commanded and did command the persons who now are, or who shall
hereafter be, curas in all the districts of this archbishopric that
in no case and on no pretext shall they practice such a distinction;
nor are they allowed to require or ask any fee on account of carrying
the silver cross, whether at baptisms or burials: under penalty of
major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, ipso facto incurrenda; and
at any time when information is lodged of violation of this decree,
proceedings will be instituted against the disobedient person with
the fullest rigor of justice, without any excuse being allowed to
shield him.
[Here follow the same commands and penalties as in the preceding
decree, relative to the proper instruction of the people in
Christian doctrine, and the prohibition of fees to the cura for the
administration of the sacrament of penance. The decree continues:]
Moreover, inasmuch as it is commanded, by a general decree of
visitation, now obeyed and practiced by all the secular curas of
this archbishopric, in fulfilment of a royal decree by his Majesty
(whom may God keep), that the viaticum shall be carried to sick
Indians in their own houses, and that they shall on no account be
carried from their houses to the churches to receive it: therefore
his most illustrious Lordship commanded and did command that the said
decree shall be observed, fulfilled, and executed in this curacy of
Balayan, and in its visita of Nazugbu and Lian. And, for its proper
fulfilment, it is commanded that a reliquary be made of silver or gold,
in order that when on any occasion there shall not be mode or form
of the customary external pomp, the viaticum may be carried therein,
as is commanded, to the sick; and warning is given that, on receiving
notice of any violation of this decree, proceedings will be instituted
against the disobedient person against whom there shall be legal cause.
All the above, contained and expressed in the present decree, his most
illustrious Lordship commanded, and did command, must be observed,
fulfilled, and executed by Bachelor Don Juan de Llamas, proprietary
cura of this district of Balayan, and he must cause it to be observed,
fulfilled, and executed by him who shall in the said cura's place
administer the holy sacraments in the villages of Nazugbu and Lian;
and of his punctual obedience the said curate shall notify his most
illustrious Lordship, at the first opportunity that shall occur, so
that, in case what is here commanded shall not be duly and effectually
carried out, his most illustrious Lordship may decide and ordain what
may be expedient.
Moreover, notwithstanding his most illustrious Lordship has been
informed of the exterior adornment of the church of the said villages
of Nazugbu and Lian, yet, inasmuch as the books of receipts and
expenses of the said church have not been shown, and are not clear,
his most illustrious Lordship therefore commanded and did command that
in that church shall be kept a book, in the first half of which shall
be set down the following, beginning at the first page, with all the
items clear, separate, and distinct, and with mention of the day,
month, and year: the eighths of the fees for marriages and burials
which shall be received from this time forward; and the legacies, and
donations for pious works, which are made to the said church. Then,
beginning at the middle of the book, must be set down in the second
half of it, with the same details, the expenditures which shall be
made for the church, in order that thus no confusion may arise, and
that the accounts may be promptly settled in the future visit. By this
act, therefore, his most illustrious Lordship decreed and commanded
the above, and signed this paper, which I certify.
Diego, archbishop of Manila.
Before me:
Francisco Sanctos de Oliveros, secretary.
[Here follow certificates, written in the registers of burials and
marriages respectively, that they have been duly inspected, and
referring to the decree itself, which is written in the register
of baptisms.]
Tariff
We, Doctor Don Diego Camacho y Avila, by the grace of God and of
the holy Apostolic See, metropolitan archbishop of these Philippinas
Islands, and ruler of the suffragan bishopric of Nueva Segovia, now
vacant, and member of the Council of his royal Majesty. Desiring to
fulfil the obligations of our ministry and pastoral office, and that by
the government which is in our charge, especially in the administration
of the holy sacraments, God our Lord may be followed and the faithful
edified; and that every one of our curas and ministers who instruct
the natives--not only in this city, but those of the other parishes
outside its walls--and their sacristans, shall observe the integrity
which is fitting in demanding the fees which shall belong to them on
account of the functions of their ministries and offices, relieving
their consciences as we do ours; and having examined the tariffs which
our predecessors have fixed, and seeing the condition of these islands,
we have decided to issue anew our mandate regarding the said statutes
and tariffs; and we ordain that from this time forth, in demanding
the said fees, the following order shall be observed:
Baptisms: For the baptisms the cura shall demand the candle or candles
which those who can give them may furnish, not obliging them to pay
a fee [capillo], or to give an offering of money or other things;
but, if they voluntarily give any free offering, [20] the cura is
authorized to take it.
Marriages: For publishing the banns, the fiscal shall ask for each
one real, and he may not demand anything because the parties do not
rise to their feet at the time when the banns are published. As for
the natives and Morenos [21] who marry without receiving the nuptial
benedictions, and shall come to the church or to the cura's house,
he shall not ask anything from them; but if the cura shall go,
or send, or give permission for the marriage to be solemnized at
their own homes, or in some other place, he shall ask three tostones
for the effort and time spent in going to marry them in a place to
which he is not obliged to go. If the cura shall go to their house,
or to some other place where he is not under obligation to go, in
order to marry any Japanese or Sangley, he shall ask two pesos, and,
if it shall be outside of the parish, he shall ask three pesos.
Nuptial benedictions: He [i.e., the cura] shall ask thirteen reals
from the dowry; [22] but if the parties are poor, they may commute
this for four reals--and [the same] if the woman is a widow and
has no dowry, provided she received the nuptial benedictions from
the Church in the first marriage; but if she did not [thus] receive
them, and have a dowry [she shall pay thirteen]. If several persons
receive the benedictions at one mass, the cura shall ask from those
who are blessed a peso from every one of them; and he shall be under
obligation to say as many masses as there were persons blessed, during
the following days, for their intention, because this [obligation to
say mass] for two, or three, or more married pairs who receive the
benedictions cannot be fulfilled by one mass.
Burials: For burials of children, with prayers read, when the cura goes
to the house for this purpose he shall ask one peso and four tomins;
but if the corpse is carried to the door of the church he shall ask
only one peso. For every burial of children with prayers chanted,
when the cura goes to the house for this purpose he shall ask only
three pesos; and if the corpse be received with prayers chanted at
the door of the church [23]--whether it be an Indian chief, a timagua,
a Sangley, a Japanese, or a free negro, whom his friends desire to be
interred with pomp and escort--and the cura shall go for the corpse to
the house, he shall ask ten pesos; but if he shall receive it at the
door of the church, and prayers be chanted, he shall ask two pesos. For
every burial accompanied with prayers, of an Indian chief, a timagua,
a Sangley, a Japanese, or a free negro, if the cura goes for it to
the house he shall ask one peso and four tomins; and if he receives
it at the door of the church he shall ask one peso. If the deceased
were a slave to Spaniards, the cura shall ask one peso for his fee,
and exactly six reals as a voluntary offering [limosna] for a mass;
but if he were a slave to an Indian, the cura shall ask six reals as
a fee, and four reals for the said offering. We charge it upon the
consciences of the curas to say these masses for the slaves, and thus
acquit our own conscience. For the cope which the cura may wear at
burials he may receive one peso as an offering; but he shall not wear
the cope when the parties do not ask for it. And for the halts [24]
the cura, if he shall have chanted the prayers, shall ask a toston
for each one, if the relatives of the deceased ask for them; but in no
other way shall he obtain these fees. Item, for the mass sung on the
day of the funeral, or funeral honors with responses, the cura may ask
two and one-half pesos; and for chanting the office for the dead, two
pesos and two reals. And for the novenary masses [25] which are said,
with a response in each one, on account of the burial of the deceased,
the cura may receive for each one a peso as offering; and the wax
candles which remain at the end of the novenary for the burial belong
to the cura. For masses provided for by will [missas de testamento],
the cura may receive six reals each, and for those which are ordered
to be said outside of the testamentary provision four reals each,
as offerings. The curas must not consent to accept the candles that
are carried by the persons who accompany the funeral, unless these
persons leave the candles of their own accord, and present them as
an offering; and if they do not thus give them up, the curas shall
not ask anything from them. To each one of those who may assist the
cura at any burial shall be given, if he is in holy orders, six reals
and a candle; if he is not yet ordained, four reals and a candle. For
any peal of the bells [repique] at the burials of children, or the
tolling of the passing bell [doble], the cura shall ask four reals
for the eighths [de octava], for the sacristy or the church.
Fees of the sacristans: For aiding at nuptial masses and the
benediction, [26] the sacristan shall ask for each two reals. The
sacristan may ask for carrying the processional cross with its veil,
[27] for any burial, ten reals; and if afterward solemn mass be sung,
he shall ask eighteen reals for the burial, and a peso for assisting
at the mass; and if the cross be placed on the grave on the day of the
funeral, he shall ask a peso. For the small cross carried, without
its casing, and made of silver, he shall ask six reals; and for the
ordinary cross of wood he shall ask two; and, if the deceased were
the slave of an Indian, he shall ask one real. For burning incense
at the funerals, when the parties ask for it, the sacristan shall
ask two reals; and at the solemn masses he shall ask another two
reals. For assisting at each anniversary mass founded in this church,
which the cura says, the sacristan shall ask one peso. The sacristan
is under obligation to assist the cura in the administration of the
holy sacraments, and in the other matters pertaining to the ministry,
as being his assistant; and if he fail in rendering such aid he shall
ask only the half [of the usual fees], and the other half the cura
shall divide between the person who shall assist in the sacristan's
place and the church fund for its sacristy. Either the sacristan or
in his place some person not yet ordained, is under obligation to
carry the cross at burials.
Singers: When the entire choir shall be summoned to any burial,
they shall ask ten pesos for attending it; and if all the said choir
assist at mass and the office for the dead [vigilia], they shall ask
another ten pesos. When the [individual] singers shall go on call to
any funeral, no more of them shall go than those who are asked for by
the parties; and each singer shall ask one real. This is understood
when they go not as a full choir, but in a group of three; and they
shall not oblige the parties to give them candles, but may take these
when the parties choose to give them. If only three singers assist
at mass and the office for the dead, they shall ask three pesos for
the mass, but not for the office.
We command that all these tariffs and statutes shall be observed and
fulfilled to the letter by the said our curas for natives, in this
city and in the rest of the parishes that are outside its walls, and by
their sacristans, without transgressing them in any way--under penalty
of four times the amount involved, incurred for every infraction,
and of being punished in accordance with the law. And no other person,
whatever his rank may be, shall dare to transgress these our mandates,
under penalty of legal proceedings against him, under the penalties
due to those who are disobedient. We command that the curas shall
keep these said tariffs displayed and posted in some public place,
where they can be read and understood by all persons. And that this
may be evident for all time, we command to be issued and we do issue
the present, signed with our name, and countersigned by our secretary,
as undersigned. In our archiepiscopal palace at Manila, on the fifth
day of the month of November in the year one thousand, six hundred
and ninety-eight.
Diego, archbishop of Manila.
By command of his most illustrious Lordship the archbishop, my master:
Francisco Sanctos de Oliveros, secretary.
[Here follow several notarial attestations.]
