Clashings among the Friars.
Interesting is the story of the bitter rivalries between the different orders, who, though of one religion, were extremely jealous of one another, showing little of that charity and forbearance that Christianity, above all, is supposed to inculcate.
A Parish Priest.
On account of several clashes with the civil power, a priest had early been sent to Spain by the Church party to gain redress of grievances. Chief of these was their inability to guide the entire affairs of the colony into a narrow ecclesiastical groove. The result was, the introduction of new laws so favorable to the clergy, that, within three or four years, the colony swarmed with mendicant friars, whose habits, say the old chroniclers, placed the Spaniards and their vaunted religion in a most ridiculous light before the natives.
As most of these monks belonged to a different order from the bishop, who was an Augustinian, and as they often boldly defied his authority, he became greatly alarmed at their expanding power. But, after a fierce struggle, he succeeded in so curtailing their privileges that he still retained his pre-eminence in the colony.
Urdaneta and his Austin friars were the pioneers in the islands, and following them came a horde of Dominicans and Franciscans, and the Recoletos, or bare-foot monks. As the saving of souls was the chief policy of Philip II., the co-operation of the friars was eagerly welcomed by the early Colonial Government, and it must be admitted that without their influence the lot of the natives would have been a far harder one. For the substitution of the rites of paganism for those of Christianity, even in so crude a form as taught by the friars, was, in the main, beneficial. Religion—though not of a very exalted kind—was put on an ethical basis, and the self-denial, obedience, and sacrifice that formed the foundation of the new doctrine, somewhat reconciled the conquered races to the loss of their primal freedom.