The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 50 / 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

by Unknown

FIFTH ABUSE

Since the discovery of the two Americas, the king has been seignior of them in temporal matters, and in spiritual, royal patron and pope, and as such has made appointments to all the secular and ecclesiastical employments of the cathedrals, with the advice of the auditors; and the curacies are filled by the vice-patrons, with preceding examination and proposal by the ordinary. In this matter there is seen the monstrosity in Filipinas that, excepting the prebends of the cathedral, all the curacies are given by the provincials to their subjects without examination, proposal by, or notice to, the ordinaries or the vice-patrons, with absolute despotism and independence, despoiling the king and ordinaries of the so well-known right that belongs to them.

Remedy for this evil

Until seculars are provided, the provincials must cause their subjects, by right and the councils, to subject themselves to examination and proposal by the ordinary to the vice-patrons; and it is an intolerable abuse that the provincials make those appointments without giving notice to the latter.