Memorial by the religious orders
The lecturer Fray Jaime Mimbela, of the Order of Preachers, and
definitor-general of the province of Santo Rosario; Fray Juan Antonio
de San Agustin, an Augustinian Recollect; and Antonio Xaramillo, of the
Society of Jesus--procurators-general of their provinces of Filipinas
and holding powers of attorney for the holy orders of St. Dominic,
St. Francis, St. Augustine, the Society of Jesus, and the Recollect
Augustinians who live in the said islands for the conversion of the
infidels and the maintenance [in the faith] of those who are already
converted therein--conforming to the new orders from their provincials
which they have received (dated February 13 of the past year 1699),
in regard to what has thus far been alleged and represented, make
the following declaration:
[Sire:]
The reverend archbishop, Doctor Don Diego Camacho y Avila, having
arrived at Manila in the month of September in the past year of 97,
undertook, in officio officiando [i.e., "in fulfilling the functions of
his office"], to visit the regulars who exercise the duties of parish
priests, desiring that they do so by title of law, [28] subject to
his jurisdiction. The said holy religious orders, having declined,
on repeated occasions, to take upon themselves such a burden, making
this known to the said reverend archbishop with all submission, were
resolved to abandon all the Indian villages and districts [assigned
to them], rather than to administer them in that manner. [They asked
him], in order to preserve the tranquillity which had existed in those
islands, that at least he would desist from his intention until the
pope and your Majesty, being informed of the matter, should decide
it: and represented to him that, taking everything into account,
irreparable losses of souls would ensue from his persevering in his
undertaking if the religious orders, in consequence of his violent
acts, should retire [from the curacies]--since there were not
secular priests to take the place of the religious in preaching and
the administration of the sacraments, but it was not possible for
the said reverend archbishop to yield to [even] these so serious
representations, nor was he willing to wait for the decisions of
[even] those so preëminent; on the contrary, he actually began
the visitation. When the religious answered that now they were not
parish priests, since they had resigned the Indian villages into
the hands of their provincials, who had notified your vice-patron of
it, the reverend archbishop took away two churches from the orders
of St. Dominic and St. Augustine; and soon the commonwealth found
itself in a storm, with confusion and affliction such as had never
before been experienced in those islands. For within a week fifty
religious who had acted as curas had retired to Manila, and orders
had been given for the retirement of the others--which they would
actually have done, if the courage of the reverend archbishop himself
had not been taught by this experience, so costly and unnecessary,
the truth of what had been often before represented to him, with so
much humility and entreaty, by the religious.
From that time, troubles continued to crowd together until in all
those islands the Catholic faith, as concerns God, and the vassalage
of the Indians to your Majesty, were at the point of destruction;
for in that country all the villages are inhabited by Indians alone,
nor is there in them any Spaniard except the religious who is their
minister--except here and there a village where resides some secular
priest and the alcaldes-mayor of the provinces. Thus, the villages
without the religious minister remain as dead, for divine worship and
for vassalage, as the body without a soul is dead for vital functions.
This truth being so well known--as also is this other, that in the
religious provinces of those islands there have been and are now many
religious of distinguished virtues and learning, and very zealous
for the salvation of souls--affairs have arrived at such a state,
as is known by the said letters of February, 699, that the regulars
refuse not only to be ordinaries [parrocos de justicia] and subject
to the jurisdiction of the reverend archbishop, but also to act in
that capacity in the manner which has been hitherto in vogue. They
ask your Majesty, with the utmost possible reverence, to be pleased to
regard them as exonerated from the responsibility which they hitherto
have held of ministering as parish priests to the Indians, and to take
measures that other persons may look after the Indians in the manner
which the reverend archbishop desires; and that the religious for whom
there is no room in the few convents and colleges which the religious
orders possess in those islands may return to their own provinces--in
accordance with what your Majesty commands, in one of his laws,
for the consolation of the distressed religious in those kingdoms.
And since actions so grave in themselves and in their consequences as
are these--the refusal of the regulars to be parish priests subject to
the jurisdiction of the reverend archbishop, and their renunciation
before your Majesty of the assignment of the territories allotted
to them for ministrations--appear not to have originated only from
disinclination, but to have sprung from [their claim to] liberty alone,
their representatives set forth to your Majesty in this document the
reasons and very weighty arguments by which they are constrained to
act in both those proceedings. They also offer to present another,
more copious, in which will be related in sequence and order all the
occurrences and the exceedingly grievous injuries which the religious
orders have suffered and still sustain, occasioned by the visitation
of the curas. [It will also recount] the lands that they possess;
the tithes [29] that the reverend archbishop has established; the
testimonies and appeals that he has denied; the arrests that he has
attempted; the banishments that he has urged [upon the Audiencia];
the very sharp reprimand that on account of him was given by your
Audiencia to all the provincials together, with other religious of high
standing, without permitting them to open their lips--and all with a
method of procedure so unlike that which the pope, your Majesty, and
your supreme Council employ on occasions like these, even in cases
when there is certainty of guilt; and finally, the investigations
which he makes to obtain information against them which he can use to
carry out his purposes, and disturb them at Madrid and Roma, in this
imposing [threats of] excommunication on the witnesses in order that
everything may remain a secret, and the reputation of the religious
orders be left more exposed to attack.
The reasons, then, which influence the religious not to be parish
priests by title in Filipinas, subject to the jurisdiction of
the reverend archbishop, are the following: First, because it is
unquestionable, and cannot be in any way denied, that the office of
parish priest, even with such exemption from [the jurisdiction of]
the ordinary, is entirely accessory, and, besides, a heavy additional
burden, to the religious estate--not only to that of monks, but even to
that of the mendicant regulars; for, in order that they may minister
in the said office, it has been necessary to obtain a pontifical
dispensation or arrangement, which is founded on important reasons. And
this [is a fact], if we consider only what the religious state demands
of its followers, as is made plain by the general exemption and the
teaching of holy men. If this mode of administering [the curacies]
be changed, and the regular who is a parish priest must remain, in
what concerns that office, under the jurisdiction of the ordinary,
subject to his correction and visitation, and in the other matters
subject to the superior of his religious order, it would be a change
and condition of affairs so remarkable that, in regard to his estate
and his profession of life, the religious would change his nature--for
he would be like one cleft in twain, if subject in some cases to one
superior and in others to another, the two of differing ecclesiastical
rank; and the consequences would be perilous, as will be considered
later. In view, then, of a change which would so seriously affect
their estate, all the regulars of Filipinas declare that, just as
one's state of life is chosen so as to lead to salvation only when
it is chosen through the influence and vocation of God, who calls
and inclines one to it, and that one's choice goes astray when it
is made through other motives, so, when after choice has been made
of the state and profession of life some other circumstance arises
which not only oppresses that state, but changes its very nature--with
new responsibilities, new obligations, new superiors, and new modes
of government full of dangers and difficulties--and, above all, the
rule which he professes, no one can safely add to his mode of life a
condition so unusual, if God do not incline and call him to it. The
religious of Filipinas declare that they have no such vocation or
inclination for being parish priests by title, subject to the ordinary;
and that without it they cannot expose themselves to so many dangers,
with evident risk of being ruined thereby. They say that neither when
they entered the religious life nor when they made their confession
did they read among the obligations to which they submitted that of
being parish priests, and much less that of being such by title, and
subject to the ordinaries; on the other hand, they understood that
the Apostolic See had exempted them from it. They assert also that
on going from Europa to the Filipinas they knew that the regulars
never had ministered to the Indians, nor were they then doing so, as
being dependent upon the ordinaries, but with pontifical jurisdiction,
remaining in all matters subject to the visitation and correction of
their provincials; therefore they must necessarily censure and refuse
now this new administration and attempted subjection, which they did
not profess and to which God did not call them.
Nor do the precedents [brought forward] from America militate against
this argument when it is said that there is but one and the same
rule, and one and the same form of government, in essentials, for
the religious order or orders whose sons find themselves in America
and in Filipinas; for those who are in those islands say, with all
esteem and reverence, that there are some things more suitable to
be admired than imitated, and that, while they admire the courage
[of those in America], they confess that they do not possess courage
to imitate them in this matter. They add that, if in America and
Filipinas a religious order is one and the same, likewise throughout
the world the faith and the church of Jesus Christ is one and the
same; and nevertheless, if a Catholic, simply because he had chosen
an estate of life, should exhort all others to embrace the same, it
would not be judicious counsel, or in conformity to the spirit of God;
for that Spirit inspires, influences, and calls whomsoever He will,
choosing some for an occupation, and dissuading others from that same
employ. And thus it is evident, likewise, that in the one religious
order some have a vocation for going from Europa to the Indias, and
others have not. Then why cannot the same occur in regard to being
or not being parish priests subject to the ordinary?
The reverend archbishop of Manila himself has given and still gives
to the religious orders of Filipinas a very striking and conclusive
example in this regard: for before he left España he knew very well
in what way the regulars acted as curas in those islands, but he
neither renounced the archbishopric in España, nor gave up going to
the islands. He knew also that the being united as a spouse to the
church of Manila is not an accessory matter, but is wholly essential
to the state of being its archbishop; and that other prelates have
gone thither without attempting what he claims. Nevertheless, he
has asked in the royal Audiencia permission to return to España; and
now he writes resigning the archbishopric, and asking that he may be
allowed to come here to live and die in retreat in a cell. If it is
because the religious who are parish priests are not subject to his
jurisdiction that he offers this resignation--by which he abandons
all that belongs to his position, and the state of life that he
chose--how much greater reason the religious will have to imitate
him, since even when they give up the curacies they remain wholly
in the estate of religious which they professed. If he makes this
renunciation in order to avoid controversies, and aspires to live
and die in a cell, much more natural is this desire of the religious
to live and die peacefully therein, without obliging themselves to
endure those controversies; for they do not accept under compulsion a
new estate to which God does not call them. Likewise, [they decline]
if, in order to adopt such a model of life, their rule must be the
pleasure of the archbishop, and not the inspiration of God.
As little is this first argument overcome by [the assertion] that
the civil law provides that the regular who is a parish priest is
immediately subject, in what pertains to that office, to the visitation
and correction of the ordinary. For, laying aside the fact that such
a law can be abrogated by the supreme pontiff--as actually was done
by Pius V after the holy Council of Trent, and afterward confirmed
by Urban VIII; and this very procedure is supported by various
declarations of the most eminent cardinals--when there is a lack of
secular priests (as is the case in Filipinas, where for eight hundred
parishes, the approximate number of those in existence, there are
hardly sixty seculars in number, and still fewer who have abilities
for giving instruction and learning languages): laying all this aside,
the religious assert that the civil law which commands such subjection
must be understood in the case that the religious who are administering
curacies, without being subordinate to the ordinary, desire to
continue thus, being parish priests; but it does not order that they
be compelled by violence and force to enter that relation. And if a
secular cleric, to whom with canonical and rigorous institution is
given a perpetual curacy, can, notwithstanding this, renounce such
curacy, nor on that account be disqualified by the law as long as he
lives in immediate subjection to one superior only, who is his bishop:
how or for what reason can the reverend archbishop of Manila claim that
the religious cannot peaceably make the same renunciation, in order
to avoid the risk of having so many superiors? As the religious hold
the Indian villages not as proprietaries, but removable ad nutum,
other persons could, for no better reason than their own wishes,
deprive the religious of those ministries, even though the latter
live therein with the sanctity of their holy founders; and is it
possible that, when only the will of another person is sufficient to
prevent them from being curas, the divine inspiration and their own
self-reproach will not be sufficient for them?
The second reason that the religious in Filipinas have for refusing
to be parish priests by title, subject to the ordinary, is that no
exact idea of this virtue of justice has been formed in considering
the method in which efforts have been made to constrain the religious
by it. For either they are or they are not capable of being really
parish priests, like the secular clerics. If they are, they do not
accept the parish under any obligation of justice; and even when this
is conferred on them with canonical institution, they nevertheless do
not remain ordinaries, as are the secular clerics; for in the latter,
in order to secure a proprietary benefice, the only points considered
are the ability to serve as cura, the obligation of law [justicia]
to which they submit, and the canonical collation with which they are
inducted into the parish. Including all this in the said supposition,
the religious cannot well understand why, after all that, they do
not remain proprietary parish priests. As little do they understand
how the said ability, obligation of law, and canonical institution
can make a secular priest a perpetual cura--so that if his conduct
does not render him unworthy the curacy cannot be taken from him,
either by ordinary or vice-patron alone, or by both together; while
a religious who enters the curacy with the same formalities is not
competent for the same perpetuity, but only for such tenure, even
in his own territory, that even if he conduct himself as a saint the
ordinary and vice-patron can, if agreed, deprive him of his benefice
and give it to another; that is, even after that obligation and
solemnity he is a parish priest removable ad nutum.
