And even though the superiors may order the religious to live in their missions with that subjection, it may be that they cannot obtain it by entreaty from them, and that the religious will excuse themselves by saying with St. Paul: Unusquisque enim in ea vocatione qua vocatus est permanet.[2] They may also say that they wish to persevere in the vocation to which they were called by God, and that they did not enter religion to recognize two superiors, one a regular and the other a secular, but rather one of their own profession—by whom they would willingly allow themselves to be visited, censured, and punished; but not by two distinct in profession. For if there are two superiors who are unequal in profession, it is quite possible that they will be at variance in the matters of orders and obedience; and that such subordinate may be in doubt without the power to help it lest obedience to one be an offense to the other. Consequently, placed between two extremes, he will come to obey the more powerful and to disobey his regular superior, who is the one from whom he can fear less.
And one might doubt whether the superior could impose on those who should be thus firm in their purpose the precept of obedience, so that they should subject themselves as curas to an ordinary and to tho choice of a governor. And if for the above reasons those who are zealous for their rules should be lacking in the provinces and ministries, the men who are less religious would become the mainstay of the provinces and would administer the missions—men whom neither ambition nor their slight attachment to the observance calls away [from the order]. Consequently, such men coming in time to rule the provinces and to possess the ministries in those islands, the end will be that there will be no religion, observance, or examples in them to invite the Indians, but only scandals by which they will stumble; for, as a foolish people, they embrace what they see rather than what they hear.
Besides the above, the orders fear lest the governors and the ordinaries will make use of that subjection to harass them, especially if by any accident some collision should occur between them and the authorities. For if the governor had the selection of the [religious of the] villages in his control, who could prevent him from removing or appointing whomever he wished, or choosing those whom he considered better for his own purposes and even molesting the good? For since all the houses with votes in those islands except the convents of Manila are doctrinas, he could place in them the men satisfactory to himself; and these would not fail him in the following provincial chapters in accepting from his hand a provincial who would be most advantageous to him, or most inclined to agree with him. Consequently, he would become absolute master of the monastic government of the orders. If the ordinaries wished to molest those religious whom they did not like, who could prevent them from fulminating penalties for the slightest causes? and this especially where the witnesses are Indians who would swear against their missionaries at any threat or for any profit, whatever the ministers or the visitors of the bishops wished.
It is well seen that all those troubles, so possible, would cease if the governors would govern according to the pious zeal and most Christian intention of his Majesty, and the ordinaries according to the obligation of their estate. But, nevertheless, in parts so distant and remote from the heart of the monarchy, not all the governors and ordinaries work in harmony. For even the good and those regarded as such in España are wont to become changed in the Yndias, and to act very differently from what was expected of them; for power and opportunity generally change the purposes and disorder the expectations of those who are by nature covetous, revengeful, or subject to other passions. What may not [therefore] be feared? On account of all those things the fears of the orders are not ill founded. Would that experience did not testify to all these possibilities. Since even without that subjection the governors and ordinaries are wont to give the regulars causes for merit for very slight causes, what would it be if they held the regulars as subjects and had absolute power to be able to punish them as criminals and to depose them as guilty?
If the regular superior should decide that he ought in conscience to remove any occasion for scandal, or one who was a discredit to his profession, in the case of any of his subjects; and it should be necessary for that reason to remove him from his mission: in such case, if he went to the governor to impart his purpose as he is obliged to do by the right of the royal patronage, the governor having heard the reasons would have a copy of the charges given to the party; and the suit having been brought to trial the defense might even manage with crafty pleas to frustrate the zeal of the superior. In such cases (which are quite ordinary where the said subjection to bishops and viceroys is allowed) the superior will come out disaccredited and justly angry, and the accused triumphant; for his evil conscience and the zeal of his prelate will put him on his guard, and he will be forewarned of each attack.
How many scandals will follow from this, and how many discords, edicts, and enmities! how many expenses in money, and how much bribing of witnesses and intercessors! both of servants and friends of the governors, who are usually benefited by religious of that sort. They are generally aided as much by cunning as by what they spend in order to succeed in their designs, without considering that they are trampling upon all the three essential vows of the estate which they profess—namely, poverty, obedience, and chastity.
Therefore, if the desires of his Majesty are that the regulars shall live in accordance with their own laws; that the natives of the Indias be well instructed; and that they be not molested by the officials of the two estates: the remedy for that is to leave the regulars to their observance without obliging them to become more subject than they have been hitherto. If this is either not advisable or cannot be done, it would be better for the orders that the secular clergy should administer those missions.
For how is it possible that such missionaries should not be covetous if they are inclined to that vice as an efficacious means to maintain themselves in their posts, to attain others that are larger and more wealthy, to defend themselves from the zeal of their prelates? Such will have the power of loading the Indians with pecuniary fines and of doubling the fees; and even perhaps there will not lack some who will avail themselves of trade and commerce to attain that end.
The subjection will result only in advantage to the governors and ordinaries, in trouble to the Indians (for the latter furnish the wealth of such ministers) and disservice to his Majesty; since it means the ruin of religious discipline. The Indians being harassed and the governors and ordinaries being interested parties, all contrary to his Majesty’s holy intent, the Indians will come to have disinclination instead of love to affairs of the faith and religion. And I dare affirm that Christians thus instructed will be Christians rather by force than in their hearts.
In no part of the Yndias can one more intelligently expect that the regulars will be strict of observance than in the Filipinas Islands; for all their missions, even those in the suburbs of Manila, are surrounded by heathen and Moros—Chinese, Japanese, Mindanaos, Joloans, and Borneans, and people of almost all the other kingdoms of the Orient whose conversion is so anxiously desired. For if those heathen and Moro nations, who have before their eyes the conduct of the Christians, come to observe it as not at all in accord with right, not only among the secular clergy but among the regulars—who are by their profession teachers of the law and are bound to furnish a good example as the rule of their observance—what would they think, or what notion would they form of it? It is learned from some mandarins of Great China who were converted to our holy faith because they saw in all the ministers of it for many years a conformity of morals that was regulated to natural law, that they prudently conclude therefrom that the law which taught such actions could not be other than true. If the Chinese and Japanese who live in those islands should see the evangelical ministers acting against all natural dictates, they would come to a contrary conclusion, for they have no greater arguments for belief than those which come through their eyes.