The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898 / 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

by Unknown

THE FRIAR MEMORIAL OF 1898

His Excellency, the Minister of the colonies:

We, the superiors of the corporations of the Augustinians, Franciscans, Recollects, Dominicans, and Jesuits, established in Filipinas, in fulfilment of the statement of the telegram presented to his Excellency, the governor-general and viceroyal patron,[1] on the first instant, to be transmitted officially to your Excellency, and which has been done by the said superior authority, as he has condescended to inform us, have the honor of presenting this exposition to his Majesty, King Don Alfonso XIII (whom may God preserve), and in his royal name, to her Majesty, the queen regent, Doña María Cristina, to the president and members [vocales] of the Council of Ministers of the Crown [Ministros de la Corona],[2] and most especially to your Excellency, as minister of the colonies. We send it directly to your Excellency, in accordance with law and custom, so that, in due time, you may condescend to lay it before the lofty personages above mentioned, and even, if you deem it advisable, before the entire nation, duly assembled in the Cortes of the kingdom.

In writing this exposition, to us, the religious of the corporations existing in the country from ancient times, united in one soul and one heart, as faithful brethren, is reserved the honor in the very beginning of fulfilling respectfully the most acceptable duty of reiterating our traditional adhesion to the king, to his government, and to all the authorities of the fatherland, to whom we have always considered it an honor to keep ourselves subject and obedient, by the law of conscience, which is the strongest human bond, endeavoring continually and in all earthly things, from our respective sphere of action, to coöperate with every class of endeavor for the maintenance of public order in Filipinas, for its legitimate and holy progress, for the development of its intellectual and even material interests; and, in a very special manner, for the propagation and conservation of the divine teachings of Catholicism, for the encouragement of good morals, and for the security of the moral prestige, the only force which has been until now the great bond of union between these beautiful lands and their dear mother the mother-country [metrópoli].

Motive for this exposition. Truly, your Excellency, if extremely troublesome circumstances, by which Spanish authority in the archipelago is threatened, and the bitter campaign (or better, conspiracy) of defamation and anti-monastic schemes, incited against us, especially since the outbreak of the insurrection, did not compel us to talk, very willingly would we leave it to politicians to occupy themselves with the problems that concern this country, and we would maintain the silence that has fittingly been our norm of procedure for many years, not speaking except when questioned officially, being jealous, by that manner of retirement, of avoiding the criticism which has so often been heaped upon us with audacious flippancy or malice, that we meddle with the temporal government of these islands.

But now the hour is come, when, as loyal patriots and constant supporters of Spanish authority in Filipinas, we must break that silence, in order that one may never with reason repeat of us, either as religious or as subjects of España, that terrible accusation of the prophet, canes muti non valentes latrare.[3] The hour is come, also, when we must emerge in defense of our honor, atrociously blemished in many ways, of our prestige that has been trampled upon, of our holy and patriotic ministry, which has, finally, been subjected to the most terrible calumnies and the most unqualified accusations. Though private persons may at any time make a noble renunciation of their good name that has been defamed, offering to God the sacrifice of what civilized man esteems highest, never is that allowed in any form, according to the teachings of the holy doctors of the Church, to public persons, to prelates, to superiors, to corporations, who must defend and preserve their prestige, their credit, and their reputation, in order to worthily fulfil their respective functions. A religious corporation discredited and publicly reviled, is in its class like a nation whose flag is insulted or whose laws are disavowed. It should die struggling for its honor, rather than allow its good name to be trodden under foot, and its rights to become unrecognized and unrevered.

Abandonment of the religious corporations and their patience and prudence under these circumstances. Truly, one cannot qualify us as hasty and imprudent, in that we now address ourselves to the exalted authorities of the fatherland. We have borne patiently the continual insults and vilifications for more than eighteen months of masons and filibusters, open or hidden, in newspapers, clubs, and public assemblies, who have attributed to us the blame for the insurrection, and heaped dishonor on our persons and ministries by the most unjustifiable attacks, cast in their majority in the mold of demagogism and free thought. With Christian meekness have we endured the return to the Peninsula of a multitude of persons who have resided a greater or less period in the islands, who have shown so little honor to our habit and profession; but if, instead of being religious, we had been seculars, and if, instead of being a question of ecclesiastical corporations, it had been one of civil or military corporations, they would have refrained from speaking ill of us—and we can be quite sure of that, and there are eloquent daily proofs of this assertion—for the effective means that such corporations generally practice would have tied their tongues, and would have made them recognize their flippancy and their injustice by imposing a vigorous corrective to their extensions. We religious have no sword; we cannot pronounce judgment; we do not glitter with gilt braid; we do not belong to a corporation, whose individual members take part in the government of the fatherland, or in exalted considerations of the same; we are neither military men nor functionaries of the judicial or administrative profession; we do not have weight in any political party; we do not intervene in elections; we do not form (for conscience forbids us) great federations that become feared; we do not incite the public, except to obedience and submission to all constituted authority; we are unable in determined cases to distribute appointments, or offer promotions or remunerations; we are not accompanied by a fattened retinue of friends or flatterers, who defend us for their own personal advantage, and who are the blind paladins of the general, of the politician, of the exalted dignitary, of the opulent banker; neither have we any influence over the press; we do not possess a nucleus of attached partisans to shout for us and overexcite so-called public opinion: in one word, we are without all the methods that are used in modern public life to gain respect and fear, to influence the nation, and cause all the shots of slander or ignorance to strike ineffectually against us.

The religious of Filipinas, far remote from Europa, alone in their ministries, scattered even throughout the farthest recesses of the archipelago, without other associates and other witnesses of their labors than their dear and simple parishioners, have no defense other than their reason and right, which, although established on justice and law, and secured by the protection of the divine Providence—which mercifully has not failed us hitherto and which we hope will not fail us in the future—do not have, nevertheless, in their favor (nor ever, although we might have done so, would we avail ourselves of them) those most powerful modern auxiliaries which are attaining so much vogue and so great success in societies in which the great Christian sentiments having grown cold, reason is not heard easily unless supplied with the force of cannon or with the armor-plate of the high bench, of vast political parties, or of fearful popular movements.

Alone with our reason and our right, although with our conscience satisfied at always having fulfilled, yea always, our duties, of having been as patriotic as the greatest, or more so, and of having fulfilled the obligations of our sacred ministry, we have endured silently and in all patience, in accordance with the advice of the apostle, the insults and vilifications, even of persons to whom we have offered in Christian sincerity our affection and civilities, even by persons who call themselves very Catholic, but who, perchance, infected with the contagion of the practical Jansenism of certain present-day reformers, forget the remark of that great Christian emperor, who said that if he should see a priest who had fallen into any frailty, he would cover him with his cloak, rather than publish his weakness.

Alone, with our reason and our right, and confident that reason would at last clear the pathway, and that light would at last illumine the dense obscurity created by hatred of sect, by the separatist spirit, and by flippancy, envy, and the false zeal of certain persons, we have endured the insinuations, made in the Cortes [parlamento][4] of last year which showed scant respect to the orders; the assertions made, not only in private, but also in centers of great publicity, and by persons of considerable popularity in military circles [politica militante], that the religious prestige of Filipinas was so broken that it was necessary to substitute it with armed force; the publishing of the recourse of an eminent politician, sacrificed by anarchy, to the orders for information and advice in Philippine matters, as a dishonorable censure; the grave accusations directed against us, as well as against a most worthy prelate, in a memorial presented to the senate, although veiled under certain appearances of impartiality and gentle correction; the different-toned clamoring from day to day, with more or less crudity, in order that the historic peninsular period of 1834–40 might be reproduced in the islands, and in order that measures might be adopted against us, so radical that they are not taken (and the discussion of them is shameful) either against the centers of public immorality, or against societies and attempts that have no other end than to discatholicize the nation and to sow in it the germs of thorough social upheaval.

Why the religious have been silent until now. We believed and thought that our prudence and long silence, adorned with the qualities of circumspection and magnanimity which religious institutions should always possess, ought to be sufficient for discreet and fair-minded people, so that they would immediately impugn those accusations and form a judgment by which those repeated attacks would not make a dent in our credit and prestige. We supposed that that campaign of diatribes and reproaches would vanish at last as a summer cloud formed by the effluvia cast off from the forges of masonry and filibusterism.

But instead of being dissipated the storm appears to be increasing daily. The treaty of Biac-na-bató[5] has again placed in the mouth of many the crafty assertion, made now by the rebel leaders that the institutes of the regulars have been the only cause of the insurrection. The secret society[6] of the Katipunan, which is extending itself throughout the islands like a terrible plague, has established by order of its Gran Oriente,[7] the extinction of the religious as one of the first articles of their program of race hatred. In the Peninsula and here, the masons, and all those who, in one way or another, second them, have rejuvenated [recrudecido] their war against us. Manifestos have been published in Madrid, in which misusing the names of Filipinas, measures highly disrespectful and vexatious to the clergy are demanded. Even in the ministry of the colonies, although officiously, persons have managed to introduce themselves, who, pursued by the tribunals of justice as unfaithful do not hide their animadversion to the religious corporations. Now, if we were to continue silent in view of all these circumstances, our silence would be taken with reason as cowardice, or as an argument of guilt; our patience would be qualified as weakness; and even firm and sensible Catholics who recognize the injustice of the attacks directed upon us, could with reason infer that we were stained, or that we had come to such a prostrate condition that one could with impunity insult and mock us, as if in downright truth we were old and decayed entities whose decadence is the last symptom of death.

Prius mori, quam fœdari,[8] said the ancients; and the most loyal Maccabæans, “It is better to die in the battle than to see the extermination of our nation and of the sanctuary.”[9] As long as the corporations exist, they will glory, as they ought, in repeating with St. Paul: “Quamdiu sum Apostolus, ministerium meum honorificabo.”[10] We have always endeavored to honor our ministry, and we shall always continue to honor it, now and in the future, by the grace of God, which we trust will not fail us. Consequently, we do not vacillate in addressing ourselves today to the exalted authorities of the nation, taking shelter in our confidence, that, though we are poor and helpless, and have no other protection than our spotless history, our immaculate honor, and our secure rights, we are talking to those in whom intelligence and good sense are brothers to nobility of thought, who are always ready to listen, especially to the poor and weak, and in whom their respect and love to Catholic institutions and to the so eminently glorious and meritorious title “Regular Clergy of Filipinas,” shelter them from the suggestions of sects and the prejudice of anticlerical and separatist parties.

