If attention is given to the manner in which the archbishop took away the two mission villages of Tondo and Binondo [from the orders], it was done by forcibly breaking open the doors of those two churches, and surrounding them with soldiers and secular officials, who carried with them fetters, as if they went to arrest criminals or highwaymen. Similarly, on account of a fit of anger which he felt because two of these petitioners had embarked to come to seek redress from the Council, the reverend archbishop demanded and obtained a vessel, in which both ecclesiastical and secular officials set out to arrest the said religious. But as they could not reach the religious, as the ship had gained so much headway, the archbishop summoned the Portuguese captain of another ship, and commanded him, under penalty of major excommunication and a pecuniary fine, to secure the arrest of the said two religious at Batavia; and told him that if it should be necessary, he must demand aid from the governor there, who is a Dutch heretic—although afterward, it is said, the archbishop advised him not to do so.
Consider the manner in which the religious had to apply to his tribunal; in no case would he accept a document save through the hand of the ecclesiastical procurator of his secular court. On one occasion he allowed so short a time-limit that the holy religious orders were forced to go between twelve and one o’clock at night, knocking at the doors of several procurators, because one had excused himself on account of the stormy weather—and all this when there was no need of or risk in delay; and the reverend archbishop thus gave ground for even the laymen to say that he was abusing his authority in order to annoy the religious. And it is no wonder that laymen say this when the reverend archbishop himself writes (as it were, praising himself) that the regulars are almost exhausted and beside themselves at seeing how in so short a time he has, if not conquered them all, at least broken their courage to a great extent. But the religious orders desire for this prelate in the remembrance of posterity more praiseworthy sayings than this one which calls them exhausted by such means.
The reverend archbishop also writes to individuals who can have no voice in these matters, either of justice or government, in such manner that the religious find themselves compared to soldiers on horseback, and characterized as disobedient to both pontifical and royal laws; and of so bad lives and morals that, he says, if he had to make informatory reports regarding them there would not be enough paper in all China. If he writes thus to Europa, how will he talk there [in the islands] with his servants, intimate friends, and acquaintances?
Notice should be taken of the reprimand which through the influence of the reverend archbishop was given to the religious orders by your royal court of Manila, composed of four officials who are young men; it is perhaps the most angry and contemptuous which has been offered to religious in a Catholic tribunal. In regard to the decrees which were issued regarding this particular, by the bishop the delegate of his Holiness, it appears that by a royal decree the five provincials, the rectors of the colleges of Santo Tomas and San Jose, and two other religious, all grave persons, were summoned; and, having made them enter the hall, where your ministers were seated on their platforms, Licentiate Don Geronimo Barredo began to speak, as being the senior auditor; he talked to them, using vos, and impersonal terms that were very rude, although the royal sovereignty of your Majesty deigns to honor the provincials with the title of “very devout and venerable fathers.” He called them disturbers of the peace—as it were, the causes and authors of the disquieted condition of the commonwealth; he blamed them for aiding the reverend bishop the delegate of his Holiness, and for some of their subordinates performing the service of notaries to him. He threatened them, saying that even though they were exempt, yet your ministers could, with the administrative power which they hold from your Majesty, banish the religious from the islands. When he had ended his censure, he said, “Get out!” [Despejad]. The provincial of St. Augustine, with all courtesy and submission, asked from his Highness permission to say a word, but the said Don Geronimo Barredo refused it, repeating the words, “Get out!” Again the provincial urged, with all humility, that they hear him; and the reply of that same auditor was to ring his little bell, saying in a loud voice, “Get out! Get out!” Accordingly they made the religious go away, full of embarrassment, and without any further consolation than that of patience.
Such, Sire, was the civility with which that royal court treated all that assembly of religious, among them superiors so eminent, ignominy being offered to them where they should have encountered the honor which your Majesty, by a special law for the Indias, charges upon your officials and presidents, in order that the religious may thereby be encouraged to labor for the propagation of the faith. In order to stir up the community, a royal Audiencia takes action in appeals in obvious cases of which the Church, by law, disposes. To furnish notaries to a delegate of the pope (which was the same as to furnish them to the supreme pontiff) in those islands—when, as the secular priests were intimidated by the public decrees of the reverend archbishop, there was not one who would aid the delegate—this was an unseemly act of the religious orders, and cause why Catholic officials should reprimand them! And, finally, the hearing which justice does not deny to the worst criminals, was entirely barred to five holy religious orders, the anger of striplings foaming over on those so venerable gray hairs.