The religious also consider that although the virtue of justice is one
for all, and alike for all, and the efficacy of canonical institution
is also one for persons who are qualified for the same office, to the
secular cleric with the onerous duty of parish priest is given all that
can favor him; but to the religious, while the entire burden is laid
upon him, all his energy is checked on account of not giving him all
which can relieve that burden. This is all placed upon the religious,
for his responsibility for the feeding of his sheep confines him to
a district in such a way that his own provincial cannot, by his own
agency alone, change his district without first resorting to the
ordinary and the vice-patron, to secure their consent. In this way
there is a notable decrease of obedience, and the regular observance of
the rule which he professed is greatly disturbed; and many, continual,
and insupportable annoyances are heaped upon the provincials. The
religious loses in great part the privilege of his exemption;
he remains subject, in so far as he is a cura, to investigations,
complaints, visitations, and penalties from the ordinary; and with all
these burdens he has not the comfort of being secure in his parish,
even if his conduct do not render him unworthy of it, because he does
not hold it in perpetuity, as the secular does. He is not master of the
emoluments which the curacy yields, nor are they in justice due to him
as to the secular, unless he pretends that he is dispensed from the
essential vow of poverty. Then, if the religious is capable of being
a parish priest, and that by title of law, as is the secular, who
has given to justice and to canonical collation such efficacy as with
them to furnish to the secular what is honorable [30] and favorable,
yet has so divided it as to impart to the regular what is detestable,
while yet denying him what may console him?
[Even] if it be granted that the regular is not competent, on account
of his estate, for being a proprietary parish priest, why is it so
strictly required of him to enter the curacy with the same formalities
and ceremony as those with which the clerics enter? Such incompetency
will be the best justification for the repugnance which the religious
feel for being curas in the manner which the archbishop insists on.
The third reason is, that if the convents and colleges which the
religious maintain in Manila be broken up, it can be said with truth
that there are no other houses of religious community [in the colony];
for although there are seven other houses besides--in Cavite, Cebu,
Oton, and Yloilo--divided among the religious orders of St. Dominic,
St. Augustine, the Society of Jesus, and the Recollects, yet these
convents and colleges are so small that in each of them there are
only two or three residents. All the rest of the said provinces is
composed of Indian villages, [each] served by one minister only; and
these are such as can be gathered from their respective bishoprics, the
cathedrals of which neither have nor are capable of having dignities,
canonries, and other prebends. This being admitted, if the ministers
in Indian villages remain subject to the ordinary, as the provinces
are composed almost wholly of such ministers alone, and for their
removal would then be necessary the agreement of the ordinary and the
vice-patron, some provinces would come to be dependent, in the name
of religious government and in the exercise of secular government,
on the wills of those two persons, to whom the religious did not in
their profession promise obedience or subjection.
Then if either of the two, whether the bishop or the governor,
were displeased with any religious order, or with any minister--and
especially if it were the governor, whose power in those islands
cannot be explained, except by their remoteness--in such case they
could on very specious pretexts either maintain or remove the minister
against the will of his provincial; and even they could, if necessary,
threaten the latter with either censures or banishment, to make that
religious order conform to their authority. How fruitful a source
this may be of perdition and total ruin for the religious orders,
all can recognize; but only those who have had experience in those
islands can fully comprehend it.
The fourth reason: for we have already taken for granted their
subjection and canonical institution. If a religious who is a minister
commit a transgression, and his offense apparently belongs on the
one side to morals and life, and on the other to the office of cura,
the poor minister remains in the condition of those goods which we
call mostrencos, on account of their belonging to the first person
who takes possession of them--and even in a much worse condition,
on account of the controversies which must naturally ensue. For if
the provincial begins legal proceedings in the matter, and afterward
information of it is given to the reverend archbishop, the latter
issues a decree--and, if it be necessary, a censure--commanding
the said provincial to revoke all of his proceedings, surrender the
case to him, and abandon it; that is to say, the right of judicature
belongs to him alone. The provincial appeals to the judge-delegate
of his Holiness, who, in order to obtain full information about the
case, commands the reverend archbishop, with the threat of censure,
to desist from the cause, and surrender the documents. If the latter
do not obey, the affair may reach the point where two ecclesiastical
prelates mutually excommunicate each other, and [the colony] is
menaced with an interdict and the cessation of divine worship. This
is not discussing an imaginary thing, but is relating that which has
just occurred in Manila in a like case--where, in order to prevent the
regulars from withdrawing from their curacies, [the archbishop] imposed
on the provincials the penalties of excommunication and a fine of
2,000 pesos; and conversely, the reverend archbishop and the delegate
of his Holiness likewise excommunicated each other. The commonwealth
was disquieted by these occurrences, not knowing where these things
would end if the interdict which the delegate threatened were carried
out, since he was followed by the religious orders; for nearly all the
laymen lean on the orders--making their confessions to the religious,
receiving instruction from their teaching and example, and with their
counsels calming the scruples of their consciences. In consequence, it
would necessarily follow that in case of an interdict and cessation
of divine services the entire archdiocese would be left in most
lamentable condition; and without doubt this would have occurred, if
it had not been for the kindly nature of the delegate and the urgent
importunities to desist from this purpose that were addressed to him
by the religious. For, since at the cost of innumerable martyrdoms
and other hardships they had established the faith in those islands,
they sought to avert the danger that it would be impaired, even though
this should be at the cost of contempt for themselves.
It must be added to all the above that if these contentions and
troubles which are suffered in those islands could be promptly ended
without going outside of them, toleration in enduring them would be
less difficult. But this is not so; but these troubles leave behind
them their consequences, and chains that are very long and heavy,
which are only fit to drag along those who choose to become slaves
to the curacies in Filipinas. For in such cases letters are written
by the governor, the archbishop, the Audiencia, and the religious
orders to Madrid, and by some of these to Roma also; and terrible
controversies take shape, with public scandal in both courts. The
parties are in every way exhausted, and the judges are harassed until
the [royal] decree in the case is provided: first, because such decree
is provided for regions so remote, and after it is issued arrives
there [so late], that those evils are throwing out many roots, and
these produce anew other discords and evils worse than the first. And
since it is a fact that, although according to the divine oracles,
it is not fitting either for the bishop to be contentious, or for the
minister of souls to preach the gospel in any other way than that of
peace, the religious orders, in place of experiencing in Filipinas,
as it were, peace with the fruit of tranquillity, do not find this at
the present time; but they are burning in a glowing forge, which only
throws out sparks of discord and dissension. The religious orders,
Sire, had already made peace among themselves, and are at this day
maintaining and always will maintain it; for they trust in God that it
will be so, and the bitter experience of past years has pointed this
out as a great blessing. Thus, when the reverend archbishop arrived
here all was quiet and peaceful, but within little more than two months
after his arrival there was nothing but unrest and disorder--and this
because the religious had told him, with all courtesy and humility,
that they would sooner give up the ministries of instruction than hold
them in the manner that he desired. Herein, which side proceeded most
comformably to reason? the religious who peaceably leave the curacies,
in order to avoid disputes; or the reverend archbishop who causes these
contentions, and who sends to Madrid and Roma in order to obtain that
the regulars shall be by force and violence parish priests subject to
his own jurisdiction? In view, then, of disadvantages so serious, what
religious is there, devoted to his profession, who will consent to be
a parish priest in Filipinas? Who will leave his province in Europa,
the retirement and peace of his community, to go, with the perils
of two ocean voyages, in search of controversies so wearisome and
noisy over a calling which he did not profess? Herein the religious
of Filipinas admit that they have taken warning by what has occurred
in America, that they ought to learn a lesson from it and be cautious
about having another head.
The fifth reason: If a regular who is a parish priest transgresses,
and on account of secret faults becomes unworthy of continuing in
his ministry, yet if he remains in it his salvation may incur a very
special peril. The provincial has secret knowledge of the case. Here
justice demands two things: one, the punishment of the fault; the
other, that the delinquent shall not be rendered infamous. Charity,
(and even justice itself) demands also that the provincial shall,
because of his office, remove his subordinate from that risk. If this
regular who acts as parish priest were administering his functions
without canonical institution or subjection to the ordinary, as is done
in the Filipinas Islands, the provincial could with the greatest ease
settle the whole matter, and justice and charity be satisfied, without
disgrace to the delinquent and without a stigma on the religious
order. But when the regular who is a parish priest is subject to
the ordinary, the provincial cannot remove him by his own authority
alone; and it is necessary for him to resort to that very ordinary
and to the vice-patron, and that the two agree on the removal of the
offender. And, in such case, what has the provincial to say to them? If
it be answered that by keeping the case entirely secret the provincial
becomes a sharer in the guilt of his subordinate, he and the superiors
of the religious orders declare, with all submission and humility,
that they refuse to put in practice such a form of theology. Can the
ordinary acting alone, can the governor, the father, and the master,
each alone, punish and correct the fault--of a priest, of a citizen or
a soldier, of children, of servants--without the least injury to the
culprit's honor; and a provincial, who can in innumerable ways do the
same with any subordinate of his, be obliged to leave the offender
in disgrace with the heads of the community, ecclesiastical and
secular? The religious orders would sooner remove [from the islands],
to transplant themselves to Europa, than submit to so heavy a burden.
If it be said that the provincial need not state the offense, but
in general terms assert only that he has cause for removing the
cura, even that would not avoid the difficulty: First, because the
authorities may think that the provincial says so, in order to carry
a point for a custom of long standing. Second, even though the cause
for removing him is not a fault, it will be readily said [that it was
one]; and if the person himself does not make further explanation,
in such case the result will be that the fault will be made public
by his silence. And finally, one's honor is a very delicate thing,
and is usually much injured by rumors and suspicions alone. And
since God renders the religious exempt from the secular judges, and
the Apostolic See from the ordinaries, the regulars represent that,
as they have not professed to be curas, they do not feel courage to
fill that office with so many risks and burdens.
The sixth reason: The object for which the religious are in the
curacies is the salvation of souls; and there is no room for doubt
that for such a purpose the religious will be all the more fit and
competent an instrument the more he shall unite with the office
of cura the regular observance. This greater union, it is certain,
lies in the method of being curas which has hitherto prevailed, and
not in that which the archbishop is attempting; for with subjection
to him the cura does not depend so much on the regular superior, nor
can the latter freely command him as before, and thus the obedience
[of the religious] is greatly diminished and injured, without which no
one deserves the name of religious. [Also the observance of] poverty
is at great risk; for since the cura ministers through the obligation
of justice and canonical institution, and this is not given to him
by the religious order but by the ordinary, some of the curas might
argue that since the order permits this to them, it also permits
them to be masters, in whole or in part, of all the emoluments; and
that with entire freedom, without subjection to or permission from
their superiors, they can spend or dispose of these revenues as they
please. This is a danger which is most prolific of innumerable others,
and in all lines. Their chastity also is much less secure, because
it is attacked by solitude, by the license which this occasions, by
the natural compliance of the Indians, and by that almost perpetual
tenure which in many ministries in America is experienced through the
obligation of justice and canonical institution under which they are
administered; and on account of the difficulty which thus arises in
securing removals, sensuality does not find that remedy of flight
which St. Paul lays down so prompt and easy as it would be if the
parish priest depended only on his provincial.