They are persecuted because of their religious significance. What reason have the religious corporations of Filipinas given that they should be persecuted with so great passion? Ah! your Excellency, that reason is no other than because they are very Catholic, because they are very Spanish, because they are effective supporters of the good and sane doctrine, and because they have never shown weakness toward the enemies of God and of the fatherland.[11] If we religious had not defended here with inviolable firmness the secular work which our fathers bequeathed us: if we had shrunk our shoulders in fear before the work of the lodges and before the propagation of politico-religious errors that have come to us from Europa; if we had given the most insignificant sign, not only if not of sympathy, yet even the least sign of mute passivity, to the advocates of the false modern liberties condemned by the Church; if the flame of patriotism had become lessened to us; and innovators had not met in each religious in Filipinas an unchangeable and terrible adversary to their plans, open or hidden: never, your Excellency, would we religious corporations have been the object of the cruel persecution now practiced on us; but on the contrary, we regulars would have been exalted to the clouds, and so much the more as our enemies are not unaware that, granting the influence that we enjoy in the archipelago, our support, even if passive and one of mere silence, would indisputably have given them the victory.

But they know that our banner is none other than the Syllabus of the great pontiff, Pius IX,[12] which has been so often confirmed by Leo XIII, in which all rebellion against legitimate authorities is so vigorously condemned. They know that, as lovers of the only true liberty—Christian liberty—we would rather die than consent, in whatever pertains to us, to the least lack of the purity of the infallible Catholic teachings, of the holiness of Christian customs, and of the most complete loyalty due the Spanish nation. Consequently, they hate us; consequently, veiled under divers names and with divers pretexts, they are making so cruel war upon us, that one would believe that the masons and filibusters have no other enemies in Filipinas than the religious corporations. In such wise does that honor us that we can very well say with the prince of the apostles: “If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honor, glory, and power of God, and that which is his spirit resteth upon you ([1 Peter iv, 14).”][13]

And for their patriotic significance. Apart from their essentially religious character, the regulars of the archipelago have another significance that makes them odious to the separatists. They are the only permanent and deeply-rooted Spanish institution in the islands, with a suitable and rigorous organization, perfectly adapted to these regions. While the other Peninsulars live here in the fulfilment of their duty more or less time, as is convenient to their private interests, and with no other bond that follows them to Filipinas than their own convenience, being ignorant of the language of the country and having no other relations with the natives than those of a superficial intercourse, we religious come here to sacrifice our whole life. We form as it were a net of soldiers of religion and of the fatherland in the archipelago, scattered even to the remotest villages of the islands. Here we have our history, our glories, the ancestral house, so to speak, of our family. Bidding an eternal farewell to our native soil, we condemn ourselves voluntarily, by virtue of our vows, to live forever consecrated to the moral, religious, and political education of these natives, for whose defense we have in all ages waged campaigns, which, without the pious boastings [crudezas] and exaggerations of Las Casas,[14] have constantly reproduced in Filipinas the figure of the immortal defender of the American natives.

Craftiness of the insurgent leaders of filibusterism. In this point it must be confessed that the insurgent leaders of filibusterism are logical. “Do the regulars,” they have asked themselves, “who are the Spaniards most deeply-rooted and most influential in the country, and the most beloved and respected by the people, agree to, or will they ever agree to our projects? Then let us petition their expulsion, and their disappearance in one way or another. If we do not succeed in it, let us destroy them. Since there are many peninsulars, who, influenced by modern errors or carried away by ignorance or evil passion, lend ear to those who inveigh against the religious, let us inveigh loudly. Let us form a powerful cry against them. Let us conspire in lodges and political clubs. Let us petition at any risk measures looking to the lowering and destruction of the regular clergy. Those peninsulars will listen to us without us having any fear that they will hold us as filibusters. It will be said of us that we are liberals, that we are reformers, that we are democrats, that we are even masons and free-thinkers: but that does not matter. Many peninsulars are the same. They also inveigh against the religious. They also petition freedom of thought, freedom of the press, freedom of association, secularization of education, ecclesiastical disamortization, suppression of the privileges of the clergy. They also inveigh against the terrible theocracy, and do not cease to defame the religious and to impute to them all sorts of crimes.”

That, your Excellency, is the watchword that has been given to all the filibusters, and to all who will procure the emancipation of the country in one way or another, for their separatist ends, and especially since the treaty of Biac-na-bató. “There is nothing against España, nothing against the king, nothing against the army, nothing against the Spanish administration: say if you have seized arms that it has been exclusively because of the abuses of the clergy, that you were not attempting separation from the mother-country; that you wished only modern liberties and the disappearance of the orders. And even though all the documents, judicial and extrajudicial, in which appear the plans of the conspirators, and all the acts of the canton of Cavite, during its ephemeral emancipation, demonstrates the contrary, let us exert ourselves to say that that was not the intention of the rebels, that that was an affair of some enthusiasts or madmen, but that the great mass of the insurgents seized arms only through coveting those liberties. The multitude of lay Spaniards of every class and profession sacrificed; the countless natives killed or harassed in innumerable ways, because of their unswerving loyalty to the fatherland; the cries of ‘Death to the Castilas!’ and ‘Long live the Tagálogs!’ the stamps of a Tagálog republic, a Filipino republic,[15] an army of freedom; the speeches and circulars of the assembly or supreme council; the fiery Katipunan constitution written in characters of a mysterious key, and that written at Biac-na-bató; and in their style, an infinite number of deeds and documents, many of them very recent, which even to satiety evidently demonstrate the anti-Spanish and separatist character of the insurrection: all that we shall now conceal by crying ‘Down with the friars!’ ‘Long live democratic liberties!’ ‘Long live España!’ and with those cries are we certain of being heard, and in that way shall we be able to more easily attain the final goal of our desires.”

That is the logic and the tactics of the filibusters, and it must be confessed that in it they show themselves to possess practical talent, and to be thoroughly acquainted with the society that surrounds them. Had they said that the insurrection had been provoked by the excesses of the government employes, of the military, of the governors, of the directors of the treasury; had they placed in relief the multitude of abuses that have been committed against the native in one form or another (although never by the nation, or by the majority of its sons); had they attributed the armed insurrection to that: they would now be opposed by all the peninsular element, and their voice would have had not the slightest echo, as it would have been stifled by the more powerful voice of others who would have cried out in defense of the Spanish name, and who would have locked on them the door to all the means of propaganda and agitation which they are now exploiting. But when they declaimed against the clergy, when they demanded the liberties that the clergy cannot in conscience approve, they had at least assured their campaign, and in part, perhaps, the success of the same.

Their real purposes. Does not this show, your Excellency, that, in talking of the supposed or enormously exaggerated abuses of the clergy, they are not moved by love of justice and morality, and much less by love for España? What then, do they not recognize that for one religious who has committed abuses, it is to be surmised, from their employment, that there have been many more laymen in proportion (and let it be clear that we accuse no one, and least of all the worthy official corporations) who have converted their office, totally or partially, into a means for illegal advancement? Have the insurgents not cried out at other times, and during the preparatory period of the insurrection, against the meritorious civil guard, against judges and alcaldes, against the army, against the peninsular resident in the island, against the administration in general, and even against the superior authorities of the archipelago? Is not this proved by the books of the unfortunate Rizal, by the Solidaridad,[16] and other documents and pamphlets of the laborers, although one must not forget that their favorite watchword was always to cruelly attack the religious? Undoubtedly so, but it was not now advisable for them to declare it. Now was come the opportunity to show themselves very Spanish, very loyal to the king (they who were affiliating themselves to the extent of their ability with the most radical parties), very fond of the army, and to attack only the religious!

Accusations against the orders. They work deceitfully, we shall say with the Psalmist ([Psalm 35]),[17] they talk of peace and of love outwardly, but evil and hate are hid in their hearts; supervacue exprobaverunt animam meam. Most vainly do they wrong us, we shall add, in respect to the accusations that they direct against us. “Unjust witnesses rising up have asked me things I knew not. They repaid me evil for good: and have sworn my destruction. But thou, O Lord, wilt destroy their plans, and wilt save my existence.” ([Psalm 35].)[18]

Yea, your Excellency, unjust witnesses, for where are those abuses, those excesses, those vices, those outrages, of which their mouths are so full, and which furnish them matter for their speeches of a demagogical club of the rabble? What do the religious corporations maintain, when viewed with a deep synthetical standard, which is not in accordance with the canons of the Church and the rules of their institute; which is not fitting to the holy ministry that they profess; which is not greatly beneficial to the supreme interests of the fatherland? We turn our eyes in all directions, and however quick-sighted may be our eyes, unless one views the orders through the pharisaical or separatist prism, they discover nothing that does not merit the heartiest applause. “Laudet te alienus,” says the sacred book of Proverbs, “et non os tuum.”[19] But it is not our intention to praise ourselves here. It is our intention to vindicate ourselves; to defend our honor unjustly impeached; to demonstrate our eminently Spanish mission; and to maintain our good name, which is our treasure, which is the great title of nobility that we can never abdicate nor allow to be vilified. “By your good works stop the mouth of the ignorance of foolish and senseless men,” says St. Peter to us. ([1 Peter ii, 15].)[20]

“We walk not in craftiness, nor by adulterating the word of God; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience, in the sight of God; that is our glory, the testimony of our conscience,” is also taught us by St. Paul. ([2 Cor. iv, 2].)[21] From our dishonor follows the dishonor of the holy and Spanish mission that we exercise; and God has told us that we should be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and that we should shine in such manner that men may see our good works, and glorify our father who is in heaven.[22]

How they have fulfilled their duties. Our good works are in the gaze of all men, and our good works, thanks to God, are the brightest gem of the corporations. Not only do we preach the gospel here; not only do we carry the Christian and civilized life to the barbarous and fetish-encumbered inhabitants of these islands; not only did we obtain the incorporation of the archipelago into the Spanish crown, working in harmony with the other official entities, and preserved it, as is well known, in a peaceful and happy condition for the space of three centuries; but also, in all time, even now when we are wronged so deeply by some ingrate Filipinos, whom we pity, have we been the constant defenders of the Indians, enduring for that reason innumerable loathings, and all kinds of persecution on the part of many peninsulars, who did not understand the devotion and patriotism of our conduct. In all time have we been zealous for the purity of the faith and for the conservation of good morals; and illegal exactions, bribery, extortions, outrages, ease, immoral gambling, and a licentious or little restrained life, have always had in us a severe judge and the most inexorable censor.

