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

SECOND ABUSE

It is an abuse that, although the spiritual administration belongs by right to the secular clergy, and the regulars possess it precariously ad nutum [misprinted mitum] regis propter inopiam clericorum in principio,[8] the greatest promotion which an unemployed secular obtains in Filipinas is to be the servant or deputy of the fathers.[9] Thence it results that the latter abound in so great wealth, collectively and singly, and the former suffer from necessity; and all of them are the sons of Spaniards and Indian women, and all vassals of the king. In view of this disclosure, what father will spend and what son will work without even a remote hope of reward?

Remedy for this evil

Since the reign of Don Fernando VI (in the years 53 and 57), all the curacies in both Americas have been taken from the regulars as fast as the latter have died. Let the same be done in Filipinas, and that will be in accordance with all right. The true religious will surely give thanks, the curacies will return to their center, and the ecclesiastical estate will be aided by what is in justice due to it.