And, finally, the religious do not, by assuming the habit as such,
strip themselves of the passions of men. There might be one or more
for whom the subjection and mode of life in a religious community
becomes wearisome; and such men, knowing that a cura cannot be removed
from the mission parish without the agreement of the ordinary and the
vice-patron, undertake to gain the good-will of those authorities by
letters and other means, and for the same object to win the friendship
of officials and dependents, so that these may exert influence in
order to preserve them in the curacies. And thus gradually they become
rooted in their liking for a life that is solitary and independent,
and will reach a state in which they give up the mission parish with
grief, because they hold it through love for the conveniences of life,
and more as very secular men of the world than as religious or as
ministers to souls. In that case the religious orders could say that
they had lost fervent sons, and the ordinaries that they had not made
zealous curates.
All this is avoided when the regulars serve as parish priests in
the same manner as they do now in the Filipinas; for they are wholly
dependent on their superiors, and cannot dispose of anything without
their permission. If it be expedient for them to go to some other
place, there is no difficulty in changing their residence; and as
they have not that security of perpetual tenure, their only care is
for their ministries, the door being closed to unworthy measures and
claims. Hence it follows that this mode of holding curacies is more
in accordance with the three vows and the other statutes that aim at
the perfection that is proper for the regulars, and consequently at
the salvation of the souls [31] for whom they care.
The seventh and last reason--omitting others, either because they
are included in those already mentioned, or because they may readily
be deduced from those--is supported by authority. Let the histories
of the Indias be read, and the laymen and ecclesiastics who have
written about them; all agree in raising very serious doubts whether
the regulars should be parish priests or not, and much more whether
they should be so with title. [These writers] noted many decisions,
in which entire provinces--composed of religious who were influential,
experienced, learned, and zealous--resolved in their chapter-meetings
that the mission curacies should be given up; many [opinions by]
generals of those same orders, who approved that proceeding; and
others, by various distinguished men, who expostulated against the
acceptance of such an encumbrance by their religious order. [They have
also noted] faults which they contemplated with tears--interminable
discords, which banished all tranquillity and peace; and innumerable
other damages, which, even the secular writers on the Indias admit,
have made the regulars tremble.
If he who sees from [a safe place on] land a fierce hurricane on
the sea, and that in it are wrecked galleons of great size--some of
the men on board being drowned, others crying for help, and those
who by swimming have emerged on the shore taking warning [from this
misfortune], and causing great fear in those who hear them--trembles
at [the thought of] venturing upon the sea: what marvel is it that
the regulars of Filipinas, who have not thus far been inducted into
this new form of parish tenure which the archbishop is attempting
[to establish], seeing as if from the solid land so much tempest and
shipwreck which are occasioned by that form, and which the histories,
like accurate charts, place before them, tremble, and refuse to embark
on that sea? When the witnesses are so truthful, and the experiences
so injurious, it would be a mistake of the utmost importance not to
believe them, or to expect that [in] trouble one may remedy it by
regret, or not to avoid it beforehand by prudent measures.
With these reasons, three arguments of which the reverend archbishop
entertains a high opinion lose their force. One is, to argue [thus]
in this dilemma: Either the regulars who are parish priests conduct
themselves well and fulfil their obligations as such, or they do
not. If this last, it is not right that it be permitted, nor that
there be any failure to reform with the visitation which he is trying
to enforce. If in all respects they fulfil their obligations, what
matters it if he visits them, approves their proceedings, and praises
them in his report to the king? And with this mode of argument he
casts suspicion on the regulars, as if they had faults or failings
as parish priests to conceal.
Answer is made, first: that the religious who are curas conduct
themselves well in their ministries, and strive so far as their powers
extend, for the salvation of their parishioners; and that what holds
them back from being parish priests subject to the reverend archbishop
is not the fear caused by [the question of] behavior, but dread of
the inconveniences and dangers above recounted, which it is not easy
to explain.
Answer is made, second: that in Manila and Cavite--which is distant
two leguas from this city, and where only the secular priests are
curas--the reverend archbishop has precedents very effectual for
ascertaining the consequences of the way in which the religious
behave in their curacies. For in those two places, where they have
no obligations as curas, they are the ones who carry the burden
of the day and of the summer's heat; they alone (or almost alone)
are the ones who administer throughout the year the sacraments of
penance and communion--to Spaniards, Indians (Tagálogs, Pampangos,
and Visayans), mestizos, Cafres, and other peoples who resort thither;
they alone keep laborers set aside for this task; they alone preach
frequently. It is they who carry on missions; they who dispense the
divine word and explain the Christian doctrine in the guard-rooms of
the soldiers and [among those stationed] at the gates of the city;
they to whom the slaves from the foundry resort; [they who minister
to] the prisoners in the jail, and the poor in the hospitals, and the
seminaries of La Misericordia and Sancta Potenciana. It is they who in
their churches have separate sermons for the Spaniards, for negroes,
and for Indians; it is they who are almost continually going forth,
by day and by night, to the sick and the dying, whatever the weather
may be. Then who can imagine that where the religious, without being
curas, have the inclination and zeal to aid the secular curas and the
reverend archbishop themselves, relieving so greatly the burden of
their obligations, they will neglect their duties in the villages,
where the souls have been entrusted to their care alone?
Answer is made, third: that just as the reverend archbishop by his
arguments strives at Madrid and Roma to subject the regulars to
his visitation in what concerns them as parish priests, he may also
plan to subject them in all that concerns morals and life. "For if
they behave ill, it is not right to permit such conduct; and if
their conduct is exemplary, what matter is it if he visits them,
and approves them, in order to report on them with praises?" The
reply which the reverend archbishop will make to this argument can
with more reason be applied as the reply and solution to his own. The
religious orders add that, even though the praises of the reverend
archbishop are and always will be worthy of the utmost appreciation,
yet they set a much greater value on following the counsel of the
apostle about each man abiding in his own calling [32]--which was not
to be curas--than to be curas and obtain those praises with the risk
of the troubles that have been considered.
Nor is it right, by the same mode of argument as that of the reverend
archbishop, that the religious orders should not further make evident
the importance of their justice and of their labors. This prelate
greatly resented that the reverend bishop, the delegate and judge of
his Holiness for cases of appeals, should go to Manila and exercise
his functions, issuing various acts; and the said reverend archbishop
also took steps to have the delegate depart immediately from his
archbishopric, and said (and wrote to Europa) that the religious orders
were trying to keep the delegate there as their judge-conservator. It
is here where his own argument presses: either the procedure of
the reverend archbishop was just, or it was not. If it were just,
what did it matter that he had before him a judge with authority
from the pope, and must deliver to this judge the documents which
he demanded, so that as a judge so superior he might confirm them,
and make a report on them with commendations? If the archbishop's
conduct were not just, as little just was it that he should go beyond
his obligation, in order to obstruct rightful jurisdiction.
The reverend archbishop also refused to the religious orders all the
copies of documents and the attested statements which they asked
from him in regard to the visitation which he planned and began,
but from which he desisted. If what the reverend archbishop did and
decreed was just, what mattered it that he should command the said
copies and statements to be given to parties so eminent and worthy
of respect as were five religious provinces? If it were not just,
why were these decrees made and executed?
Another argument of which the reverend archbishop avails himself is,
to say that if the regulars who are parish priests do not submit to
his visitation and jurisdiction, he will finally be a [mere] bishop
de anillo. [33] Answer is made, first, that even if this were the
case (which, however, it is not), the reverend archbishop would not
have any reason to complain in this particular, as, according to the
law, no wrong is done to him who, before entering on any negotiation,
acquaints himself with it and determines it beforehand. [34] For while
he was yet in España he knew that the regulars in Filipinas were
not parish priests by title, nor subject as such to the ordinary;
and if with this knowledge he decided to go to Manila in order to
be its metropolitan archbishop he ought to take for granted what
has been proved by experience, and not wonder that the regulars,
convinced by so effective arguments, are, constrained by these, giving
up the native curacies, in order not to be ministers of instruction
at so much risk. Nor will any one grant that reason countenances the
reverend archbishop more in trying to secure the extension of his
authority than it does the religious in maintaining themselves as
much as possible in what they had professed.
Answer is made, second: that, not by commission but by his own proper
jurisdiction, the reverend archbishop can administer confirmations
throughout his archbishopric; act as judge of all matrimonial cases
among the Indians, and those affecting the rest of his flock, in the
same manner and the same cases as he could if secular priests were the
curas over them; and ordain priests and consecrate oils--with many
other things. The exemption of the regulars does not hinder these,
nor can a bishop who is only titular exercise these functions merely
through his own choice; and thus the reverend archbishop does not
come to be such a prelate.
And, finally, according to Christian maxims the religious ought
to measure the choice of a new form of life, not by the question
whether the reverend archbishop has or has not more or less under
his jurisdiction, but by other and loftier principles, which concern
salvation and the means [to attain it], which they have already chosen,
by rule and vows, in order to attain with these that final end. And
the religious of Filipinas declare that if his Reverence the archbishop
refuses to live [in those islands] and be their prelate, because he has
not all the authority that he desires, they refuse the said form of
[serving as] parish priests, in order to avoid the controversies and
perils here stated, so as to live in the quiet of their profession
and by means of it to secure more peaceably their eternal salvation.
If the reverend archbishop shall urge the precedents of some religious
orders in America in regard to the said matter, the religious orders
of Filipinas state further, besides what is said above, that those
who gave up the mission villages in America furnish a more effective
example than do those who remained in those posts subject to the
ordinary. They also add that for this case more to the purpose
are the precedents of all the reverend archbishops and bishops of
Filipinas--of no one of whom it is known, it should be said, that he
was an archbishop or bishop de anillo. Many of them were entirely
satisfied at seeing the good work that was wrought in their flocks
by the religious orders, and thanked them and greatly honored them;
and even though some few of them desired what the present reverend
archbishop is attempting to secure, yet on hearing the arguments of
the regulars the prelates contented themselves with informing the
Council--without that body changing the former mode, or the prelates
breaking forth in violence as has been seen in this present time. Then,
even if the reverend archbishop is somewhat influenced by precedents
of certain religious orders in America, it seems as if he ought to
be convinced by those of his predecessors and the others who were
suffragan bishops in those islands.
The third argument is, that as the regulars who are parish priests are
not under his jurisdiction, he cannot feed his sheep as it behooves
him to do, or give account of them to God, with due certainty;
accordingly he claims that the regulars of Filipinas should be
compelled not to leave their flocks, and should be forced under his
jurisdiction. Answer is made, first, that the reverend archbishop can,
whenever it shall please him, apply himself to an inspection of the
Indian villages, even those that are furthest from Manila, and view
the aspect of his flock--who will be greatly edified to see that an
archbishop undergoes the inconveniences of small boats, and traverses
dangerous tracts of sea and land, for their spiritual good, as the
provincials do. Then if he will have taken the trouble to learn some
languages, as the religious have done, in order to dispense to them
the divine word, to hear their confessions, give them communion, and
the sacrament of confirmation, and the rest that they require: then he
can obtain information about the religious and the spiritual state of
the villages, give such commands to the Indians as he shall please,
and confer with the ministers on all that concerns the salvation of
souls; and not only can he, but he has the right to do so. It cannot
be doubted that this would be a rich nourishment [to his flock],
and that these actions of an archbishop are compatible with his not
having jurisdiction over the regulars; and it would be a great pity
if all this, which is so proper for a prelate, should fail simply
because the regular in his curacy remains with the exemption which
the Apostolic See has granted to him.
In view of these actions which he can perform, the reverend archbishop
will attach less importance to his not visiting judicially the regular
who is a parish priest because the latter remains outside of his
jurisdiction; but it may well be believed that the regular keeps the
sacrament, the holy oils, and the baptismal font in decent condition;
that there are registers of baptisms, burials, and marriages; that
the Christian doctrine is explained to all the people together, and
to the children separately, as also to the larger boys and girls,
and all at different times; that not only in times of sickness and
of danger of death, but in health and safety, the sacraments are
administered to those who ask for them; and that other things are done
which are proper for the ministers who are curas. These functions,
as they have a public interest in themselves for the whole village,
are known throughout it; and even if any detail should be neglected,
the reverend archbishop may well believe that neither the provincial
nor the other responsible officials of the provinces who are designated
to watch, make decisions, punish, or reward, for the general good,
will wish to be censured for it.
