The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 21 of 55 / 1624 / 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

“Since, therefore, our predecessor Pope Pius V of happy memory, after hearing of the troubles which were said to have been inflicted on the friars of the mendicant orders by the ordinaries of the places and the rectors of ecclesiastical parishes in many ways, in regard to ... the care of souls and the administration of the sacraments ... not only decreed many things differently in certain of his letters to the said friars, but even those things that were recently decreed in regard to these things in the council of Trent, ... we ... decree and ordain concerning the said and concerning all other letters and regulations which emanated in any manner from the same predecessor concerning those matters to any orders and congregations of any regulars, including the mendicants, and concerning all and whatever is contained therein, that that regulation and decision, which was legal before the declaration of the said letters and regulations, whether by the ancient law, or by the holy decrees of the said council, or in any other way, be regarded as having force hereafter, and which they would have, had not those letters and regulations emanated, to which regulation and decision and to their former undiminished condition and limitation, we reduce them all.... Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord, 1572 [sic] on the kalends of March.”

[19] Monitoria: Summons issued by an ecclesiastical judge to command the personal appearance and deposition of a witness.

[20] The original of this letter is conserved in the Archivo general of Sevilla; its pressmark, “Cartas y expedientes del Arzobispo de Manila; años 1579–1697; est. 68, caj. I, leg. 32.”

[21] This document is obtained from Pastells’s Colin, iii, pp. 685, 686. The original decree is conserved in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla; its pressmark the same as that indicated in note 14, ante.

Conflict Between Civil and Religious Authorities

Case that happened in Manila in the year 1623, in regard to a fugitive who was taken from the church

Juan Soto de Vega, whom justice was prosecuting for having stolen a large sum of money from the ship which was coming from Mejico to Filipinas, had taken refuge in the asylum [sagrado] of the cathedral of Manila. Desirous of escaping from the prosecution of the secular tribunal, he tried to get to Eastern or Portuguese Yndia in the month of December. He begged permission from the provisor and vicar-general, Don Pedro Monrroy, that he might be taken from the cathedral and kept in the ecclesiastical prison; and they actually kept him there, but with guards and in confinement, until the Portuguese boats left for Yndia. Then they returned him to the cathedral, where he remained for the space of eight months, until an auditor took him violently from the church on the fifth of September, 1623, and took him to the public prison. There he, in company with another auditor, tortured Juan de la Vega until they broke his arm, which caused a great public scandal.

The provisor began to take steps in defense of the ecclesiastical immunity. He demanded the criminal, and publicly declared the auditors to be excommunicated, threatening to place them under interdict, unless they would return the prisoner to the church. After the time-limit had expired, the interdict was imposed. The auditors, on the other hand, despatched a letter and a second letter to the provisor charging him to lift the censures and interdict, under penalty of banishment and a fine of 2,000 ducados, unless he did that in the time-limit that they assigned him. As he did not fulfil the command, they despatched the court constable, with soldiers, to look for the provisor in order to arrest him. They registered all the house of the archbishop, and the house of the provisor himself, sequestered his goods, broke off the locks of the cupboards and writing-desks, and ransacked his papers, but did not find him, for he had hidden in the convent of the Augustinians.

The archbishop (against whom the proceedings were directed), seconded by the public opinion, which was contrary to the auditors, summoned Doctor Don Juan de Renteria, bishop of Nueva Segovia (who was then in Manila), and various religious, prebendaries, and lawyers, and assembled or formed a council to discuss what ought to be done in such a case. The opinion of all was that the auditors were legitimately excommunicated, and the interdict rightly imposed; and that the ecclesiastical immunity ought to be sustained, and satisfaction demanded for the scandal by returning the fugitive to the church.