Can it be said of the religious institutes, whether collectively or in the vast majority of their individual members, that they have prevaricated; that they have ever abandoned the duties entrusted to them in the administration of the sacraments, in the celebration of divine worship, in Christian preaching and catechising, in the vigilance of good manners, in the tutelage of moral interests, in protection and relief to the needy and weak, in advice and consolation to all about us, in the maintenance of obedience to the mother-country, in the extension of education, in the campaign against every kind of superstition and erroneous practice, in repression of concubinage, and of other public irregularities and scandals? Does not the tenet enter the head of the most exalted sectarian, if he has any lucid moment, that we religious have fulfilled with assiduous self-abnegation the obligations of our ministry?

We have become wearied with reading, your Excellency, whatever has been written and published against us for years, and we know also how much is said now in assemblies and gatherings. With our hand upon our heart, with our foreheads raised aloft, as one who walks in the light and fears not to have his deeds examined and discussed in the light, we challenge and defy our detractors and calumniators, and those who flippantly, or by any other unjust and inaccurate motive, talk and murmur, to show us with exact data and with perfectly authentic information, not only the accuracy of all their accusations, but the mere probability of whatever they allege against our honor and well-established credit, touching the fulfilment of our duties, both religious and patriotic.

Their procedure in respect to parochial obventions, to education, and intercourse with intelligent persons. It is said that we commit abuse in the exaction of parochial fees. Let the laws of the Church be consulted, let the doctrines of the moralists and the principles of positive natural and divine law be cited; and then submitted to that only sure rule as a criterion, let them tell us whether we abuse the public in that matter, and whether our procedure, within just bounds, is not that employed by the most disinterested priests.

It is said that we are hostile to education and the advancement of knowledge. But if by education and knowledge, doctrines not condemned by the Church, our Mother, are not meant, let them tell us whether the islands have any education that has not been established, protected, sustained, and encouraged by the clergy, in all branches of instruction, both primary, and secondary and superior.

It is said that we despise the intelligent men of the country, and that we make them the object of every kind of persecution. That assertion is so rare and stupendous that we wonder whether our enemies will write in imaginary spaces. A multitude of youths are graduated annually with the degree of bachelor or after the conclusion of some higher course, from the Ateneo Municipal, from the colleges of Manila and the provinces, and from the university. We are honored by the friendship of the vast majority of them, and take no little satisfaction in seeing them prosper and in knowing that they respect the Christian and solid education that they have received. It is known that very few of the great number of students that attend our lecture halls, and of the not few graduates that are scattered throughout the islands, have taken part in the rebellion; and that the vast majority of them have kept loyal to España, in fulfilment of the oath that they took on receiving the investiture of their professions. But what happens in the old world with the apprentices of free thought happens here: all those modestly call themselves intelligent who think that they exhibit signs of knowledge and talent by showing contempt for priests and religious; while it is a fact that a goodly proportion of those who express themselves in that manner have been unable to complete their courses with us, and are the refuse of our lecture halls.

Regarding the sanctity of their private life. An outcry is being made against the vices and immorality of the regulars in terms that seem to be inspired in Protestant and anticlerical centers of low quality. But in that, as in other things, saving what can never be avoided even in the communities most sanely organized, by the severest legislation and the most exquisite care, all who view us near at hand are not ignorant that nothing can be thrown into our face.

The words of Father St. Augustine, when defending his institute against accusations similar to those directed against the orders of Filipinas, are very opportune and efficacious in this matter. “Tell me, brethren, is my congregation, peradventure, better than Noah’s ark, in which, of the three sons Noah had, one was evil? Is it, peradventure, better than the family of the patriarch Jacob, in which, of his twelve sons, only Joseph is praised? Is it, peradventure, better than the house of the patriarch Isaac, in which, of the two sons born to him, one was chosen of God, and the other damned? Is it, peradventure, better than the household of Jesus Christ, our Savior, in which, of His twelve apostles, one was a traitor, and sold him? Is it, peradventure, better than that company of the seven deacons filled with the Holy spirit, chosen by the apostles to take charge of the poor and widowed, among whom one, by name Nicholas, became a heresiarch? Is it, peradventure, better than heaven itself, whence fell so many angels? Can it be better than the earthly paradise, where the two first parents of all the human race, created in original justice and grace, fell?”

Ah! the religious corporations of Filipinas, caring for the sanctity and salvation of all its sons, on seeing one of their individual members fail in his duties, after correcting him, and after taking, in accordance with law and religious prudence, measures efficacious to repair, if he did it, the scandal, and even, if necessary, to destroy and fling aside the rotten branch, cry out in pity with the apostle like a true mother: “Quis infirmatur et ego non infirmor? Quis scandalizatur et ego non uror?” “Who becomes sick spiritually and I do not suffer with him? Who suffers scandal and I am not burned?” That is what all should say who learn of the backslidings of their neighbor; that is the dictate of charity and of justice; that is demanded by respect and consideration to the ministers of the church. And so long as our systematic accusers do not prove that the orders consent and do not check the sins, in great part humanly inevitable—considering the conditions under which those dedicated to the ministry live—of the very few religious who have the misfortune and weakness to fall, they have no right to dishonor us and to cry out against what we are the first to lament and to try to correct.

Will they prove it sometime? We are quite assured of the opposite; and that though they have at hand, as many methods of inquisition and proof as the judge most interested in any cause can desire. Our convents, our ministries, our persons, are in sight of all. Our parish priests and missionaries are alone and surrounded by a multitude of natives. Whatever we say, do, or neglect to do, is seen and spied by all the people. Our habitations are of crystal for all classes of people. Our publicity as Europeans and our condition as priests place us in such relief in the missions and parishes, that it would be stupid simplicity to try to hide our doings and actions. Consequently, everything is favorable to our adversaries in the trial to which we provoke them, and to which each regular voluntarily submits himself, from the moment that, faithful to his vocation and obedient to his superiors, he sacrifices himself to live among these natives, his very beloved sheep of the flock of Christ. Our honor, our reputation rests in their hands. It would be easy for our adversaries to confound the religious institutes if truth presided over their accusations. But since truth is that which does not glitter in their words, the saying of Holy Writ becomes verified in their conduct: “They spake against me with a lying tongue, and with the speech of hate did they attack me;” and in regard to us the saying of St. Peter: “You shall keep an upright conscience with modesty and fear, so that as many as calumniate your upright procedure in Christ, shall be confounded.”[23]

Other equally unjust charges. We shall not compare our conduct with that of the respectable and very estimable native priests of the secular clergy, whom the majority of the separatist Filipinos flatter, undoubtedly because it is not to the purpose of their plans to combat them. We shall not rebut the shamelessness of supposing that part of our property has a criminal origin, and that we are certain despots in our rural estates who suck the blood of our tenants by various methods, an infamy so often refuted with authentic data of overwhelming proof. We shall not speak of the vast imposture of imputing to us all the executions by shooting, imprisonments, tortures, trials, and confiscation of property of those implicated in the last insurrection. We scorn the absurd fable that we are absolute masters, not only of consciences, but of all the archipelago, at the same time that they, obviously contradicting themselves, as error is wont to do, declare that our prestige and influence in the islands is lost. We neglect to attribute to ourselves whatever hate and censure, according to them, have been made in the country by the military [institutos armados], the governors, the judges, and all the public organisms, in deportations and other kinds of punishment; as if we religious managed to our liking the machine of the government and administration of this territory, and as if, from the governor-general down to the last agent of the police, all were but the blind executors of our will. We lay aside those and other things—poorly executed arguments—which certain misguided sons of this country are still employing, and which are unfortunately repeated by certain peninsulars, in order to manifest their hatred or prejudice against the clergy; and pass on to speak of the insurrection and of the imperious necessity of remedying the extremely embarrassing situation of the religious corporations in the archipelago.

Fundamental causes of the insurrection, and who are to blame for it. The government is able only too well to recognize the causes that have produced the insurrection, and we shall not be the ones who try to give it lessons in that regard. The government is aware that until several years ago, every separatist idea, every rebel tendency in the country, which was enjoying the most enviable peace and felt respect to authority with the same unreflecting, although patent and holy, force, with which domestic authority in all parts is obeyed and respected, was exotic and an anachronism. Then was submission to España and subordination to all authority an element truly social, rendered incarnate by the religious in the mass of the Filipino population, which neither dreamed, yea, your Excellency, neither dreamed of ideas of political redemption, nor imagined that, in order to keep themselves loyal to the mother-country, one single bayonet was necessary in the country. The public force of the cuadrilleros and of the guardia civil[24] (the latter of very recent creation) was necessarily created to check and restrain thieves and tulisanes;[25] while every one thought that the wretched army then in the archipelago had no other object than to combat Mindanaos and Joloans, and to be ready for any conflict with the neighboring powers. España was able to be sure of its dominion here, and to live so carelessly, with respect to political movements as in the most retired village of the Peninsula. All authority was obeyed, was respected, by conscience, by education, by tradition, by social habit, passively and by custom, if one wishes, but with so great strength and firmness, with so indisputable and universal submission, that more indeed than individual virtue it was the virtue of the mass of the whole population, it was the spontaneous homage to God, which, represented in the powers of the fatherland, all felt and practiced, not conceiving even the possibility of rebellions and insurrections. Thus had they been taught by the religious, who always unite the names of God and His Church with the names of their king and of España. Consequently, by bonds of conscience, did all the archipelago love and obey him, and no one thought then of political liberties, nor in lifting yokes that existed for no one.