The reverend archbishop does not doubt that in the church of God the
holy religious orders form a very numerous assembly, and that their
sons, every one, are the sheep of the supreme shepherd, the pope,
who has exempted them from the [jurisdiction of the] ordinaries,
unburdening his own conscience, and trusting to the vigilance of the
generals, and other superiors--to whom, as to the guardians of souls,
he has handed over those of the individuals [who form] the rest
[of the order]. It has not occurred to any one that on account of
this exemption the popes cannot feed the universal flock, or appear
with safety before the tribunal of God; and experience has shown the
extraordinary benefits which have resulted from it to the church and
to the religious orders themselves. Why, then, where the vicars of
Christ are secure, will not an archbishop be so too?
On account of merely the expectation of a great harvest in the
Indias many popes conferred on the regulars the authority to be
parish priests, with complete independence from the ordinaries,
rendering null and void whatever the latter might do in opposition
to this privilege. No one has said that by this the supreme pontiffs
placed the ordinaries in danger of rendering their accounts to God
unsatisfactorily, or hindered them from feeding and edifying their
flocks; and the result itself has given testimony, with the great
success of the propagation of the gospel, how successful has been
that method of having the regulars as curas, seeing that the hope of
a harvest has now grown to be its actual possession, and realms so
extensive have been conquered. And therefore the reverend archbishop of
Manila might have had confidence in commands so sovereign--especially
in that of Pius V, whose brief is now in full force in Filipinas, as on
the first day when it was issued; and even the motive therefor, since
there is so great a deficiency of secular priests that, if the regulars
should be lacking, the faith would perish in islands so widespread,
and the people would be as much heathens and idolaters as before.
Answer is made, second: that the generals, the provincials, and the
main body of the provinces say the same in regard to the religious
who have professed their rule, that the latter are sheep also of the
flocks that God has placed in their charge, so long as the government
remains in their hands; and whatever care and attention the reverend
archbishop of Manila may give to his sheep the Indians, the regular
prelates will give to their subordinates in regard to the same account
which they will have to render for these to God.
But with a very important difference: for the Indians who are not
converted are under the most serious obligations to join the assembly
of those who are already converted, and for this object can be forced
to hear the divine word; and those who have heard and believed it
[can be obliged] not to forsake what they believed, or depart from
the bosom of the Church, for it is not possible to be saved in any
other manner. And when for the attainment of two objects so great as
these there are no secular priests, and there are only religious,
who have attained those ends and are still doing so while they are
exempt curas, it would seem to be also the greatest obligation of
the ordinary to reconcile himself with such curas, in order not to
deprive the Church or defraud the blood of Christ of so much fruit.
The religious cannot be forced in the manner which has been stated
to be curas subject to the ordinary, for besides the estate of the
Christian they have already professed that of the religious order;
and therein, without this force and violence, it is quite compatible
that the religious should be thoroughly subject and obedient to
their orders, and under their visitation and correction, and at the
same time as parish priests through charity only, as temporary curas
[interinos], and as assistants and coadjutors of the ordinaries, may
render them great service, minister to the Indians, attract others
who are infidels who thus may receive ministrations, and approve
themselves to all--just as if they were parish priests by title,
without the risks and difficulties that have been considered.
For the reverend archbishop, then, to ask now--when without any force
all this great and well-known benefit to the church in Filipinas may
be restored--that the religious be threatened and compelled not to
leave those islands, and accept in them another and new calling,
so full of peril, and that other religious shall go thither from
Europa to the same life--and all in order that he may have greater
authority--this is a great deal to ask, and is not at all in his
favor before the tribunal of God. Who shall give account to His Divine
Majesty of the spiritual detriment that must ensue to fifty parishes,
abandoned for [even] a week--without mass, without instruction,
and without sacraments for little ones and adults, for the sick
and the dying? Over and over, before the affair reached this point,
the religious set forth all these injurious effects, and protested
against them to the reverend archbishop; and that they were not under
obligation [to do this], to the peril and [even] ruin of their own
souls, and that of their profession, [which was] to attend to the
souls of others. Nevertheless, the reverend archbishop pursued his
undertaking, and the religious retired [from their curacies]; the
former was done merely to have [his own] will, the latter through
necessity based on all that has been stated. Whose part, then, will
it be to render account of such a result, and to fear to do so? It
is certain that, according to the apostle, power and jurisdiction is
not for destruction but for edification.
The reverend archbishop is not ignorant of the necessity for baptism;
nevertheless, no adult can be forced to receive it. The profession
of a religious is null, if any notable force intervened to bring it
about; and marriage is of no validity if a person wholly free were
in like manner compelled to marry. For these estates demand liberty,
and, no less, inspiration from God; and there is nothing of this where
there is only force and violence, for then the estate which was to be
a means for salvation is converted by such compulsion into a snare and
destruction. For one who is not a parish priest by title to become
one is a change of no less importance than for a bachelor to marry,
or a layman to become a religious; and for the reverend archbishop
to claim that, where others are free, the religious should be forced
into a mode of life full of risk, and for an object which can be
secured without that compulsion, is to extend his claims further
than perhaps he is aware, and to accumulate more material for the
account that he so greatly fears. For one thing, [his idea] that,
even supposing that the regulars are willing to be curas, they can
be forced into subjection, and this would be more tolerable; and, for
another, that if they do not choose, for all the reasons here stated,
to be curas, ecclesiastical and secular authorities may use violence
to make them enter the office of curas by title--and this is very far
from what Holy Writ, the general councils, and the holy fathers teach,
upon which there is ample material for volumes.
The religious orders are greatly surprised that the reverend
archbishop, occupied with zealous cares for feeding his sheep, and
by holy fear regarding his account to God, should break out with
acts of violence against the religious only--and not do so in order
that secular priests should go from Europa or from Nueva España to
be parish priests in Filipinas; and that his Majesty may give to the
said seculars, for their travels and voyages, the aid that he grants
for the same purpose to the religious. If they should constrain the
reverend archbishop to state why he does not ask or seek this for
the seculars, the world would know what the religious orders have
accomplished and merited in the Filipinas, and what they are still
doing; and it would also know that, although in the words of Christ
the laborer is worthy of wages and recompense, in place of any new
remuneration to the said religious orders the reverend archbishop
is attempting by his claims to introduce them into a labyrinth of
entanglements, discords, and dissensions.
Granted, now, the fundamental reasons why the regulars have refused
to be parish priests subject to the ordinary, and [preferred] to
leave the mission villages rather than serve them in such a manner,
the greatest affliction of the religious orders in Filipinas goes
further. Their provincials, in the last conference which they held
(as they notify us by letters of February in the past year of 699),
resolved that these petitioners should, as their attorneys and in
the names of them all, offer before your Council of the Indias an
absolute renunciation of the allotment of all the territories which
your Majesty gave to them in order that they might, with pontifical
jurisdiction, serve therein as parish priests.
The religious are influenced to this action, first: because, even
though your Majesty command that no change be made in this regard in
the Filipinas, the religious orders do not now entertain a substantial
hope that entire obedience would be rendered to this law for peace,
without which it is intolerable to remain in those islands. The reason
for this fear and lack of confidence is, that this very thing was
commanded by your Majesty in a decree issued at Madrid, on November
27, 1687 (which is in the [book of] ordinances, at folios 8 and 9),
and the reverend archbishop did the opposite of what was ordained
therein, in the sight of your governor and Audiencia. If such was the
heed and observance given to a decree for making no change, even when
the reverend archbishop was not at variance with the religious orders,
what can they expect when he is now so exasperated against them?
This argument gains more force when attention is paid to the immense
distance [from España] of those islands, where this is a current
saying, or almost a proverb, among those who are in power, "Let them
write to Madrid and Roma whatever fairy-tale they please at the time;
no one will be disturbed by it while the letters are on the way, or
while the decision is being made and until the ordinances arrive." And
therefore it results that although the reverend archbishop arrived
at Manila in the year 97, it is now the year 700 when the clamors and
disturbances which with his arrival were experienced [in the islands]
find an echo in your Council of the Indias--troubles which still are
endured, because it is necessary to wait a considerable time for the
arrival at the islands themselves of your royal provisions. And when
the decree already mentioned of the year 87, and another previous one
of the same tenor by the queen-mother our sovereign (who is now with
God), were not obeyed, there is little or no ground for the religious
to hope that other decrees of that sort will be obeyed. In both cases,
the mission curacies were resigned, and in this last one much more
has been suffered; and as it is not well that these occurrences and
disputes be repeated, and as it is intolerable to live in controversies
for the sake of curacies, to any one who is not wedded to them, the
religious orders intend, by the said resignation, to make an end,
once for all, of all this contention.
The second reason: In Filipinas today the religious orders see
themselves dragged along and reduced to a most abject condition, in
which their ministers can, according to the divine oracles and the
teaching of holy men, gain little esteem or fruit while they exercise
these under so much reproach. If the edict of visitation which the
reverend archbishop commanded to be posted in the village of Tondo (a
mission village which is in charge of the Order of St. Augustine) be
read, among innumerable other questions will be found these: "Whether
the minister in charge goes without the ecclesiastical garb, or without
suitable clothing? Whether he goes without cutting his beard? Whether
by day or by night he carries weapons, or is indecently clothed?"
If attention is given to the manner in which the archbishop took away
the two mission villages of Tondo and Binondo [from the orders], it
was done by forcibly breaking open the doors of those two churches,
and surrounding them with soldiers and secular officials, who
carried with them fetters, as if they went to arrest criminals or
highwaymen. Similarly, on account of a fit of anger which he felt
because two of these petitioners had embarked to come to seek redress
from the Council, the reverend archbishop demanded and obtained a
vessel, in which both ecclesiastical and secular officials set out to
arrest the said religious. But as they could not reach the religious,
as the ship had gained so much headway, the archbishop summoned the
Portuguese captain of another ship, and commanded him, under penalty
of major excommunication and a pecuniary fine, to secure the arrest
of the said two religious at Batavia; and told him that if it should
be necessary, he must demand aid from the governor there, who is a
Dutch heretic--although afterward, it is said, the archbishop advised
him not to do so.
Consider the manner in which the religious had to apply to his
tribunal; in no case would he accept a document save through the
hand of the ecclesiastical procurator of his secular court. On one
occasion he allowed so short a time-limit that the holy religious
orders were forced to go between twelve and one o'clock at night,
knocking at the doors of several procurators, because one had excused
himself on account of the stormy weather--and all this when there was
no need of or risk in delay; and the reverend archbishop thus gave
ground for even the laymen to say that he was abusing his authority
in order to annoy the religious. And it is no wonder that laymen say
this when the reverend archbishop himself writes (as it were, praising
himself) that the regulars are almost exhausted and beside themselves
at seeing how in so short a time he has, if not conquered them all,
at least broken their courage to a great extent. But the religious
orders desire for this prelate in the remembrance of posterity more
praiseworthy sayings than this one which calls them exhausted by
such means.
The reverend archbishop also writes to individuals who can have no
voice in these matters, either of justice or government, in such manner
that the religious find themselves compared to soldiers on horseback,
and characterized as disobedient to both pontifical and royal laws;
and of so bad lives and morals that, he says, if he had to make
informatory reports regarding them there would not be enough paper
in all China. If he writes thus to Europa, how will he talk there [in
the islands] with his servants, intimate friends, and acquaintances?
