Don Manuel de Àperregui
[Six rubrics are added at the foot of this document, which appear to be those of the members of the Council.]
[1] At the end of this document appear the following memoranda relative to the archbishop’s voyage to the islands: “Archbishop Camacho embarked at Acapulco for Manila on March 30, 1697. The lading of the ship was made in great haste, because there was in Acapulco a fearful pestilence. Several died from this pest on the ship, within a few days—among whom were the fiscal of his Majesty, and a Jesuit and a Dominican. On the 19th of July they encountered a terrible storm, from which they escaped only through the intercession of St. Francisco Javier, a Jesuit, casting into the water an order of the saint in which he promised that they should have no [cause for] fear. On July 24, at three o’clock in the afternoon, they anchored in the port of Palapag, where they suffered from a baguio. On the eighth day of September, the archbishop made his public entry into Manila.”
[2] Spanish, realengos; “applied to the villages which are not held by seigniors or by the religious orders, and to lands belonging to the state” (Barcia).
Auditor Sierra held a commission from the court for legalizing the ownership of lands in Filipinas; and in the fulfilment of this charge he demanded from the friars the documents which justified their right to the magnificent estates of which they called themselves the owners.” (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, p. 385.)
[3] This bull was a papal sentence of excommunication formerly published against heretics every Holy (or Maundy) Thursday; for ages it was publicly read on that day, otherwise known as the feria quinta in Cœna Domini; hence its common title, as given in the text. The latest form which this bull assumed was given to it by Urban VIII in 1627; it is entitled, Pastoralis Romani pontificis vigilantia, and is divided into twenty sections or decrees. Of these, no. 15 censures such as usurp jurisdiction; it was, then, issued in the interests of liberty in court trials. No. 17 censures those who usurp church revenues, incomes, and the like; and it thus upheld the rights of ownership. This bull is no longer used; its periodical publication was discontinued after 1773, and it was suppressed by Pius IX (October 12, 1869), in force of his constitution, Apostolicæ Sedis, issued on that date.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.
[4] The decree here mentioned is dated May 15, 1572, and begins, Exposcit debitum pastoralis officii. In it provision is made for “appeals from the West Indias, and the islands of the Ocean Sea, subject to the king of Spain.” It orders that appeals be carried, first, from the bishop to the metropolitan; second, from the metropolitan to the next neighboring ordinary—that thus justice might be secured without delay or so heavy expense. Philip II had petitioned to this effect, that cases might be decided by two courts, and no appeal be admitted therefrom; hence the bull of Gregory to the king.
In this case, the appeal was from the metropolitan to the bishop of Camarines—who probably had been commissioned by the pope to act as delegate from an early period in his episcopal career, since he himself mentions (post) his having acted in that capacity in the time of Archbishop Pardo. In case of the nearest see being vacant, the official who acted as its head would be delegate for the time being, i.e. would be a vice-ordinary. Also, as those islands were too remote for sending thither delegates from Europe, except in extraordinary cases, the metropolitan of Manila might send a delegate to Camarines. The authority possessed by the delegate in appeal cases (as results from the bull of Gregory) would be definitive and final; he might overrule and even supersede the metropolitan, as being the judge in final appeal.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.
[5] Probably Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz, as he was bishop of Puebla in 1696 (Bancroft’s Mexico, iii, p. 256).