Are there then no abuses? No, your Excellency it could have very well happened that there were abuses on a greater scale than in the epoch immediately preceding the present events. But since these people were educated in the doctrine that it is never legal to disobey authority, under pretext of abuses, even if some are true; since these people had not yet been imbued with the new modern teachings, condemned a hundred times by the Church; since no one had spoken here of popular rights, many of them as false as senseless; since the propaganda against priests and religious had not yet reached Filipinas: it resulted that, considering those abuses, as one of so many plagues of humanity (from which regulated societies are not free, according to the principles of the newest erroneous law, but rather they are, on the contrary, suffered with greater intensity and with greater loss to the fundamental interests of the social order) these inhabitants tolerated them patiently, and had recourse for their remedy to the just methods taught in such cases by Catholic ethics, with the greatest advantage to individuals and to nations.

Consequently, as many as have contributed, in one way or another, to introduce those revolutionary doctrines, and those germs of social and political disturbance into the archipelago, whether peninsulars or islanders, of whatever class or rank, are the true authors, conscious or unconscious, of the great weakening of the traditional obedience to the mother-country, of which the whole archipelago was in peaceful possession until thirty years ago, that was disturbed by no one or by no influence. The introducers of those doctrines and tendencies are beyond all doubt the culprits of the insurrection, for they are the ones who have done their utmost to prepare for it and with success to unroll it, even supposing that they have not directly and deliberately procured it.

Who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind; who introduces principles must accept the consequences; who generates hate must not wonder that war results; who teaches the pathway of evil cannot declare himself free from responsibility for the disorders originated by his teaching.

Partial causes: masonry. Will it be necessary to explain this simple consideration? We do not think so. But should we desire to unfold it, it would be easy for us to add that the anti-religious propaganda; the ideas of erroneous liberty and forbidden independence, incited and aroused in certain Filipinos by European politicians and writers; the antipathy and opposition, clearly shown by certain Spaniards, even by those ruling and by government employees, against the religious corporations; the establishment of masonry and of other secret societies, the former’s legitimate offspring; the most favorable reception that the revolutionary Filipinos found for their plans in many centers and papers of Madrid and other places; the lack of religion in many peninsulars; the ease with which the ancient laws of Filipinas have been changed; the mobility of public functionaries which, giving opportunity for many irregularities, has contributed greatly to the continual lessening of the credit of the Spanish name; and in part, the backwardness, which has been observed sometimes in the sons of the country with regard to public appointments: [all these] are partial aspects, various phases and confluent factors (of which we do not attempt to enumerate all) of the fundamental and synthetical cause that we have expressed.

No one is unaware that the chief of all those partial phases and factors of the social disorganization of the archipelago has been masonry. The Asociación Hispano-Filipina of Madrid was masonic. Those who encouraged the Filipinos in their campaign against the clergy and against the peninsulars here resident, were masons in almost their totality. Those who authorized the installation of lodges in the archipelago were masons. Those who founded the Katipunan,[26] a society so mortally masonic, that even in its terrible suggestive pact of blood it has done naught but imitate the masonic carbonarios, were masons.

Practical consequences of that. The traditional submission to the fatherland, diffused and deeply settled in the archipelago by the religious corporations, having disappeared in part and having been greatly weakened in part; the voice of the parish priest, thanks to the above-mentioned propaganda, having been disregarded by many natives, especially in Manila and conterminous provinces, who were taught in that way to give themselves airs as intelligent and independent men; the prestige of the Spanish name having been greatly tempered, and the ancient respect with which every peninsular was formerly regarded in the islands having been almost annihilated in many towns: is it strange that race instincts should have asserted themselves strongly, and, considering that they have a distinct language, and distinct lands and climate, that they should have discussed and have attempted to raise a wall of separation between Spaniards and Malays? Is it not logical that, after having been made to believe that the religious is not the father and shepherd of their souls and their friend and enthusiastic defender, but a vile exploiter, and that the peninsular here is no more than a trader constituted with greater or less authority and rank, that they should madly and illegally have imagined that they could easily separate from España and aspire to self-government?

Gloomy situation of the archipelago and omens of its future. We shall not insist, your Excellency, on this order of consideration, for it rends our soul, it cleaves our heart in twain, to consider how easily so many rivers of blood, so great and extravagant expenses, and so extraordinary conflicts, might have been spared, which in a not long lapse of time, may, perhaps, result in the disappearance of the immortal flag of Castilla; how easily the military situation, originated by the insurrection, a situation that was threatening to make of Filipinas another Cuba, might have been avoided; and with how little trouble the archipelago might have been continuing at present in the same tranquillity and peacefully progressive situation as it had years ago: if having the power, as was a fact, but that was not attempted or thought of, the door had been shut on the disturbers; if masonry had never been allowed in the country; and if every tendency contrary to the moral prestige, the most powerful social bond, immensely superior to all armies and all political institutions which united these countries with their beloved and respected mother-country, had been effectively restrained in their beginnings.

Has the present most gloomy situation any remedy?

It is somewhat difficult, and even dangerous, to answer the question, for if the Katipunan was six months ago relegated to the hills of Laguna and Bulacan among the rebel leaders who were fugitive there, or was dragging out a shameful existence in certain villages that were in communication with the insurgents, today the plague has spread. For the ones pardoned at Biac-na-bató, breaking the promise given to the gallant and energetic marquis de Estella,[27] obedient to the watchword received, have spread through the central provinces; and by using threats and terrible punishments, which have no precedents in the pages of history, nor even of the novel, have succeeded in attracting to their ranks a great number of Indians, even in villages which gave eloquent proof of loyalty to the holy cause of the Spanish fatherland before the submission of Biac-na-bató. They have also succeeded in establishing themselves in Cápiz and in other points of the Visayas: and indeed the movement of Zambales, of Pangasinan, of Ilocos, of Cebú, and of the Katipunans, are at present open in Manila.

The thought of what may happen to this beautiful country at any moment terrifies us, for we do not know to what point sectarian fanaticism may go, exploiting the suggestibility of this race and their weak brain by the deeds that they are heralding, brought to a head by them, in regard to the army, whose increase in the proportion that would be necessary to establish a complete military situation, they know to be impossible; by the published exemption from the cédula[28] and other tributes; by the supposed immunity of amulets, called anting-anting; by the illusion that none but Indians will hold office, and that the alcaldes and generals will be from their ranks; by the remembrance that money and confidence were given to the rebels of Cavité, Bulacan, and other points; by the news that their partisans were sending them from Madrid and Hong-kong; by the example of goodly numbers of peninsulars, who are not on their guard against showing their hostility to the religious, in order by that manner to procure the latter’s disregard by their parishioners, who even dare to lay hands on them; and by innumerable other methods, too many, in short, to enumerate, but terribly destructive, and of maddening and vigorous influence in these Malayan villages.

The thought of what consist the secrets of the revolution, which the learned gentleman, appointed as arbitrator[29] by the so-called government of the insurgents to arrange with the superior authority of the islands as to the conditions of submission and the surrender of arms, swore to keep secret, as appears from the justificative document of his authorization, is also terrifying. We are ignorant of what those secrets may be, which apparently are not the politico-ecclesiastical reforms which are now demanded in Madrid, since those matters are mentioned openly in the abovesaid document signed by Aguinaldo in the name of the rebel assembly; and the most courageous heart is terrified at the fancy that there might be an organization more powerful, more far-reaching, more general and active of revolution, somewhat like the Katipunan, which we now see to be rapidly spreading, and which at a moment’s notice, would effect a general rising, whose most saddening results one can easily foresee, and avoid with the greatest difficulty, unless every labor association be effectually prosecuted and extirpated in time.

Remedy for that situation. Laying aside for the meanwhile those dangers, which are daily obscuring the Filipino horizon more deeply, and supposing, as we desire, that peace may be obtained throughout the islands, the situation of the archipelago has a remedy, and one, as is clear, that consists in removing all the causes that have produced so deep a confusion and in prudently and with justice adopting the measures that, assuring peace, will protect and encourage the legitimate interests of these inhabitants. The great mass of the country is not corrupted. It suffers from an access of hallucination and fanaticism produced by sectarian preachings and practices, but its heart and head are not perverted. If it be attended with care, it will return to its former pacific habits and submission. The wealthy and intelligent classes, still healthy, protest against all those movements, and since they are loyal and friendly to us, desire the normal mean to be reestablished as soon as possible, and will contribute, together with the institutions of the mother-country, to the most glorious undertaking of restoring order and the pacific and progressive trend of the archipelago.

It pertains to the government to direct and manage those forces in order to obtain so satisfactory an end, by reestablishing the mainsprings of government, now so nearly disappeared or very much weakened; by giving prestige to all the conservative elements; and with an administration, grave, intelligent, active, stable, moral, acquainted with, and fond of the country, and one dissociated with every political doctrine, to continue and perfect the just and benevolent, and Catholic and Spanish regimen: whereby the mother-country would gain the sympathies of these inhabitants and establish its dominion securely.

This is strange material for the peculiar objects and character of this exposition, which has no other purpose than to defend the honor of the religious institutes and demonstrate the necessity of supporting and invigorating their ministry, if they are to continue their noble and patriotic mission in the archipelago. We do not intend to mix in politics, however much we may have as much or more right than any society or individual to speak of these things. But indeed we must be the defenders of the rights of the Church, and of the regular clergy. We are indeed under obligations to watch over Spanish interests, which are not at variance with, but perfectly amalgamated with religious interests.