Notice should be taken of the reprimand which through the influence
of the reverend archbishop was given to the religious orders by your
royal court of Manila, composed of four officials who are young men;
it is perhaps the most angry and contemptuous which has been offered
to religious in a Catholic tribunal. In regard to the decrees which
were issued regarding this particular, by the bishop the delegate of
his Holiness, it appears that by a royal decree the five provincials,
the rectors of the colleges of Santo Tomas and San Jose, and two other
religious, all grave persons, were summoned; and, having made them
enter the hall, where your ministers were seated on their platforms,
Licentiate Don Geronimo Barredo began to speak, as being the senior
auditor; he talked to them, using vos, and impersonal terms that were
very rude, although the royal sovereignty of your Majesty deigns to
honor the provincials with the title of "very devout and venerable
fathers." He called them disturbers of the peace--as it were, the
causes and authors of the disquieted condition of the commonwealth;
he blamed them for aiding the reverend bishop the delegate of his
Holiness, and for some of their subordinates performing the service
of notaries to him. He threatened them, saying that even though
they were exempt, yet your ministers could, with the administrative
power which they hold from your Majesty, banish the religious
from the islands. When he had ended his censure, he said, "Get
out!" [Despejad]. The provincial of St. Augustine, with all courtesy
and submission, asked from his Highness permission to say a word,
but the said Don Geronimo Barredo refused it, repeating the words,
"Get out!" Again the provincial urged, with all humility, that they
hear him; and the reply of that same auditor was to ring his little
bell, saying in a loud voice, "Get out! Get out!" Accordingly they
made the religious go away, full of embarrassment, and without any
further consolation than that of patience.
Such, Sire, was the civility with which that royal court treated all
that assembly of religious, among them superiors so eminent, ignominy
being offered to them where they should have encountered the honor
which your Majesty, by a special law for the Indias, charges upon your
officials and presidents, in order that the religious may thereby be
encouraged to labor for the propagation of the faith. In order to stir
up the community, a royal Audiencia takes action in appeals in obvious
cases of which the Church, by law, disposes. To furnish notaries to
a delegate of the pope (which was the same as to furnish them to the
supreme pontiff) in those islands--when, as the secular priests were
intimidated by the public decrees of the reverend archbishop, there was
not one who would aid the delegate--this was an unseemly act of the
religious orders, and cause why Catholic officials should reprimand
them! And, finally, the hearing which justice does not deny to the
worst criminals, was entirely barred to five holy religious orders,
the anger of striplings foaming over on those so venerable gray hairs.
Your governor knew very well the unsuitableness of this action, and,
either not liking the matter, or pretending to be ignorant of it, he
was not present at that session; and with this sort of connivance the
reverend archbishop succeeded with his designs, and the Audiencia with
theirs, the religious orders paying for it all. Then if all that is
mentioned in this second reason ends in the depreciation and public
ridicule of the religious orders, left defenseless and wounded by
the heads of the commonwealth, what idea will be formed of them by
the Indians, mestizos, mulattoes, Cafres, and even those Spaniards
who have little sense? Such people mould their opinion not by what
they reason out, but by what they see; and when their eyes record
so much contempt for the ministers of religion, the consequence is a
low estimate of their teaching. On this account the religious offer
their resignation of the mission villages, so that they may with
better results care for others.
The third reason: Although the immunity of their property which the
religious possess is a sacred thing, the reverend archbishop regards
it in such a light, on account of their not having been subjected
to his visitation, that they dread in the future greater losses and
difficulties. The regulars had applied to the said reverend archbishop
to forbid Licentiate Don Juan de Sierra, your auditor, from having
judicial cognizance in regard to the lands of the religious orders, and
from molesting them about this matter so much as he was doing--without
any necessity, as he was merely a lay judge. That prelate issued a
first and a second inhibitory letter, and, as the said Don Juan did not
conform to them, the regulars again applied to the reverend archbishop
to defend them. The latter had already explained his intentions with
the religious orders, in order that the religious who were parish
priests might allow themselves to be visited; and therefore he stated
that, before his issuing the third command regarding their application,
the religious orders must first answer whether or not they would submit
to the said visitation. They replied, in the most peaceable manner,
sometimes verbally, sometimes in writing, that they were resolved to
give up the mission curacies rather than serve them in that manner;
and they actually offered their resignations of those offices.
So much did the reverend archbishop resent this that the lands
belonging to the religious orders, which thus far were privileged,
on account of being ecclesiastical property, thereafter were not
exempt. Those which on account of their immunity had deserved two
inhibitory letters now deserved a decree revoking the said letters,
the property remaining lay and profane, and subject to the secular
jurisdiction. The religious were in the said decree canonized as
rebels, contumacious, disobedient to the Church and to the reverend
archbishop, and unworthy of his clemency. In this declaration the
reverend archbishop excepted the lands of the nuns of Santa Clara, and
those of the colleges of Santo Tomas and San Jose--the former, because
they belonged to a convent of the utmost poverty; and the latter on
account of the benefit to the public which their teaching caused.
From this it may be inferred, Sire, that the immunity and exemption of
property which the religious possess must be, in the apprehension of
the reverend archbishop, a quality removable ad nutum of his will
and pleasure, but not permanent, [as it should be] according to
the direction of the Apostolic See. It will follow that while this
question is pending whether or not the religious will be parish
priests by title, some of those very holdings possess sufficient
spirituality of character for [the issue of] two inhibitory letters
to the secular judge; and that when the religious refuse this mode
of life that spiritual character becomes, by a sudden metamorphosis,
profane secularity. It will follow that the crime of rebellion,
disobedience to the Church, and ill-desert of kindness is incurred
by the religious orders for not assuming a state and profession of
life to which God does not call them, simply because the reverend
archbishop desires that it be chosen. It will follow that to renounce
the curacies is not to recognize the jurisdiction of the reverend
archbishop, and accordingly this is not to recognize that of the
pope or the authority of your Majesty, since he offers to resign his
archbishopric. It will follow that, although your Majesty had made
the assignment of the territories which with pontifical jurisdiction
the religious administer and have thus far administered, for them
to offer before your vice-patron their resignation of the said
curacies--solely for the purpose that he who there represents your
royal person may be acquainted with the fact of their renunciation of
the said assignment--is, in the thought of the reverend archbishop, to
grant spiritual jurisdiction to the secular governor, and consequently
for the said religious to become heretics in many and important points.
And since the lands of the nuns of Santa Clara retain their immunity
and are ranked as spiritual goods, on account of the extreme poverty
of those servants of God, does the reverend archbishop regard that
only as a physical lack of riches on their part, and no more? or
as evangelical poverty which springs from the vow, institute, and
profession of the life which they have chosen for Christ, and which
the Apostolic See has approved? If the former, the religious frankly
state that it is very alien to the ecclesiastical rules, by which the
exemption and immunity ought to be measured. Otherwise, innumerable
poor people, of those who are commonly called beggars [35] through
the streets, would secure, on account of being equally destitute of
goods with the said nuns of Santa Clara, or perhaps even more so,
ecclesiastical exemption from secular judges for their furniture and
petty possessions. If the reverend archbishop answers, "the second,"
the religious also say, with entire confidence: "What authority is
that of this prelate, that he should decide in an official utterance
that there is evangelical poverty in the convent of Santa Clara,
and not in the other mendicant religious orders? and that the lands
of the said convent of Santa Clara enjoy exemption on account of
their evangelical poverty and religious institute, while it may not
be enjoyed for the same reason by the lands of the other religious
orders, which are so distinguished, and are approved by the Church?"
Lastly, it follows that the instruction in grammar, philosophy,
and theology in the colleges of Santo Tomas and San Jose renders
their lands spiritual property, and exempts them from the secular
judge. Yet the preaching of the word of God, the instruction in
Christian doctrine, the administration of the sacraments of penance
and communion, the consolation [of the faithful] with the mass,
the visiting of the sick and dying, the ministrations in jails and
hospitals, in order that no one may die without the sacraments:
these and other spiritual works, which the holy religious orders of
the city of Manila habitually perform with all classes of people,
are not sufficient [in the archbishop's opinion] to exempt their
lands from being profane.
If then, Sire, the reverend archbishop has thus conducted himself,
in matters so delicate and of the highest importance, simply because
the regulars excused themselves from being parish priests subject to
his visitation, what may not be feared hereafter? What privileges,
exemptions, or decrees will be sufficient, so that he may not explain
them as he pleases, and continually open new doors to dissensions? If
with such ease he pronounces sentence on the regulars as rebellious,
contumacious, and disobedient to the Church, what difficulty will he
find in treating them as such--sometimes alone, and sometimes resorting
to the royal court for the sake of more forcible demonstrations of
his displeasure?
The fourth reason: Your Majesty, in dealing with the religious in your
laws of the Indias, has two especial statutes which not only show your
desire for peace and your Catholic piety, but most strictly command
that efforts be made to secure union and concord among the religious
orders, on account of the many and admirable results which ensue
therefrom. This union and concord had been established by all the
religious orders of Filipinas, and its fruits applauded, long before
the reverend archbishop arrived in Manila; and by it those islands were
made a paradise for what pertains to the religious orders. The reverend
archbishop was the only one who was not pleased with this concord;
and therefore he characterizes it in his letters as a conventicle, [36]
and of evil tendency and inconsiderate. [37] He not only resented it,
but displayed and made known his resentment; he tried to disparage it,
through a third person; he had the idea, and repeated it many times,
that there was a league against himself; and it is for this reason
that he secretly obtained information against it, imposing the penalty
of excommunication on the witnesses to maintain secrecy. So far can
go the desire of commanding and judging the religious, and grief at
not accomplishing it.
In so lamentable a condition [are affairs there], when the religious
desire not only to see themselves free from the charge of the mission
villages, but, if it be possible, away from those islands, and far
from a prelate who feels so annoyed at the union and brotherhood of
the religious orders--a union dictated by the natural light of reason,
prescribed in their general chapters, inculcated by the generals of
the orders as being their supreme heads, ordained by your Majesty,
suggested by the vicars of Christ, promulgated in the sacred writings,
and bequeathed as in His last will by Christ himself to His disciples;
and they without it would not have reaped a harvest in the world, nor
would He have retained them as His missionaries. The religious admit
that the great horror of this prelate at their concord and union gives
them much cause for serious reflection; and that when this concord is
so persecuted on account of the mission curacies, there is no safer
way to maintain it than to separate themselves from those curacies.
The fifth and last reason: By letters of February in the year 699 it
is learned that the reverend archbishop has been sending information
not only against the said concord [of the orders], but against even
the reverend bishop, the delegate of his Holiness--and all with [the
threat of] excommunication in order to maintain secrecy. If a bishop
and delegate of the pope is not secure, how will a religious who is a
parish priest be so? It seems as if the reverend archbishop now falls
back from lands to persons, regarding those holdings as property merely
profane, and the religious as persons without any privilege. At the
outset he claimed that the regulars, as parish priests, must be subject
to his investigations and visitation; and now, extending his claims
further, he invents against them, as religious, a new visitation,
made up from secret inquiries by dint of censures. How is it possible
now not only to have but even to imagine peace in the Filipinas? If
the religious orders do not defend themselves, he endangers their
reputation in the places where he will send the said information--and
all the more if those reports go forth authorized by the secretary
and notary who attest the official documents of the archbishop;
for the notary, according to popular report, is a relative of his,
or passes as such; and the secretary is his cousin-german. And it
appears from the acts (on folio 3) that the notary-public, Master
Joaquin Ramirez, testified that on November 27 of 697 he had given
a paper with a letter from the archbishop to Fray Jose del Rosario,
provincial of the Augustinian Recollects--not casually, but delivered
into the said provincial's own hands--when the fact is, that this
provincial had died four years before, as is well-known in Manila,
and as is evident from the registers of deaths in that province,
and will also be here. Such were his impetuosity and his mode of
procedure, without instructing the notary, or the latter knowing,
of whom he was talking, and confounding times and persons, and the
living with the dead. And if by such testimonies a man is introduced
in the documents as alive, when in reality he was dead, what wonder
will it be if, for the greater disparagement of the regulars, the
virtues are introduced as dead among them which are alive in them?