Your governor knew very well the unsuitableness of this action, and, either not liking the matter, or pretending to be ignorant of it, he was not present at that session; and with this sort of connivance the reverend archbishop succeeded with his designs, and the Audiencia with theirs, the religious orders paying for it all. Then if all that is mentioned in this second reason ends in the depreciation and public ridicule of the religious orders, left defenseless and wounded by the heads of the commonwealth, what idea will be formed of them by the Indians, mestizos, mulattoes, Cafres, and even those Spaniards who have little sense? Such people mould their opinion not by what they reason out, but by what they see; and when their eyes record so much contempt for the ministers of religion, the consequence is a low estimate of their teaching. On this account the religious offer their resignation of the mission villages, so that they may with better results care for others.
The third reason: Although the immunity of their property which the religious possess is a sacred thing, the reverend archbishop regards it in such a light, on account of their not having been subjected to his visitation, that they dread in the future greater losses and difficulties. The regulars had applied to the said reverend archbishop to forbid Licentiate Don Juan de Sierra, your auditor, from having judicial cognizance in regard to the lands of the religious orders, and from molesting them about this matter so much as he was doing—without any necessity, as he was merely a lay judge. That prelate issued a first and a second inhibitory letter, and, as the said Don Juan did not conform to them, the regulars again applied to the reverend archbishop to defend them. The latter had already explained his intentions with the religious orders, in order that the religious who were parish priests might allow themselves to be visited; and therefore he stated that, before his issuing the third command regarding their application, the religious orders must first answer whether or not they would submit to the said visitation. They replied, in the most peaceable manner, sometimes verbally, sometimes in writing, that they were resolved to give up the mission curacies rather than serve them in that manner; and they actually offered their resignations of those offices.
So much did the reverend archbishop resent this that the lands belonging to the religious orders, which thus far were privileged, on account of being ecclesiastical property, thereafter were not exempt. Those which on account of their immunity had deserved two inhibitory letters now deserved a decree revoking the said letters, the property remaining lay and profane, and subject to the secular jurisdiction. The religious were in the said decree canonized as rebels, contumacious, disobedient to the Church and to the reverend archbishop, and unworthy of his clemency. In this declaration the reverend archbishop excepted the lands of the nuns of Santa Clara, and those of the colleges of Santo Tomas and San Jose—the former, because they belonged to a convent of the utmost poverty; and the latter on account of the benefit to the public which their teaching caused.
From this it may be inferred, Sire, that the immunity and exemption of property which the religious possess must be, in the apprehension of the reverend archbishop, a quality removable ad nutum of his will and pleasure, but not permanent, [as it should be] according to the direction of the Apostolic See. It will follow that while this question is pending whether or not the religious will be parish priests by title, some of those very holdings possess sufficient spirituality of character for [the issue of] two inhibitory letters to the secular judge; and that when the religious refuse this mode of life that spiritual character becomes, by a sudden metamorphosis, profane secularity. It will follow that the crime of rebellion, disobedience to the Church, and ill-desert of kindness is incurred by the religious orders for not assuming a state and profession of life to which God does not call them, simply because the reverend archbishop desires that it be chosen. It will follow that to renounce the curacies is not to recognize the jurisdiction of the reverend archbishop, and accordingly this is not to recognize that of the pope or the authority of your Majesty, since he offers to resign his archbishopric. It will follow that, although your Majesty had made the assignment of the territories which with pontifical jurisdiction the religious administer and have thus far administered, for them to offer before your vice-patron their resignation of the said curacies—solely for the purpose that he who there represents your royal person may be acquainted with the fact of their renunciation of the said assignment—is, in the thought of the reverend archbishop, to grant spiritual jurisdiction to the secular governor, and consequently for the said religious to become heretics in many and important points.
And since the lands of the nuns of Santa Clara retain their immunity and are ranked as spiritual goods, on account of the extreme poverty of those servants of God, does the reverend archbishop regard that only as a physical lack of riches on their part, and no more? or as evangelical poverty which springs from the vow, institute, and profession of the life which they have chosen for Christ, and which the Apostolic See has approved? If the former, the religious frankly state that it is very alien to the ecclesiastical rules, by which the exemption and immunity ought to be measured. Otherwise, innumerable poor people, of those who are commonly called beggars[35] through the streets, would secure, on account of being equally destitute of goods with the said nuns of Santa Clara, or perhaps even more so, ecclesiastical exemption from secular judges for their furniture and petty possessions. If the reverend archbishop answers, “the second,” the religious also say, with entire confidence: “What authority is that of this prelate, that he should decide in an official utterance that there is evangelical poverty in the convent of Santa Clara, and not in the other mendicant religious orders? and that the lands of the said convent of Santa Clara enjoy exemption on account of their evangelical poverty and religious institute, while it may not be enjoyed for the same reason by the lands of the other religious orders, which are so distinguished, and are approved by the Church?”