It is worthy of especial note that, despite the Antipolo parish having few parishioners, such is the devotion on the part of the towns toward the image of the Virgin venerated there, so great are the crowds who from even more remote provinces during the month of May repair to this celebrated shrine, and so many and so large are the largesses for masses ordered that this is considered the pearl of the curacies, one of the fattest parishes in all the Archipelago. So it is not at all to be wondered at that the secular clergy have especially regretted its loss, and there is good reason for asserting that the Royal Order of May 19th, 1864, is far from harmonizing with the order of September 10th, 1861.
Besides the facts above set forth, which have created and continued antagonism and animosity between the secular and regular clergy, it is necessary to add another for your Highness’ better understanding of the discontent of the native priests.
To fill a vacancy in the curacy of San Rafael, Bulacan Province, occasioned by the death of its parish priest, seventy days’ notice was given of a competition, the time expiring February 17th, 1868. The examinations were held in the manner prescribed by Pope Benedict XIV on the 21, 22 and 23rd, and seventeen candidates presented themselves. Their papers were already graded and the highest three eligibles selected to be certified to the Vice Royal Patron on March 2nd, but the day previous the Diocesan prelate received a communication from him transmitting a brief by the Provincial of the Augustinian arguing that the said curacy should be adjudged theirs.
I at once replied begging the Vice Royal Patron not to disturb the course of the competition because the secular clergy were already in possession of the curacy and the candidates had acquired a right to it by the holding of the competition while the objection had not been made at the proper time. This was to be without prejudice to later going fully into the claim raised by the Reverend Provincial, which turned upon the question of ownership. The reply denied this just petition on the ground that would prejudice the question grievously, conferring the right to possession with the title of ownership. I made clearly apparent the error which had been incurred, and received a reply that “the Vice Royal Patron was not in the habit of changing a decision once it had been decreed.”
The question of ownership resulted equally unsatisfactorily. To the case were attached the original canonical order for the creation issued in 1746 at the instance of the Vice Royal Patron and in conformity with the canonical custom and the laws of the Indies. Likewise there were submitted certified copies of the nomination of the parish priest who served the parish from the last named date to 1808, since which date as the Provincial admitted “it had been bestowed on competition and appointment by the Vice Royal Patron on secular priests.” Against its having been a canonical foundation, the most legal and strongest of claims, and to a continuous, undisturbed, unquestioned and clear possession for one hundred twenty years, the Provincial offered that his order had claimed the curacy within a few days of its establishment. He did in fact submit two documents which were written by the Provincial of San Juan de Dios, to which order the hacienda of San Rafael had belonged. But in one hundred and twenty-two years it had not been found convenient to push the claim, possibly because at first the curacy had only some eighty poverty-stricken natives, herders and laborers, while now it has over three thousand souls.
Likewise it was argued that since the Royal warrant of July 8th, 1826, monastic orders had been returned to their charges in the state and conditions they had when these were secularized by the Royal Warrant of December 11th, 1776, the curacy of San Rafael must be included because of the situation within the territory ceded to them. One must, however, remember that this curacy could not be secularized, because from its foundation it had been secular, and the two Royal warrants mentioned are not applicable except by making the laws retroactive, since the curacy was created thirty years before the Royal Warrant of 1776 was issued.
These arguments, with others of the weakest character, were set forth in a lengthy and hazy brief fathered by the Administrative Council, and as the Vice Royal Patron endorsed it without changing a letter, the matter was closed, because, although the undersigned petitioned the Vice Royal Patron to submit the case to the Supreme Government’s decision, enclosing an opinion from two attorneys, he could not gain this point and out of respect to the highest authority of the Island (whose prestige he has ever endeavored to sustain) he desisted from further effort. This result produced a real scandal among the native priests and greatly enhanced their grief over so great and repeated losses.
The chief cause of the obstacles which in every direction the clergy of the country encounter is a public sentiment in vogue for some years back, which unreasonably opposes having any native parish priest. Those who think thus entirely forget the facts, allowing their imagination to freely rove in the realm of imagination. Certain is it that if the ecclesiastical establishment of the Archipelago were being for the first time set up and it were possible to bring from Spain enough priests to attend to the spiritual needs of its populous parishes, scarcely would there be found a Spaniard of any intelligence to whom such an arrangement would not seem the politic course. But the question is not theoretic, on the contrary it is eminently practical, and before it is settled there is no escape from the previous examination of others which offer serious difficulties, for example, considering the present cooling of religious ardor, what likelihood is there of obtaining a considerable number of young men willing to abandon their home country and go to lend their services in spiritual ministrations in so distant a clime, especially one which is reputed bad for the health? Could the public treasury without difficulty meet the expenses necessary for establishing colleges and maintaining professors and students, and for fitting out and paying the fares of so many persons from the Peninsula to the Philippine Islands? And even if this offered no difficulty and putting aside present conditions, is there nothing to fear from keeping the native clergy in their present growing bitterness? Let anybody put himself in their place and reflect upon the series of measures heretofore mentioned and he cannot but recognize how enormous have been the damages they have suffered, and that those with which they are still threatened give over-sufficient and powerful motives that, notwithstanding their timidity, should change to hostility their former fidelity and respect for the Spaniards.
Formerly the native priests controlled the curacies of the provinces of Zambales, Bataan, and Pampanga. Of these they were dispossessed and when they felt that with the taking away of these parishes all their ills had ended, they received fresh, ruder shocks which renewed and inflamed the wound. Consequently it is no longer possible to characterise as class hatred their resentment against the friars, though that was the proper term while the natives attributed their ill fortune to the ambition and power of the monastic order. Now, after repeated proofs, they are convinced that the government is assisting the friars’ immoderate aspirations; and that in the opinion of these same priests of the country there has been adopted the policy of reducing them to insignificance, they pass over the ancient barrier, direct their glances higher, and what was formerly only hostility to the friars is changing into anti-Spanish sentiment. I do not hesitate to assert that if the Anglo-Americans or the English were to possess themselves of the Philippine Archipelago they surely would show the natives more consideration than they are receiving at the hands of the Spaniard. And so, Your Royal Highness, to escape an imaginary risk there is being created a real and true danger.
It will be readily understood that for the full carrying out of the Royal Order of September 10th there will have to elapse a period as long as that (from 1826 till the present) taken for completing the turning over of the curacies assigned the friars under the Royal Warrant before mentioned. And likewise it must be understood that as the resentment of the natives is renewed each time that they lose a curacy (as has just happened with the loss of Rosario parish in Batangas province and of Cavite of which the Recollects are going to take charge by way of compensation for the parish of Dapitan and Lubugan mission, which they relinquished to the Jesuit fathers last July) their hearts are filled with bitter grief, and so far from its finding any relief, it is embittered, as seeing themselves without any assistance at all while on the other hand the influence of their adversaries is increasing on every hand. It is more urgent to furnish prompt relief for their discontent and exasperation since if the effervescence which I noticed in them on my return from the Vatican council continues for any considerable length of time it will give an opportunity for the sentiments of the native clergy spreading among their parents, relatives, and the entire Filipino people, with whom they are in closer touch than are the friars, and so the evil might take on grave proportions.