What the orders need and claim. As religious then, and as Spaniards, we address the government, and without circumlocutions or subterfuge (for these are not the times for paraphrases and euphemisms which cloak the truth), we believe that we can tell the government that if the interests of Spanish domination in the archipelago have incurred and are incurring so serious danger of shipwreck, it is because they have rather been, and are, profoundly combative of the interests of religion; and that if the revolutionists have succeeded in making themselves heard by a multitude of natives, it is because they have been taught, before and during the ingrate rebellion, to despise and even to persecute the religious who taught them a doctrine of peace and obedience. He who does not see this, suffers great blindness, or it is an obvious sign that he is infected with the terrible evil that has brought so dire consequences to Filipinas. He who closes his ears to the lessons of Providence—sorrowful, but indeed healthful lessons—and believes that it is possible to restore order here and establish a prosperous and tranquil progress without strengthening religious influences, is not far from the separatist camp, or shows that he is unable to learn from great social catastrophes.

It is not sufficient for that purpose to recognize the need of morality and of religion. One must recognize them in all their integrity and purity, such as our holy Mother, the Church, makes them known. It is not sufficient to talk to the people of the great doctrines of the Crucified, and instruct them not to attempt to attack the legitimate interests of Catholicism—vagaries that so very often cover mischievous and pharisaical intentions, in order afterward, under pretext of abuses, to tell them by word and deed, not to listen to the priests who preach those doctrines to them and inculcate in them respect for those interests. If one would attempt to effectively establish the peace of the archipelago upon a firm base, he must support in toto and in solido the mission of the religious corporations, so that they may be fruitful in the proportion that these inhabitants demand, who are still affectionate to the faith and to civilization, and so that the natives may be strengthened in the solid conviction that they are obliged to obey and respect España, their true fatherland in the social and civic order, by bonds of conscience and not by human considerations which are always unstable and shifting.

Consequently, we regulars who have more than sufficient reasons to recognize to their full extent the evils that affect the archipelago, so beloved by us, and who have been for some time experiencing the fact that, far from religious action being strengthened, it is restricted and opposed in various ways, do not waver in telling the government with blunt frankness that, if it do not consent to give that support, daily more necessary, to the Church, the social disturbance of the country will continue to increase daily, and that by not applying any remedy to that evil, the stay here of the religious is becoming morally impossible.

Of what use is it for us to force ourselves to fulfil our religio-patriotic duties, if others take it upon themselves to destroy that labor on the instant; if they, by methods that flatter evil passions so greatly, gain the favor of the same people whom we have taught to be docile and submissive, by saying to them continually that they should pay no attention to us? Would it suffice, peradventure, to preach respect to property, if, at the same time, there were no laws that protected it and public force that effectively restrained those covetous of another? Would any professor be assured of the effects of his teaching, whose pupils were to be told by respectable persons or through vexatious methods, as they left the lecture room, to forget or despise the lessons of their masters? Then in like case do we find ourselves in Filipinas.

We do not want, your Excellency, temporal honors or dignities, which we have renounced by choosing for our profession a life hidden in Jesus Christ. We do not belong to those who, in whatever they do, think immediately, even when deserving them, of recompenses and decorations. We do not desire, as our enemies believe (who judge us, perhaps, from themselves), to preponderate in the civil government and administration of the villages, nor even at least to continue our slight official intervention assigned to us in certain secular matters by law and tradition. If one desires to strip the parish priest or the missionary of all administrative, gubernatorial, and economic functions, in which, without us ever claiming it, yea, ever, the secular authority has come to solicit our modest cooperation, let it be done at a seasonable time. Those who adopt such an inclination will see what is most advisable for the exalted interests of the fatherland; but from them and not from us, who have ever (even enduring because of that intervention, annoyances, censures, and persecutions, and considering it a true burden) been docile auxiliaries of the civil authority, will be demanded the responsibility of the consequences that may be occasioned by so far-reaching a measure.

We have come to the islands to preach and to preserve the Christian faith, and to instruct these natives with the celestial food of the sacraments and the maxims of the gospel; to prove that the principal intent of España, on incorporating this territory with its crown, was to christianize and civilize the natives. We have not come to become alcaldes, governors, judges, military men, agriculturists, tradesmen, or merchants; although the concord and fast union that should prevail between the Church and State be granted, and the fact that we constitute here the only social Spanish institution, never have we refused to contribute with our might as good patriots and submissive vassals to whatever has been demanded of us, and which we have been able to perform, without dishonor to our priestly and religious character.

What they as Catholic institutions contradict. All who have written upon Filipinas consider the benefit that the country, and very chiefly the Spanish dominion, has obtained, from that system in which the parish priest and the missionary were the intermediary, more or less direct, between the public authorities and the mass of the Filipino population. It does not belong to us to demonstrate that, for well does the history of this archipelago show it, and it is being told in eloquent, although tragic voices by the present fact, with the deplorable consequences that España is feeling, and to which it has been guided by a senseless and suicidal propaganda against the religious orders. What we have to say at present is, that if the civil authority be not most diligently attentive to the maintenance, encouragement, and guaranty of religion and morality in the islands, as it must be through its solemn promise contracted before the supreme pontiffs and before Christian Europe, in accordance with the teachings and precepts of our most holy Mother, the Church; if it do not oppose a strong wall to the avalanche of insults, taunts, and systematic opposition to the religious of Filipinas, which is coming down upon the peninsula and the archipelago; if it do not prosecute the secret societies with the firmness of a foreseeing government; if it do not cause us to be respected and held as our quality as priests and Spanish corporations demand, in public and in private, in all the spheres of the social order, in whatever concerns España and its agents, repelling every project that in one way or another attempts to remove our prestige and to lessen our reputation, hindering the fruit of our labors: there is no suitable and meritorious way—and we say it with profoundest grief—in which we can continue in the islands.

We cannot be less, your Excellency, in our order, than military men, to whom their profession is an honor and exaltation, as well as an exaction; less than the class of administrative functionaries whose rights and prerogatives are defended and guaranteed by the State; less than the mercantile and industrial companies and undertakings, who are considered and protected as impelling elements of public wealth; less than legal, medicinal, and other professional—scientific, artistic, or mechanical—associations, which are honored and respected in every well-organized society. We believe, and this belief is not at all exaggerated, that, as Catholic institutions, we have a right to all the honors, exemptions, and privileges, that the Christian Church and State, and the laws—in accordance with which the religious orders were established in Filipinas—extend to ecclesiastical persons and corporations, and especially to the regulars; and that as Spanish institutions, we ought to have the same consideration as the other entities that have arisen and exist under the protection of the flag of the fatherland.

As Catholic institutions, we must, with all the energy of our soul, repel, as contrary to the imprescriptible and supreme laws of the true and the good, and to the original laws of the Church, freedom of worship, and the other fatal and false liberties that are the offspring of the thought, of the press, and of association, which certain men are trying to bring to this archipelago, and which conflict with the most rudimentary duties of the patronage that España exercises here, as is clearly set forth in various places in the Recopilación de Indias. In like manner do we repel, inasmuch as it contradicts the rights of the Church, the pretended secularization of education, in accordance with what we are taught in propositions 45, 47, and 48,[30] of the Syllabus, and which are obligatory on all Catholics, and very especially on Christian princes and governments. Contrary to those rights, and entirely abusive and tyrannical, would be every measure that the secular power might try to adopt in regard to the religious orders of the archipelago: whether in meddling with their regular regimen and discipline; whether in secularizing them; whether in disentailing their property, or fettering their free disposition of the same; whether in freeing their members from their obedience; whether in depriving them of the honors or privileges which they possess according to the canons, the laws of the Indias, and Christian common law, as is expressed in proposition 53 of the above-mentioned Syllabus.[31] Every law that attempts to suppress, diminish, or weaken the sacred laws of personal, royal, or local ecclesiastical immunity is contrary to the sacred rules of the Church. Also contrary to the Church, and smacking of the heresies of Wickliffe and Luther, is every ordinance that denies the clergy the right to the stipends and fees that are due them from their holy ministry, and that tries to meddle with matters of parochial fees, a thing that is peculiar to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is contrary to the honor and sanctity of the religious estate to suppose it incapable of exercising the care of souls, and to say that, in governing the parishes, we violated the canons, when in exact accordance with them, we christianized this country, and since have continued to minister it. It is vexatious to the regular clergy, and opposed to the rights legitimately acquired, for the civil authority to attempt to despoil the religious corporations of the ministries and missions founded and ruled by them, under the protection of the Leyes de Indias and the sovereign ordinances of the apostolic see. Incompatible with the vow of obedience that binds every religious, is the complete subjection of the individuals of the regular clergy who discharge the care of souls to the authority of the diocesan, depriving his prelate of the attributes that he possesses over his subjects; and the bishop cannot be allowed, to the loss or detriment of the rights of the regular superior to suppress the regular curacies at his pleasure, since the ministries depend immediately on the corporation which appoints those religious who are to fulfil the duties of them.

The need of keeping intact the authority of the regular prelate over his curas and missionaries. No one is ignorant that the religious corporations of the archipelago are communities composed in their vast majority of parish priests and missionaries. If that be so, and it must be so, in order that the orders fulfil the peculiar end for which they came to Filipinas, how could the jurisdiction of the regular prelate he maintained, if the attributes that he has received from the holy see, the only immediate authority to which the regulars are subject, for the government of his subjects, of whatever class they be, be lessened? By pontifical laws, the religious assigned to the doctrinas and missions are considered absolutely as viventes intra claustra, which signifies that they are governed by their peculiar superiors, rights, and attributes, which are binding on every subject strictly conventual. If it were not so, the individual life would be established to a greater or less extent in the orders; their communal bonds would disappear; the regular prelates would become mere figureheads; and the religious corporations, losing the internal discipline that gives them so much vigor and strength, would be converted into associations of priests [presbiteros], who although they pronounced religious vows one day, would afterwards have no other bonds with their superiors than the corporative habit and name, and too, perchance, the possession of the open door in order to take refuge in the convent whence they went out, whenever they so desired or the bishop ordered it.

The action of the regular prelate over the curas and missionaries of his order must be so active, immediate, energetic, and universal, that he can change, remove, or transfer them, or give them another occupation and appointment, and his authority over them must remain in everything as powerful as if it were a question of the last one of the conventual religious. That is required by the regular discipline; that is demanded by the vow of obedience. In proportion as the attempt is made with the individual to restrict or weaken the jurisdiction of the order, it is equivalent to jesting at the intention of us religious, who do not profess to be subjects of the bishop, but only to occupy ourselves in the business of religion which our prelates assign us; it is equivalent to disnaturalizing the religious corporations, and consequently, to destroying them, the very thing that the separatists are attempting.

