Sources: The first of these documents is composed of several parts—the first, second, fourth, and fifth of which are obtained from the Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library), iv, pp. 107–115, 119–133, v, pp. 231–296, and iv, pp. 201–206, respectively; and the third from a contemporary MS. belonging to Edward E. Ayer. The second document is from Diaz’s Conquistas (Manila, 1890), pp. 440–444, 689–817; from a copy in the possession of James A. Robertson.
Translations: These are by Emma Helen Blair.
The Camacho Ecclesiastical Controversy, 1697–1700
News from Filipinas since July, 1697
With the arrival of his illustrious Lordship the archbishop, Doctor Don Diego Camacho y Avila,[1] were renewed the former claims for the subjection of the regulars to the visitation. He commenced at Tondo and Binondo, mission villages of the fathers of St. Dominic and St. Augustine, in which places he caused edicts to be read, and appointed secular priests as curas. They broke open the doors of the said two churches with axes; and on seeing this the provincials, all agreeing, presented their renunciation [of those mission fields], and ordered all their subordinates to withdraw from the doctrinas of these districts, Tagalos, Pampanga, Laguna, and Balayan. When it was so quickly seen that they were coming into retirement at Manila, [the ecclesiastical authorities] were obliged to desist from their purpose, after [having caused the religious] many annoyances.
Claim was made to the [right of] visitation of the hospitals of San Gabriel and San Lazaro, and the royal hospital. The Franciscans and the Dominicans concealed the keys, and the bishop had to desist, as greatly vexed as before. Auditor Don Juan de Sierra, in virtue of his commission for the adjustment of lands royal and unassigned,[2] cited the regulars to appear before him. He insisted on legal proceedings; but they, fortifying themselves with the censures of the bull De la Cena,[3] decrees 15 and 17, declined his jurisdiction. The judge proceeded to seize the possessions of the regulars; and they had recourse to the bishop, in order that he should declare that the auditor had incurred censure—asking him to defend the immunity of the said property of the regulars. His illustrious Lordship replied that first the regulars must submit to his visitation; they would not do this, and therefore, when they repeated their request, his illustrious Lordship declared that the secular judge was not committing fuerza.
In virtue of the decree of Gregory XIII, [issued] at the instance of Felipe II, relative to appeals from the Indians,[4] the regulars appealed to the delegate of Camarines, who sent letters to the archbishop requiring the latter to send him the documents [in the case], with [threats of] censures, and of deprivation ab ingresu eclesiæ [i.e., “of entrance into the church”]. Seeing that these orders were not obeyed, the regulars again appealed to the delegate, Don Fray Andres Gonzalez, who came in person. He demanded aid from the governor, and, meeting delays, proceeded to make the necessary notifications; then, not being able to obtain from the archbishop the acts from which appeal had been taken, the delegate posted him as having incurred excommunication, and added the threat that he would impose an interdict.
At the same time, the archbishop officiated publicly, and published the delegate as excommunicate. But, seeing that various scandals ensued, and that contests, not only with their hands but with stones and weapons, occurred between some clerics and regulars—some attempting to protect, and others to tear down, the writings and censures posted on the [church] doors by the delegate—the governor and other persons finally interposed, and an agreement was reached by the parties. The two prelates absolved each other ad invicem [i.e., in turn], in the presence of the governor; and, as Auditor Sierra desisted from his proceedings, the two prelates and the regulars continued to maintain harmony among themselves. In this condition, therefore, affairs remained; and, without proceeding to new acts or investigations, each party sent to España an account of what had been thus far done, in order to await the decision and sentence from the other side [of the world]. This was the attitude of the delegate and the superiors of the regulars; the archbishop, nevertheless, continued to bring suits against some regulars, whom he censured as agitators. Investigations in these cases were made, penalties of censure being imposed on the witnesses to secure their secrecy. The fact of this proceeding was, however, guessed; and the regulars, aided by the delegate, brought forward counter-information of their innocence. But as the case was not one for appeal, and did not belong to the delegate, it did not admit any recourse to him; so the delegate only caused his notary to give an official statement of this [attempt at] recourse, in order that the regulars might repair with it to España and Roma, and the generals of their orders, to relate these occurrences and the innocence of the religious—and, not least, to complain of the opposition and hindrances which had been employed here by the tribunals, both ecclesiastical and secular, against his use and exercise of the power delegated to him.
Even before the arrival of the said delegate, various other investigations had been secretly made in the archiepiscopal court—not only against the regulars at large (de vita et moribus [i.e., “in regard to their lives and morals”], and as to their trading and trafficking, etc.), but against certain individual religious. In these cases, the provincials had, according to their rights, demanded from the archbishop that he refrain from further proceedings and surrender to them the documents therein, since the said provincials were the legitimate superiors and judges of those religious; but this received scant attention. It had also previously occurred that the father minister of the hospital of San Gabriel (who is a Dominican) refused to allow the episcopal visitation, and the [arch]bishop had declared him incontinent, and posted him as excommunicate, without paying any attention to the appeal which that father immediately made. The said father minister amended his conduct, in time; but his name was left on the list of excommunicates until, upon the arrival of the delegate, the matter was settled and the censure laid on him was raised.