But if the religious, invaded in so many ways, look after their
defense, how will they be to blame in this? And if, in order to defend
themselves, they so dispose matters that they can have recourse
and appeal to the delegate, and if the latter ordain something
and the reverend archbishop will not conform to it, and on both
sides censures are launched forth--as occurred in the case of the
lands--who will have been the mover of all this [trouble]? For the
religious to abandon their reputation wholly is not safe; to defend
themselves there occasions inconvenience; to let the matter take its
course, notwithstanding this behavior of the reverend archbishop, is
an intolerable yoke; and for the regulars to be curas subject to him
all that is here alleged will not permit. These are the afflictions
that are now being suffered in Filipinas. The religious there are
summoned to be mocked; those here, aware of what is going on, are
reluctant [to take their places]. And since the whole matter takes
its rise from the curacies and mission villages, and the foregoing
decrees are rendered null, and our expectations from others in the
future are dashed: for these reasons and the others here adduced,
and insisting upon the said order from the provincials to renounce
the mission curacies, the petitioners, prostrate at the royal feet
of your Majesty, ask in the name of the said five provinces that
you will be pleased to consider them as free and exonerated from the
charge which hitherto they have held in serving as parish priests the
mission villages that they hold in Filipinas; and for this purpose
they renounce absolutely the allotment of territories which your
Majesty had committed to them, in order that others may from this
time forth administer them, with secure peace and stable tranquillity,
which they expect from your Majesty's magnificence. [38]
Royal decree, May 20, 1700
The King. To my reverend father in Christ, Doctor Don Diego Camacho
y Avila, archbishop of the metropolitan church of Manila in the
Filipinas Islands, and member of my Council: In letters of January
19 and February 20, 1698, you report your arrival in those islands,
and what you are doing to quell the hatred and enmities which exist
among your subjects, reclaiming them to a new life by the measures
which you are applying, and obtaining the peace and tranquillity
which you were desiring. You also wrote that you had undertaken to
continue work on the church building there, and had gone to visit
the secular clergy, in which you had met no hindrance; and that in
endeavoring to make the visitations in the mission churches served
by regulars--according to the regulations of the Council of Trent,
the apostolic letters, and the royal decrees--you were influencing the
religious by gentle methods to accept such visitation, for this purpose
drawing up a manifesto, but that these methods were not sufficient to
induce them to do so voluntarily. For this reason, in fulfilment of
the obligations of your office you had published an edict for carrying
out this visitation, and had actually gone to put it into execution
in the mission stations of regulars at Tondo, Binondoc, Santa Cruz,
Dilao, and Parián, since you were denied diocesan jurisdiction over
the ministers who serve in these places--while at the same time,
in those of Tondo and Binondoc (which are served by religious of
St. Dominic and St. Augustine) those ministers were abandoning their
churches, consuming [39] the holy sacrament, and carrying away with
them the holy oils and ornaments. Consequently you found it necessary
to place secular priests ad interim in those villages, from which it
resulted that the religious orders went to offer their renunciation
of those missions before my governor, without going to you; and in
this condition of affairs it seemed best to the Audiencia to furnish
aid so that the religious orders should not abandon these missions,
and that their renunciation of them should not be accepted. But
this was not sufficient to prevent the religious from withdrawing
from those missions, for which reason you found yourself compelled
to retire to your own church, and to desist from these visitations,
removing the temporary ministers whom you had appointed, and lifting
the censures and penalties which you had imposed, without prejudice to
your dignity and jurisdiction. And finally you recount the very harmful
results which must follow from the form and method of administration
which prevails in these mission stations, and the illegal acts which
are committed by the ministers in charge of them, of which you send a
summary, stating how impossible you find it to remedy this condition
of affairs, on account of the reasons which you point out, and asking
that the necessary measures be taken, and that you be assured of it,
so that you can visit as you should that archbishopric, in fulfilment
of your ministry as its pastor. This matter has been considered in
my Council of the Indias, with the attested copies sent by you of the
documents therein, with the representations made in your name and in
those of the religious orders who reside in those islands and hold
mission posts there. Having fully informed myself on both sides, and
given the subject special consideration, I have resolved to approve,
and herewith do approve, all that you have accomplished in this affair,
and especially your course in having ceased from further action
therein until you could report it to me and await the measures which
may be applied to the difficulty, assuring you of my full gratitude
for your very judicious proceedings and the good management which you
have showed in the conduct of this important affair. Your procedure
with the superiors of the religious orders is very suitable to your
prudence, and quite in accordance with the opinion that I have of your
zeal and great discretion; and the special service which you have
rendered to me is strongly commended to my remembrance, that I may
bear it in mind and favor and honor you on all occasions that shall
arise. And in view of the grave considerations that are involved in
this matter, and of your request that the regulations and provisions of
the sacred canons, councils, and apostolic constitutions, and the laws
of the Indias be put into execution, in order that the diocesans may,
as you say, visit the regulars who hold office as curas, in matters
which pertain to the care of souls, I am undertaking with all the
attention of my Catholic and pious zeal to furnish the remedies that
are most suitable and effectual for this object, and for preventing
any disturbances which may arise in the future, leaving settled and
established the right of prescription, both canonical and legal. And
as concerns what is contained in the summary which you have drawn up
of the illegal acts of the religious who serve the missions, except
in the question of visitation you shall always have authority to
receive information, and to demand from the superiors of the orders
that they reform and correct the religious. And if when they are
admonished the first and the second time they do not thus act, I
command that you carry out the said reform with your jurisdiction as
ordinary. For the better success of this, I decree, by despatches sent
this day to the president and auditors of my royal Audiencia there,
that they assist you with their aid on all occasions when you shall
demand it and shall need it. Of this you are [herewith] notified,
and you shall inform me of your action in this matter, and of any
further occurrences. At Aranjuez, May 20 in the year 1700.
I the King
By command of the king our sovereign:
Don Manuel de Àperregui
[Six rubrics are added at the foot of this document, which appear to
be those of the members of the Council.]
THE AUGUSTINIANS IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1670-94
[The remainder of Diaz's Conquistas--comprising the fourth hook of
that work, as found in pp. 689-817--is here presented, partly in full
translation, partly in synopsis. Numerous extracts have already been
made from this book, notably as regards the Pardo controversy and some
insurrections among the natives; these will of course be omitted here.]
CHAPTER I
[Diaz mentions the calamitous times experienced in the islands
during the rule of most of the governors from Corcuera to Salcedo,
which at last are succeeded, in the plan of Providence, by peace and
comfort.] The peacemaker [iris] whom divine Providence seems to have
selected for this general benefit was Governor Don Manuel de León y
Sarabia; for his taking possession of his government was the shifting
of the scenes in this melancholy theater, the calming of the tempests,
and the succession of rest after fatigue, and peace after war. The
former lines of commerce were renewed, and other and new ones opened
up--such as that of the coast of Malabar and Santo Tomé, called
the Coromandel coast; and those of Suratte, Macán and Batavia. All
these improvements were facilitated by the wholesome purposes and the
kindly disposition of Don Manuel de León, and especially by his great
disinterestedness; this last would, if it had not been accompanied by
the rest, have failed of success, as did the lofty and incomparable
[disinterestedness] of Don Diego Fajardo, since it was obscured by
his coldness and excessive severity--which, although accompanied by
justice, was, being excessive, known as injustice.
As soon as the new governor commenced his fortunate rule, he sent
to Macán General Don Juan Enrique de Losada, accompanied by Father
Francisco Mecinas, [40] of the Society of Jesus, in order to further
the interests of that commerce, and to endeavor to open up the richer
trade of Cantón. This was accomplished by the said envoys with so
much ability that in the following year the Chinese began to come
[to Manila], with barks from Macán and somas from Cantón, with great
wealth of silks, damasks, and other stuffs. Trade was opened with
Ningpú, a port of the province of Che-Kian in the empire of China,
where is cultivated the greater part of the silk which supplies
the world, a commodity which greatly advanced the commerce of Nueva
España. The governor maintained courteous intercourse with Sipuán,
the son of Kuesing, and from this originated the frequent visits of
so many champans from China and somas (which are larger champans)
from Cantón, which every year engage in the commerce with Manila;
for in some years are counted thirty barks, and nearly as many from
other regions, which supply merchandise to Manila, and contribute to
the royal revenues great sums with their customs duties. [41]
The flagship "Buen Socorro," which had made the voyage to Nueva España
in charge of General Diego de Arévalo, had a fortunate arrival at the
islands--although not at the port of Cavite, but at that of Palapag
in the province of Leyte, outside of the Embocadero. It brought an
auditor, Licentiate Don Fernando Escaño, a native of Ecija; he was a
great jurisconsult, as is evident from the learned books which he had
printed in España--De testamento imperfecto, and the history of the
Order of St. John of Malta, which he wrote in the Latin language,
by order of his most serene Highness Don Juan of Austria, grand
prior of Castilla and León. He came with his wife, Doña Leonor de
Córdoba, a native of Sevilla, and four [six] children: Don Fernando,
who was a captain, and lived but a few years; Don Juan de Escaño,
an alférez who reached the age of fifty years, an unmarried man,
very virtuous, and an example for laymen; Don José and Don Manuel,
afterward religious of St. Dominic; Don Alonso, who was an Augustinian
religious, and at his death a minister in Pampanga; and a daughter,
Doña María, who married the sargento-mayor Don Francisco de Moya y
Torres, alguazil-mayor of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The
auditor's wife was a professed member of our tertiary order; and all
of them were people of great virtue.
With appointment as bishop of Nueva Segovia came the dean of Manila,
Master Don José Millán de Poblete, a priest of much virtue and
discretion, and nephew of the archbishop Doctor Don Miguel Millán de
Poblete, of honored memory. The vigorous age at which this dignity
came to him (for he was not yet fifty) did not enable him to enjoy it
[long]; for he lived very few years in the government of that church,
not long enough to reach his consecration--with general regret in these
islands at having lost a grand prelate, heir to the many virtues of
his uncle....
Auditor Don Fernando de Escaño began to fill his office with
great rectitude and disinterestedness, for he was a learned man,
and stood in fear of God, which is the true wisdom. But, influenced
by his desires for good, yet lacking in judgment and experience, he
proceeded to enter the labyrinth of trying to reform more than what
is in need of reform--being counseled by persons who aimed only at
gaining by calumny what they could not prove in law. From this he
undertook to follow the opinions of Auditor Don Salvador Gómez de
Espinosa, of whom we have already written, and to subscribe to his
manifestoes, as the Parenético; and without further investigation than
the depositions of persons who were prejudiced against the clergy and
the religious orders, he made attacks on them in letters written to
his Majesty. Afterward, he recognized that the evidence did not agree
with what had been told him; and he came to repentance when the shot
was already fired and much damage done thereby. These false notions,
and others like them, as well as his considering the little or nothing
that can be accomplished in these islands by the ministers of his
Majesty, who never goes beyond what the governors desire, wore him
out in a few years; and he died as the excellent Christian that he
was, and so indifferent to worldly advantages that he had not money
enough for his burial, and was buried in our convent at Manila. All
his family inherited his virtue, and were the only children of an
auditor who came out so well, for all strove to grow in virtue to the
standard of their honored father; they were therefore highly esteemed,
and their lives came to a holy end. Don Juan de Escaño, who attained
the rank of general, was an example of virtue in Manila, and died
with the reputation of unbroken chastity [con opinion de virgen];
and his property, which was large and justly gained, he left, well
invested as it was, for the building and maintenance of the beaterio
of Santa Catalina de Sena [i.e., St. Catherine of Sienna], of the
tertiary Order of St. Dominic in Manila, in which foundation he had
much share and influence.