Such a thing will not happen, we are sure; for the moment that a law freeing the parish priests and missionaries from subordination to their prelate, or lessening or restricting the latter’s power, is dictated, no religious, by bonds of conscience, would dare to continue at the head of his parish or mission, and all would retire to their convents at Manila. Such a thing will not happen, for the bishops themselves would be energetically opposed to it, and would confess, as they do, that precisely because the vast majority of their parish clergy are regulars, their clergy live so morally and apply themselves so assiduously to their ministry, and that scarcely would they find that in secular priests [presbiteros] or in regulars not fully subject to their order, and that they are consequently interested, through love of their flock, in having the parish ministries of the archipelago continue to be ruled by the same laws as hitherto. And such a thing will not happen, we say, because the holy see, jealous guardian of the interests of Christianity in the islands, not less than of the prestige of the regulars, will not permit it; while, at the last, the government would be placed in the dilemma, namely, that either a suitable and sufficient personnel be proposed to it, which might replace the religious corporations of Filipinas in a stable and worthy manner, or, on the contrary, that the latter continue discharging their actual duties, without the least diminution of the jurisdiction of their respective regular prelates.

España’s obligation to send ministers of the Catholic religion to these islands and to solidly guaranty that religion. Such a thing will not happen finally, for the government of the country can never forget (regarding this point and the others with which the present exposition is concerned) the will of Isabel the Catholic, the fundamental and capital law of these dominions, by which the government is obliged to send here prelates and religious and other learned and austere persons of God, in order to instruct their inhabitants in the Catholic faith, and to instruct and teach them good morals; for nothing must be desired ahead of the publication and extension of the evangelical law, and the conversion and conservation of the Indians in the holy Catholic faith. “Inasmuch as we are directing our thought and care to this as our chief aim, we order, and to the extent we may, charge the members of our Council of Indias that laying aside every other consideration of our profit and interest, they hold especially in mind the matters of the conversion and instruction, and above all that they be watchful and occupy themselves with all their might and understanding in providing and appointing ministers sufficient for it, and take all the other measures necessary so that the Indians and natives may be converted and conserved in the knowledge of God our Lord, the honor and praise of his holy name, so that, we fulfilling this duty which so tightly binds us and which we so desire to satisfy, the members of the said Council may discharge their consciences, since we have discharged ours with them.” (Law i, tít. i, book ii and law viii, tít. ii, book ii of Recopilación de Indias.)

The Council of Ministers together with the ministry of the colonies[32] has been substituted for the Council of Indias, of whose devotion and zeal in fulfilling the fundamental duties of their trust, we cannot harbor the least doubt.

Very expressive also to the question in hand is law lxv, tít. xiv, book i of the same Recopilación. “We order the viceroys, presidents, auditors, governors, and other justices of the Indias, to give all the protection necessary for that service to the religious of the orders resident in those provinces and occupied in the conversion and instruction of the natives, to our entire satisfaction, by which God has been, and is, served, and the natives much benefited, and to honor them greatly, and encourage them to continue, and do the same, and more, if possible, as we expect from their persons and goodness.”

Words of the instructions to Legaspi; of the laws of Partìdas;[33] of Felipe II. Thus was it commanded scores of times to the authorities of these islands, and in harmony with that legislation, in the instructions to the great Legaspi, it is expressly stated:

“You shall have special care in all the negotiations that you shall have with the natives of those districts to have with you some of the religious, both in order to make use of their good counsel, and so that the natives may recognize and understand the great consideration in which you hold them; for seeing that and the great reverence given them by the soldiers, they will also come to respect them. That will be very important, so that, when the religious impart to them the matters pertaining to our holy Catholic faith, they may give them full credit; since you know that his Majesty’s chiefest end is the salvation of the souls of those infidels. For that purpose, in whatever district, you shall take particular care to aid the said religious … so that, having learned the language, they may labor to bring the natives to the knowledge of our holy Catholic faith, convert them to it, and reduce them to the obedience and friendship of his Majesty.” (Colec. de Doc. Inéd. de Ultramar, ii, p. 188.)[34]

That is the genuinely Spanish spirit, the glory of the human race, and especially of Christianity, which caused our legislators to write in the Partidas (Partida i, tít. vi, law lxii, and tít. xi): “Laymen must honor and regard the clergy greatly, each one according to his rank and his dignity: firstly, because they are mediators between God and them; secondly, because by honoring them, they honor Holy Church, whose servants they are, and honor the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is their head, for they are called Christians. And this honor and this regard must be shown in three ways; in speech; in deed; and in counsel.” “The churches of the emperors, kings, and other seigniors of the countries, have great privileges and liberties; and these were very rightfully [given them], for the things of God should have greater honor than those of men.”

That is the spirit that was expressed by the mouth of Felipe II when he answered those who proposed to him the abandonment of these islands, in consideration of the few resources that the public treasury derived from them: “For the conversion of only one soul of those there, I would give all the treasures of the Indias, and were they not sufficient I would give most willingly whatever España yields. Under no consideration shall I abandon or discontinue to send preachers and ministers to give the light of the holy gospel to all and whatever provinces may be discovered, however poor, rude, and barren they may be, for the holy apostolic see has given to us and to our heirs the duty possessed by the apostles of publishing and preaching the gospel, which must be spread there and into an infinite number of kingdoms, taking them from the power of devils and giving them to know the true God, without any hope of temporal blessings.”

Duties of the government and of others in regard to religious interests in the islands. Consequently, those offenses that should be most prosecuted in Filipinas, and against which the government should prove especially active, are offenses against religion and against ecclesiastical persons, as such offenses are those which wound the greatest social welfare, and are most directly opposed to the fundamental obligation that España contracted on incorporating these islands with its crown. Hence, masonry, an anti-Catholic and anti-national society, ought not to be permitted, but punished severely; every propaganda against the dogmas, precepts, and institutions of our holy Mother, the Church, ought to be proscribed; outrages against the clergy and religious ought to be punished with greater rigor than when committed against any other class of persons, giving such outrages the character of sacrilege, which they positively possess; all, from the governor-general to the lowest dependent of the State, ought to exert themselves to demonstrate by their word and example, in public and in private, and without those conventional exteriorities of pure social form (a Catholicism that becomes naught but mere observance and courtesy, and which, unfortunately, abounds so widely), that they love and respect the Catholic religion, and that they esteem more the duties toward God and toward His holy Church that proceed from it, than any other duty and obligation, however exalted and respectable may be the institution that imposes it.

Hence the government of the nation and exalted authorities must be the first who ought to destroy, not only in their official, but in their private acts, and as politicians, authors, government employees, military men, in the different orders of social life, the ridiculous and contemptuous idea that free thought has sown against priests and religious, permitting themselves to talk of them in a tone that honors the clergy so little, and which when known by the elements of other inferior social classes, cause respect to the Catholic priest to become weakened daily, many judging that the religion of officials is frequently nothing more than a social hypocrisy and a practice of pure political convenience. Hence the government ought to very carefully see that all its personnel in the archipelago be sincere and earnest Catholics, in order that the sad spectacle may not be again seen, that we have so often and so prodigally witnessed, by which the chief ones, in opposing the apostolic labor of the religious corporations, are the very ones, who, inasmuch as they are functionaries of a Catholic state, ought to be those who support and strengthen it the most. Hence every association, assembly, or undertaking which is trying to sow here anti-religious or anti-clerical ideas, under any color or pretext, even the exercise of political rights, ought to be prevented at all hazards from having any representation or branch in these islands; and the previous censorship over every kind of book, pamphlet, and engraving that comes from outside, and over those which shall be published here, should be restored, or better said, strengthened. Hence, the close union of all the peninsular element here resident becomes more necessary, so that, all united for the protection of our divine religion, by all respected and obeyed, we may resist the enemies of the fatherland with greater force; may not by our discords give the rebel camp opportunity to gain strength; and as far as possible, may succeed in elevating the moral prestige, today, unfortunately fallen so low. Hence, likewise, is the great necessity of the disappearance in gubernatorial circles of an erroneous idea, most fatal and extremely disrespectful to the orders, which, propagated by sectarian spirits or by bad or lukewarm Catholics, seems now to be a postulate of many politicians in Madrid, and of the majority of peninsulars who come to this archipelago.

Infamous idea in regard to the importance of the orders and the manner in which they are generally regarded. We refer to the idea which began to spread after the revolution of ’68, which looks upon the religious of Filipinas as an evil necessity, as an archaic institution, with which differences must be composed for reasons of state; as a purely political resource, and a convenience to the nation, which cannot be substituted with others. That infamous idea, manifested at times frankly, and at times with reticence or with insinuations that cut more deeply than a knife, is known by our declared enemies. It is known by the natives of the country who have been in the Peninsula. It is known, because it has been propagated in newspapers and other products of the press that have penetrated the archipelago, by a vast number of natives, who, with having left Filipinas, are notably offended by it. All the peninsulars who make war on us, whether by anti-religious prejudices, by doctrinal compromise, by personal resentment, by flippancy, or by envy (for among all those classes do we have enemies) help to spread and propagate that idea throughout the islands.

From that idea many deduce the opinion that we are dragging out in this country an existence of pure compassion and condescension; that we are living here, tolerated and as if on alms, instead of honored and respected as any other institution of the mother-country; that in many ways, one would believe that we religious are less and have less value than the military, than the government employes, or than those of other professions and careers; and that with wonderful facility one imputes to us, as to the most abandoned and destitute, the blame for all the evils that afflict the country, governors and other representatives of the government and administration of the islands availing themselves of our name of obliged appeal, in order to evade and shun responsibilities, whenever any calamity comes upon them or whenever there is any unpleasant event to bewail in their conduct. For all, there is indulgence, for all, excuse, for all kindness and the eyes of charity. The epoch is one of adjustment and respect for all manner of extensions, although with the loss of morality and justice. Only in what concerns priests and religious must one look with contemptuous pride, with extreme rigor, and with despotic exaction. The religious has to pay it all; on him must all the blame be cast; to him belong the feelings of anger, the aversions, the censures, the expressions of contempt. We appear, your Excellency, to be only the anima vilis[35] of the archipelago.

It is evident that we, as the priestly and religious class, and as a Spanish corporation, cannot in any manner consent to this humiliating position, which, as private persons, obliged to greater perfection than the generality of Christians, we endure patiently, remembering the words of the apostle “tamquam purgamenta hujus mundi facti sumus omnium peripsema usque adhuc,”[36] and of which we would not speak if the evil were restricted to one of so many annoyances annexed to our ministry; so much the more as we unfortunately see that that injurious and erroneous idea is greatly injuring our ministry, and is daily causing our influence among the people who are entrusted to us to become lessened, since they are assailed strongly and tenaciously by all the disturbing agents that have caused the insurrection.

Respect that they merit as religious and as Spaniards. The religious corporations ought to be greatly honored and distinguished (and it grieves us deeply, your Excellency, to have to speak of these things): firstly, because their individual members are adorned with the priestly character, which is the greatest honor and dignity among Christians that men can have; secondly, because their apostolic mission has here propagated and preserves the splendors of Catholicism. They are priests and they are religious: thus they unite the two devices that inspire the greatest veneration among any society, which feels some needs superior to the material, or those of their proud reason divorced from Jesus Christ.

Not less respect do they merit in their character as Spanish entities. Besides being here ministers of the official religion, they are public ecclesiastical persons, recognized by the state. They live under its safeguard, as do the military and civil entities. They have labored, and are laboring, for the fatherland, at least as much as any other class of Spaniards residing in the archipelago. And in the point of intelligence, within their respective profession and of morality and private and civic virtues, they rise not only collectively, but individually, to so great a height as the class that is considered the most high and reputable in the archipelago.

There is one most special reason and one of extraordinary importance which demands that that respect should be sanctioned by the laws and supported by customs, namely, that the religious in his respective duties, becomes, as a general rule, the only peninsular, and, therefore, the only representative of the mother-country in the majority of the Filipino villages. Consequently, Spanish prestige is greatly interested in that he be the object of such considerations and guaranties that these inhabitants far from seeing, as unfortunately they have not a few times seen, that he is despised and humbled, be daily more fortified in the traditional idea that their cura or missionary is, at once the minister of God and the representative of España, a lofty idea that has redounded, and redounds, so greatly to the favor of the mother-country, and says so much in honor of all the Spanish entities.

We came to the archipelago through our love to religion and España, and have remained in it more than three centuries, ready to continue here so long as conscience does not dictate the contrary to us. Gross temporal considerations do not move us, nor sentiments of pride and of mere personal dignity. In the fulfilment of our duties, we have striven to attain even sacrifice and by the grace of God, we shall continue the sacrifice. A good proof of this is offered the impartial critic by the present epoch of rebellions and insurrections. The cura and missionaries, in spite of persuasions that they were putting their lives in great danger by the continual plots of the ferocious Katipunan, have steadfastly maintained themselves in their posts, foreseeing that if they abandoned their parishioners, a general rising of the islands was almost certain. This procedure, if not heroic, is sufficiently near it, and has cost us many victims, snatching away our dearest brethren from us, some treacherously assassinated and others immolated by reckless mobs seduced by filibusters and masons. And although this sad sacrifice has seemingly not been bewailed and appreciated, as perhaps it ought to be by the loyal sons of España, we trust that God, the compassionate and generous remunerator of every good deed, will in His infinite mercy, receive it as a propitiation for the evils of this unfortunate country, and will have rewarded the martyrs of religion and of the fatherland.

Character and objects of this exposition. May the nation, government, and your Excellency, pardon this slight extension of our sentiments of dignity, offended as religious and as Spaniards. This is not a memorial of merits and services, since we have never solicited applause or recompense, which never constitute the lever of our labors. Neither is it a panegyric, which we are not called upon to make, and which we do not believe is wanting, since the history of the religious corporations of Filipinas detaches itself so patiently and cleanly in all kinds of just and upright progress. It contains some apologetic matter and much of most sensible complaint because of the unjustifiable injuries that almost daily are received by us. It is the weak expression of the profound bitterness that seizes upon us at contemplating and viewing from anear the condition of vast disturbance in which this beautiful portion of the fatherland finds itself. With the utmost respect and submission, laying aside absolutely whatever proceeds from political parties and much more from private persons, it tells the government with Christian simplicity and synthetically that it should adopt and maintain a perfectly logical criterion with regard to the religious corporations of Filipinas; and that, therefore, if it thinks, as is just and decorous, that we, the religious corporations, exercise a most lofty and necessary mission in the archipelago, honorable and worthy of the greatest consideration, of its own accord and without utilitarian considerations and false reasons of state, it so manifest clearly and with nobility, making a beginning by giving a practical example of that in its laws and decrees, and in its instructions to the authorities of these islands, and that it do not allow us to be annoyed or insulted; and so much the more since being weak and helpless, and bound as we are by religious weakness and patience, we have no other means of defense than our right and the protection of the good, and we can never appeal to the means of repression and influence to which we allude in the beginning of this expository statement.

But if the government, on the contrary, by an error that we would respect, not without qualifying it, in our humble judgment, as most fatal to the interests of religion and the fatherland, should believe that the religious have terminated their traditional mission here, let it also have the frankness to say so. We shall listen to its resolution calmly. But let it not imagine, in adopting measures which, attaching, although without claiming it, the privileges of the Church, our profession as priests and regulars, and our honor as refined Spaniards, that in practice it might appear that it was trying to burn one candle to Christ and another to Belial, that it was trying to please masons and Catholics, good patriots and separatists, by placing the orders in a so graceless situation that they might become like the mouthful that was thrown into the jaws of the wild beast in order to silence its roars for the time being.

Synthesis of the same. Such would happen if the secularization of the regular ministries; the secularization of education; the disamortization of the property of the corporations, or the expression of the liberty that belongs to them to enjoy and dispose of them; the declaration of the tolerance of worship; the establishment of civil marriage; the permission of every kind of association; and the liberty of the press became law. Such would happen, in what more directly concerns us, if the government continuing here and there its campaign against us, unjustifiable from every point of view, were to show by its acts that it actually conceives that we have been the cause of the insurrection, and that we are opposed to the progress of these islands, and to the unfolding of their legitimate aspirations. Such would happen, if the government, failing to rigorously prosecute secret societies, and to effectively correct the seditious ones who are exciting the ignorant masses of the people against the regulars and against all that is most holy and Spanish in the islands, should desire the religious to continue in their ministries, liable at any moment to be sacrificed, as is the terrible watchword of the sect, and which has already unfortunately occurred, without, perhaps, their having even the consolation that those sacrifices are appreciated.

If we religious are to continue to be of use in the islands to religion and España, no one can have any doubt that it must be by thoroughly guarantying our persons, our prestige, and our ministry, it must be by knowing that the fatherland appreciates and treats us as its sons, and that it must not abandon us as an object of derision to our enemies, and as victims to the rancor of masonry and separatism. Martyrdom does not terrify us, but only honors us, although we do not consider ourselves worthy of so holy an honor: but we do not desire to die as if criminals, enveloped with the censures of friends and enemies, and perhaps, abandoned and despised by those who ought to protect and esteem us.

That is the extremely gloomy and graceless situation in which the orders find themselves, especially since the beginning of the Tagárog insurrection, and above all, since the extension of the Katipunan, a situation that threatens to become worse, if the government becomes the echo of the filibusters, of the masons, of the radical elements, which, it seems, have conspired together to give the finishing stroke to the great social-religious edifice, raised in these islands by Catholic España.

By that no one should be surprised that we religious, placed in so imminent a peril, desirous of not offering abstracts to the policy of any government, and of avoiding the censure that we are the cause of the evils of the country and the bar to its progress, should choose the abandonment of our ministries, exile, and expatriation, in preference to our continuance in the islands in a situation, which, if prolonged for a longer time, will result as decidedly dishonoring to our class, and would make our permanence in the archipelago unfruitful.

We have fulfilled our duty here as good men; such is our firm conviction. Should we go elsewhere, there, by the grace of God, we shall also be able to fulfil our duty. And for that result, the holy see, if contrary to all our just expectations, it cannot succeed in making itself heard by the Spanish nation, will not deny us the opportune permission.

Fortunately, we have trust in the noble sentiments and deeply-rooted Catholicism of her Majesty, the queen regent; we trust in the devotion and patriotism of the ministers of the crown; we trust in the sensible opinion shared by the majority of the Spanish people; we trust in the intelligence and spirit of justice of the Catholic minister of the colonies; and we trust that, after listening to the most dignified prelates of these islands, and after taking into consideration the prescriptions of natural and canonical law, the exalted advantages of the fatherland in these regions, and the undeniable services that the religious orders in Filipinas have contributed, no resolution contrary to the teachings and precepts of our holy Mother, the Church, will be adopted, and which is contrary to the prestige of the regular clergy, but that, on the contrary, the Catholic institutions of this archipelago will be once more affirmed and strengthened, as is imposed by both religion and the fatherland.

In this confidence, and reiterating our traditional adhesion to the throne, and to its institutions, we conclude, praying God for the prosperity and new progress of the monarchy, for the health of his Majesty, the king, and of her Majesty, the queen regent (whom may God preserve), and for prudence of the Cortes and the government in their resolutions, and very especially for your Excellency, whose life may God preserve many years.[37]

Manila, April 21, 1898. Your Excellency.

Fray Manuel Gutierrez, provincial of the Augustinians.

Fray Gilberto Martin, commissary-provincial of the Franciscans.

Fray Francisco Ayarra, provincial of the Recollects.

Fray Cándido Garcia Valles, vice-provincial of the Dominicans.

Pio Pí, S.J., superior of the mission of the Society of Jesus.

Notice. Because of the impossibility, due to the length of this exposition, of drawing up the copies necessary for the archives of each corporation, it has been agreed by the respective superiors, to print an edition of fifty copies, ten for each corporation, which are destined for the purpose stated above.