About this time came to Manila the prince of Siao, [42] son of the
king Don Ventura Pinto de Morales, to ask the governor for religious
of the Society of Jesus to instruct the natives of his little kingdom,
where there were many Christians--although the majority of that people
were infected with the errors of the cursed Mahoma. These islands
are in five and one-half degrees of latitude north, and one hundred
and forty-nine degrees of longitude from the meridian of Tenerife;
the seas about them are difficult of navigation, on account of being
in the midst of a large and widespread bank [placer] of shoals which
lie on all sides. They share the reputation of Maluco, not only for the
warlike nature of their inhabitants, but for many spice-bearing trees,
of clove and nutmeg; but in other means of support that country is
very poor. This prince was received by the governor with much honor;
he gave him the use of his own coach, and lodged him at the college of
San José, in charge of the religious of the Society; and he took much
pains to forward the business of the prince, since it was for so holy
a purpose, the propagation of our holy faith. The prince returned to
his own country, with the satisfactory result which he could desire;
with him went four religious of the Society of Jesus--Father Juan de
Miedes, [43] a native of Alcalá de Henares; Father Jerónimo Cebreros,
a native of Acapulco; and Fathers Esquibel [44] and Español--all well
fitted for so holy a ministry. The governor gave him twenty Spaniards
and some Pampangos, to serve as an escort for the religious; and for
their commander Captain Andrés Serrano--a veteran soldier, who had
just finished a term as alcalde-mayor of Panay (a province in our
spiritual charge)--as he was a very devout Christian and well suited
for that occupation, so much to the service of God.
These religious remained a long time in the islands of Siao, increasing
that Christian church; but the enemy of mankind, who resented their
driving him out after he had so long possessed the souls of those
unfortunate people, influenced the Dutch heretics of Nueva Batavia, in
the island of Jacatra, to destroy them by a secular persecution. For,
as they are lords of all the islands where grows the clove of the
spice-trade, in Maluco--Amboyno, Tidore, Ternate, Montiel, and many
others--and this is the commerce which has returned most profits
to their company they have always endeavored that this aromatic
merchandise be not transported by any other hands than their own, in
order to assure their gains. They knew that some Spaniards had settled
in the islands of Siao, and that by them was carried away the clove
product of that region, and that it might eventually diminish their own
commerce. For that astute nation has so perseveringly maintained that
the Dutch alone shall be absolute masters of the cloves and cinnamon;
and so skilfully do they manage these commodities that in any year
when there is an abundant product of cloves they burn such quantity
of it as they consider superfluous, according to the computation
that they have made of that crop (which is sufficient for the supply
of the whole world), in order that their price may not be lowered,
and that the commodity may not fall in value by becoming common and
abundant. So great is the wisdom of these children of the world,
in which they greatly exceed the children of the light.
They manned two ships with three hundred men-at-arms; and when our
people in Siao were least on their guard the Dutch arrived, and landed
their men, which the Spaniards were unable to prevent, as they were
so inferior in numbers. [45] The Dutch committed no other hostility
than to carry away as prisoners the religious of the Society, and
Andrés Serrano and his soldiers--together with their standard, which
our men could neither hide nor destroy--all of whom they conveyed
to Batavia. But before they left the islands of Siao they rooted out
and cut down all the cinnamon trees that grew there, until no roots
or other trace of them were left--all which they did quite at their
leisure, without any one saying a word to them. Andrés Serrano died
in Batavia of grief, although the Dutch treated him and his soldiers
well, as also the fathers. The religious afterward came to Manila,
some in the time of this governor, and others during the term of his
successor, Don Juan de Vargas Hurtado.
All the triennial during which our provincial father Fray Dionisio
Suárez ruled was very propitious for this province--not only because
he was a religious very observant, kind, and lovable, but because this
province possessed so many members of virtue and learning that they
restored it to its first luster. The ministries in the doctrinas were
well served, by one or two religious, according to their needs. The
erection of many new convents was begun, some having been ruined by
the earthquakes, and others torn down by military orders, when we
were threatened with the coming of Kuesing Pompoan; but there was so
much to restore that it kept us busy for more than three succeeding
trienniums. Our provincial applied himself closely to the repairs on
the magnificent convent at Manila, which greatly needed them, on the
plan which he had made in the preceding triennium, when he was prior
of that house; [and he accomplished] so much that to the diligence
and zeal of that devout religious may be attributed its preservation.
While he was engaged in these occupations, the time came for him
to finish the task of his government, so peaceful and prosperous,
and for holding another chapter-session--to the great regret of all,
for it seemed as if they divined that it would result less happily;
but never did they expect that it would be so calamitous as it proved
to be. For, just as the condition of the commonwealth had experienced
its change from calamities and miseries to peace and happiness, so this
our province changed from tranquillity to sudden fear. Tempus pacis,
tempus belli. [46] And the most remarkable thing is that, just as
the governor Don Manuel de León was the main cause of the peace and
prosperity of Manila, so this same excellent gentleman was the prime
cause of many troubles and disturbances, which occurred not only at
the time of this chapter but throughout the triennium. I do not throw
all the blame on him, because he was a great governor, very pious
and of sincere intentions; but all disturbance has another cause, and
the vulgar and common Spanish adage is very true which says: "He who
is burning the woods is he who comes out of them." [47] No sensible
person will admire seeing among religious the activity of flesh and
blood and the passion of ambition, which they cannot leave behind in
the world when they take refuge in the asylum of the cloister. [48]...
The fourth definitor, Fray Francisco de Medina Basco, who was
associate and secretary of the provincial Fray Dionisio Suárez, had
displayed so much ability and good intention in administering his
office--for he was an angel of peace, following the advice of our
holy constitutions--that all desired that he should succeed to the
office of him to whom he had been so capable an associate. This was
desired by the provincial most of all; for, as he was of so peaceable
a disposition, he wished to leave the province in the hands of one
who could maintain it in the tranquillity which it was enjoying. But
the malign father of discord was not pleased at seeing the great
peace and concord which this province had enjoyed for so many years;
he therefore strove with his arts to disturb and disunite it. The
time for holding the chapter-session arrived apparently as peaceful
as usual; and so the religious who were its members assembled, quite
unconscious of what was to occur.
The chapter was convened on April 23, 1671, in the convent of San
Pablo at Manila; and its president was father Fray Bernardino Márquez,
by commission from our very reverend father the general of all the
order of our father St. Augustine, Master Fray Pedro Lafranconio,
a native of Ancona; and the other affairs which precede the election
were transacted that afternoon with great peace and concord. But
on Saturday, the day for the election of provincial, Governor Don
Manuel de León sent to notify them that he would be present at
the election, and sent over his official chair. This caused great
uneasiness, for they recognized that this was an effort to prevent
the election of the father definitor Fray Francisco de Medina Basco,
on which thirty-one of the voting fathers were agreed. The father
president of the chapter was one of the eight who were opposed to
this election, and these were favored by the governor--which in
these islands means, to have whatever one may desire. Accordingly,
the first thing that he did that afternoon was to make charges
in virtue of which he deprived father Fray Francisco de Medina
Basco of the right to vote or to be elected [voz activa y pasiva],
and commanded him to leave the chapter-meeting--which he did with
great humility and resignation, saying only those words of Jonah,
Si propter me orta est haec tempestas, projicite me in mare, [49]
and went to his convent of Tongdo. On the following day the governor
came to the convent, accompanied by the senior auditor, Don Francisco
de Coloma, Sargento-mayor Don Juan de Robles, and Captain Don Pedro
de Tortesa, with their [military] company, as if it were to invest
a fort of enemies. The religious were astonished at seeing such a
military display, but with much decorum and gravity they proceeded
with the transactions of the chapter; and at the first ballot father
Fray Francisco de Medina Basco was elected by thirty-one votes, and
the remaining eight fathers voted for father Fray Juan Caballero
[50]--a religious who had come to this province two years before,
as I have already stated, and whose merits deserved such a mark of
esteem. The governor would not allow them to sing the Te Deum laudamus,
and the president declared that he would not confirm the election,
on account of its being inhibited by the suit which Father Francisco
had brought when Licentiate Don Juan de Rosales was counselor; and one
heard only protests on both sides, although the voters recognized that
they would be overpowered by the side which the governor supported.
The latter went out from the hall, leaving the capitulars within
under the guard of the soldiers, so that these should prevent the
fathers from going out of the room until they should elect another
provincial who should not be father Fray Francisco de Medina Basco;
for father Fray Juan Caballero was not canonically elected, for
lack of one more than half of the ballots of the voters. All that
day, until evening, they remained shut up in the chapter-hall,
experiencing great harshness; for the guards would not allow even
a pitcher of water to be given to them, a cruelty very unlike the
kindly nature of Don Manuel de León. The provisor and vicar-general
of the vacant see, Doctor Don Francisco Pizarro Orellana, came out
in defense of the ecclesiastical immunity, which had been violated
by that compulsion; and it resulted in the religious being allowed
to go to their cells, weak from hunger and thirst. But the governor
ordered that two soldiers should be stationed at the door of each cell,
so that the fathers could not leave their cells or communicate with
one another. In these disturbances passed that Saturday until sunset,
the limit peremptorily allotted by our holy constitutions within which
the chapter can proceed to the election of a prior provincial; and,
when that time was spent, the authority for such election devolved upon
our very reverend general [of the order]. But as this adjustment of
the limit was made by violence, this prescription of the limit was,
in a case so irregular as this, invalid. What I can assert, on the
best information, is the great patience and humility which all the
fathers of the chapter displayed in these tribulations, enduring great
privations in this imprisonment, which lasted through Saturday and
Sunday. Finally, recognizing that their strength was very inferior
to that which was opposing them, and that further effort was only
to struggle against the current of a freshet, they, acting on the
advice of the said provisor, again assembled in the chapter-room
on the following Monday, and made a new choice, that of father
Fray Jerónimo de León--a native of Mexico, a son of the convent of
Manila, quite advanced in years; he was an excellent minister in the
province of Tagalos, and formerly prior of the convent of Bulacán,
and was much beloved by all for his devout religious spirit and
peaceable conduct. They appointed as definitors Master Fray José de
Mendoza, father Fray Isidoro Rodríguez, father Fray Luis de Montufar,
and father Fray Juan Bautista Bover; and for visitors father Fray
Carlos Bautista and father Fray José Duque. [51] As for father Fray
Francisco de Medina Basco, they appointed him prior of the convent
at Cebú and vicar-provincial of that island, which he accepted with
much resignation and humility. The tempest in the chapter ceased,
and the province again enjoyed its former tranquillity for some time.
Father Fray Francisco de Medina Basco lived but a short time in Cebú,
for while officiating there human weakness, resulting from melancholy
and grief at what had occurred, prostrated him with a long illness;
this time he knew how to improve to good purpose, seeking the
welfare of his soul. His confessor, director, and teacher was the
bishop of Cebú, Don Fray Juan López, a prelate of great wisdom and
virtue, who took such personal interest in the spiritual welfare of
this afflicted religious that he spent most of his time with him,
until in his care the sick man gave up his soul to the Lord, with
great consolation to the holy bishop and to all who were present at
his death. [The proceedings of] this chapter went to Rome, to our
very reverend father general; he confirmed father Fray Francisco de
Medina Basco as provincial, and annulled the second election, that of
father Fray Jerónimo de León, commanding the chapter to guard their
prerogatives; otherwise, it would have been a legitimate election,
on account of his having conducted himself as merely passive in his
election, and it appeared that he had not taken part in the tumults
of the chapter-session....