Collated faithfully with its original, and to be considered throughout as an authentic text. In affirmation of which, as secretary of my corporation and by the order of my prelate, I sign and seal the present copy in Manila, April 21, 1898.

Fray Francisco Sadaba Del Carmen, secretary-provincial of the Recollects.[38]

There is a seal that says: “Provincialate of the Recollects.”

---

[1] This was Fernando Primo de Rivera, whose term ended April 11, 1898. [↑]

[2] The Consejo de Ministros is the council formed by the ministers of the various departments, in order to discuss the most important and arduous matters, or for the purpose of working harmoniously in the discharge of their respective duties. The sovereign presides, or the minister chosen as chief of the cabinet, who is called president of the Council of Ministers. These councils are ordinary and extraordinary, according as they are held periodically or when demanded by circumstances. Thus the meetings of the council are analogous to those of the cabinet of the United States. See Dic. encic. Hisp.-Amer., v, p. 823. [↑]

[3] i.e., “Dumb dogs not able to bark,” a portion of [ Isaias lvi, 10]. [↑]

[4] The Spanish Cortes is made up of the Senate (Senado) and the congress (congreso), and in them, together with the king, resides the legislative power, according to the constitution of 1876. The present Cortes is the outgrowth of the Cortes formerly assembled by the king before the adoption of the constitution, or rather it is the substitute that has supplanted them; for the inherent principle today is that sovereignty resides in the nation instead of the king. See Dic. encic. Hisp.-Amer., v, pp. 1166, 1167. [↑]

[5] See ante, pp. 195–201. See also North American Review, August, 1901, “The Katipunan of the Philippines,” by Col. L. W. V. Kennon, p. 212; and Primo de Rivera’s Memorial. [↑]

[6] The original is carbonario, a word used to indicate the member of a secret society, or the society itself. It is from the Italian carbonaro, literally coal or charcoal dealer, and its origin is the secret political sect of Italy, formed early in the nineteenth century, with the avowed purpose of destroying tyranny and establishing freedom. [↑]

[7] The first Filipino freemason lodge in the Philippines was founded in Cavite about 1860 by two Spanish naval officers under the name of Luz Filipina. It was established under the auspices of the Gran Oriente Lusitana, and was in correspondence with the Portuguese lodges at Macao and Hong-Kong. Gradually other lodges were established and natives and mestizos were admitted to membership. The “Gran Oriente” of the text is the Spanish division of the order, Spain and Portugal having split into two divisions after 1860. It is claimed by Catholics that the Katipunan was the fighting branch of the masonic order. It is probably true that it borrowed some few things from freemasonry in matters of form, but there the analogy seems to end. For the friar viewpoint of masonry in Spain and the Philippines, see Navarro’s Algunos asuntos de actualidad (Madrid, 1897), pp. 221–277; and Pastells’s La masonización de Filipinas. Sawyer’s account (Inhabitants of the Philippines, pp. 79–81) is very inadequate. [↑]

[8] i.e., “It is better to die than to federate.” [↑]

[9] This passage ([1 Machabees, iii, 59]), reads in the English Douay version: “For it is better for us to die in battle, than to see the evils of our nation, and of the holies.” [↑]

[10] i.e., “As long as I am the apostle, I shall honour my ministry,” a portion of [ Romans, xi, 13]. [↑]

[11] In the Ayer collection is a document dated Manila, January 17, 1888, by one Candido Garcia, a native Filipino, an inhabitant of San Felipe Neri, in which he complains against the friar parish priest Gregorio Chagra, O.S.F., who has endeavored to have him deported as anti-Spanish. The reason of this is because Garcia had complained that the friar disobeyed the law in regard to burials as well as other laws. He also accuses the friars of not wishing to have the Filipinos learn Spanish, as they desire them to have no communication with Spaniards. He thus charges the friars with disobedience and disloyalty. [↑]

[12] A brief statement by the pope of errors condemned in 1864, and known under the title Syllabus errorum. It was appended to the encyclical Quanta cura, condemning eighty doctrines, which it calls “the principal errors of our times.” These heresies had all previously been pointed out by Pius IX in consistorial allocutions, and encyclical and other apostolic letters. It is a protest against atheism, materialism, and other forms of infidelity. It condemns religious and civil liberty, separation of Church and State, and preëminence of the Church of Rome. See Philip Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom (New York, 1877), i, pp. 128–134 and ii, pp. 213–233 (this last the Latin and English text of the Syllabus.) [↑]

[13] We have taken the reading of the English Douay version. Translated directly from the Spanish, this verse reads: “If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you will be blessed; for the honor, glory, and virtue of God, and His own spirit rest upon you.” [↑]

[14] Bartolomé de las Casas or Casaus, who was born in Sevilla in 1474, and died in Madrid, in July, 1569, and because of his great exertions for the Indians called the “apostle of the Indies.” Much has been written concerning this romantic and sincere character of early American history. He wrote various books, some of which have been published. Mr. Ayer of Chicago possesses one volume in MS. of his three-volume Historia general de Indias. This history (covering the years 1492–1520) was begun in 1527 and completed in 1559. [↑]

[15] Aguinaldo states that after he had been driven to the mountains in May, 1897, he established a republic. See North Amer. Rev., August, 1901, p. 212. See also the constitution of the so-called republic in Constitución política de la Republica Filipina promulgada el dia 22 de Enero de 1899 (1899). [↑]

[16] See ante, p. 176. [↑]

[17] This is [ Psalm 34] in the Douay version, but, as here, 35, in the Vulgate, and common English versions. [Psalm 9] in the Douay version is equivalent to 9 and 10 in the other versions. After verse 21 in the Douay version is the sub-head “Psalm according to the Hebrews,” and the following verses are numbered from unity. The Vulgate has the same heading, but regards the subject-matter as a new psalm. [↑]

[18] We follow the Douay version to the word “good” ([Psalm 34, 11, and part of 12]). The rest of the passage we translate directly, as it has no exact equivalent in this Psalm. The direct translation of the first two clauses of the Spanish is “Unjust witnesses have risen up, and charged me with things of which I am ignorant.” [↑]

[19] i.e., “Let another praise thee, and not thy own mouth,” the first half of [ Proverbs xxvii, 2]. [↑]

[20] In the Douay version this verse reads: “For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” [↑]

[21] The Douay version reads: “But we renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor adulterating the word of God; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience, in the sight of God.” The last clause above is evidently taken from [ 2 Cor. i, 12]. [↑]

[22] A reference to [ Matthew, v, 13–16]. [↑]

[23] The first reference is to [ Psalm cviii, 2] (Douay version) but [ cxix], common English version. The second reference is to [ 1 Peter, iii, 16]. Neither one is an exact quotation, and hence we translate directly. [↑]

[24] The cuadrilleros formerly acted as a police in the Philippines. (See VOL. XVII, p. 333.) The guardia civil or civil guard was created in imitation of the guardia civil of Spain (the most efficient body of police of that country, and analogous to the carabinieri of Italy) in 1869. (See Montero y Vidal, Historia general, iii, p. 494.) [↑]

[25] Or robbers. They generally went in bands and had their retreats in the woods and hills. [↑]

[26] See Col. L. W. V. Kennon’s article in the North Amer. Review, for August, 1901, “The Katipunan of the Philippines.” Many other writers speak of this society, but as yet no real authentic account of it has appeared, as we are still too near it. [↑]

[27] This was Governor Fernando Primo de Rivera y Sobremonte, who wrote a Memorial on his record in the Philippines, which was published at Madrid in 1898. [↑]

[28] A required paper of identification carried by the natives, and for which they were taxed. [↑]

[29] This was Pedro Alejandro Paterno. [↑]

[30] These three sections are as follows:

45. The entire direction of public schools, in which the youth of Christian states are educated, except (to a certain extent) in the case of episcopal seminaries, may and must pertain to the civil power, and belong to it so far that no other authority whatsoever shall be recognized as having any right to interfere in the discipline of the schools, the arrangement of the studies, the taking of degrees or the choice and approval of the teachers.

47. The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools open to the children of all classes, and, generally, all public institutes intended for instruction in letters and philosophy, and for conducting the education of the young, should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, government, and interference, and should be fully subject to the civil and political power, in conformity with the will of rulers and the prevalent opinions of the age.

48. This system of instructing youth, which consists in separating it from the Catholic faith and from the power of the Church, and in teaching exclusively, or at least primarily, the knowledge of natural things and the earthly ends of social life alone, may be approved by Catholics.

It must be understood that Pius IX condemns these three sections as the entire eighty of the Syllabus as errors or heresies. (See Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom, ii, pp. 224, 225.) [↑]

[31] This section or error is as follows:

53. The laws for the protection of religious establishments, and securing their rights and duties, ought to be abolished: nay, more, the civil government may lend its assistance to all who desire to quit the religious life they have undertaken, and break their vows. The government may also suppress religious orders, collegiate churches, and simple benefices, even those belonging to private patronage, and submit their goods and revenues to the administration and disposal of the civil power. (See Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom, ii, pp. 226, 227.) [↑]

[32] See VOL. LI, pp. 146, 147, note 103; and ante, pp. 83, 84, note 33. [↑]

[33] The Código de las siete partidas, so called because divided into seven parts, were compiled by Alfonso the Wise, the work of compilation beginning June 23, 1256, and being concluded probably in 1265. See Dic. encic. Hisp.-Amer., xiv, pp. 982, 983. [↑]

[34] See Synopsis and extracts of the instructions given to Legazpi in our VOL. II, pp. 89–100. [↑]

[35] i.e., “The offscouring;” literally “worthless soul.” [↑]

[36] i.e., “We are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all even until now,” the last part of 1 Cor., iv, 13. [↑]

[37] This Memorial is most inadequately published in the Rosary Magazine (a Dominican periodical) for 1900, by Ambrose Colman, O.P. It is translated only in part, the translation often being faulty and giving a wrong meaning, and translation and synopsis not always being sufficiently indicated. [↑]

[38] This “notice” does not appear in the copy printed (probably from one of the fifty copies) at the press of Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Rios, Madrid. [↑]