Upon the origin of so many storms in so short a space as eight months there was much gossip, with a variety [of opinions]. Some attributed the trouble to the influence of the bishop of La Puebla,[5] in whose palace the archbishop was a guest for several months; others to the promise that the latter had given, on leaving Nueva España, to various personages with whom he was intimate in La Puebla and Mexico, that he was coming to reduce the regulars of these islands to submission or else destroy them. Others blamed the bishop of La Puebla; for he had warned the archbishop, in order to render him firm, of the disparity of what had been accomplished there by Don Juan de Palafox—who met less resistance there because most of the regulars in Nueva España were natives of that country, while in Filipinas nearly all of them were born in other countries. Others (and these were the majority) blamed the senior auditor, Don Geronimo Barredo, because with little gratitude for the many thousands [of pesos obtained from the orders] as loans and gifts (although he had been so greatly benefited thereby), he had repaid the regulars by abandoning [them] to the two recently-arrived auditors, Don Francisco Guerruela and Don José Pabon. On the one hand, the Audiencia being inclined to the opposing side, the regulars were deprived of the recourse which they, as vassals, ought to have in the royal tribunal; and on the other, it was reported that the said senior auditor made exceedingly frequent visits, at unseasonable hours, to the archbishop’s palace, which were returned by that prelate at the auditor’s house. As the gossip ran, the auditor directed all the acts and proceedings of the archbishop’s court.
Still others, reflecting upon the governor and the limits of his term of office, regarded him as timorous, considering that, since the [commission to take the governor’s] residencia[6] had come to the said senior auditor in the year 97, the fear of the governor was occasioned by the apprehension that the auditor might do him some harm in his residencia. Some others (but only a few) attributed these many disturbances to the cousin of his illustrious Lordship, named Don Juan Camacho, for the sake of his own advantage; and on this account, knowing his disposition, people said that Master-of-camp Don Francisco Guerrero de Ardila had made strenuous efforts, and had even offered to his illustrious Lordship in Mexico considerable sums of money, to procure that, by sending this cousin[7] to Badajoz, his Lordship should not come to these islands with a companion who could not render his government peaceable.
Nor must I pass over in silence the fact that on the sixteenth day of May the royal Audiencia cited to appear in its hall all the five provincials, to whom—without the courteous observances and respectful address which his Majesty himself observes in his decrees—the Audiencia gave a severe reprimand, throwing on them the blame for the late disturbances, and treating them as violators of the peace. The most remarkable thing about this censure was, that it proceeded from the lips of that very senior auditor who, in especial, was regarded as the entire source of the disturbances; and, without permitting the provincials to speak, they were, with the same lack of respect, dismissed by this same official—who some day will have to give an account, before the tribunal of truth, of all these unjust acts.
By the end of the said month, under the compulsion of the threat made against the provincials, by the first, second, and third royal decrees, of banishment and [privation of their] secular incomes, the old-time writ of execution regarding the tithes was enforced, and the religious were obliged to obey. No hearing was given to their repeated protests, or the petitions interposed for the royal Council; nor to their allegations of their rights of prescription in these islands, of their apostolic privileges, of the fact that nearly all who minister here are regulars, and that they have come to these islands not at his Majesty’s expense only, but with the greater part of those expenses paid by the religious themselves.
The regulars petitioned for, and took measures to push, a demand upon the royal treasury for more than 300,000 pesos, the amount spent by the religious since the conquest; and another, for another 300,000, the amount which was due to them on account of stipends as religious teachers, which the government had failed to allow them for a period of more than a century—declaring that if these accounts were paid, they would pay the tithes which were claimed from them; but no hearing was given them. In hatred to the regulars, the tenants on their estates were compelled to pay tithes, the amount of these being deducted from the value of the rent-money.
Letter from Andres Gonzalez to the Pope
Most Holy Father:
After kissing with due submission the feet of your Holiness (whom may God preserve, for the prosperous government of His Church), in fulfilment of the obligations of my office as pastor I set forth to your Holiness a very serious controversy in regard to jurisdiction, which at this time has arisen between me and the very reverend archbishop of this city of Manila in these Filipinas Islands, Doctor Don Diego Camacho y Avila. I do so in order that your Holiness, as the person who is most interested in the peace and tranquillity of this church, may apply suitable remedy, and fix an end and limit to this controversy—the origin and course of which I will relate as briefly as possible, in all matters referring to the authentic copy of the acts which I send you with this.
To Licentiate Don Juan de Sierra Osorio, former auditor of this royal Audiencia, and at present judge of criminal cases in the Audiencia of Mejico, was subdelegated the cognizance and settlement of [questions relating to] the lands and possessions which, by sale or gift, have been alienated from the royal patrimony and dominion of our Catholic king and sovereign. In a proclamation which he issued he cited and summoned, with the rest of the holders of the said lands and possessions, the holy religious orders of these islands, ordering them to present, within the limit of one year, the titles, documents, and credentials which they hold for these lands—with the warning that if these papers were not presented by the end of that period the lands would be reunited to the crown. The superiors of the said religious orders, mindful of the immunity and exemption of their persons and worldly possessions, did not present their documents at the said time; therefore the said auditor actually proceeded to appropriate the said property. The said superiors had recourse to the said very reverend archbishop, asking him to forbid to the said auditor the cognizance of the said cause, and to protect the said property as being ecclesiastical. The said very reverend archbishop took up the matter, and, having drawn up acts, by his definitive sentence (which is found in the said authentic copy) refused ecclesiastical immunity to the said property. The said superiors appealed twice from the said sentence to me, as being the delegate of your Holiness in cases of appeal from this archbishopric, in virtue of a brief by his Holiness Gregory XIII—issued at the instance of our Catholic king Felipe II (whom may God keep). He denied them both these appeals; and, in order to place some limit to these proceedings, they presented themselves before me, with only the authentic official statement of this denial of the said appeals, in course of appeal from that sentence. Having admitted this appeal, in order to proceed to the trial of it I addressed to the said very reverend archbishop, from my episcopal see and city of Nueva Caceres, a compulsatory act in which, as the delegate of your Holiness with apostolic authority, I commanded him to order his secretary (before whom the said cause took place) within twenty-four hours to send me his original acts, or else to begin the copying of them and send it to me when completed. Considering the great distance which lies between this city of Nueva Caceres and that of Manila, the danger and expense of the journeys, the delay of the suit, and the injury to the party therein, I laid these commands on the said very reverend archbishop under the penalty of suspension from the priestly office, latæ sententiæ, and warned him of heavier and still heavier censures and penalties in case of his opposition and contumacy. He was notified of this act on the twentieth day of last March, by a religious of the Society of Jesus, to whom I gave commission for this office; for I had learned that no secular priest would dare to make this notification. The said very reverend archbishop, having heard the [reading of the] act, replied that the said father could not perform judicial acts in his archdiocese without presenting a warrant from his notary; and, even supposing that the father could thus act, he appealed from the said command—for which he implored the royal aid against fuerza, and demanded that an official statement be given him, and that meanwhile no detriment be caused him. When the statement was refused to him he again appealed, and threatened [to procure] royal aid against this fuerza; and this alone he gave as his reply, before the said notary—without giving any reason for his appeal, or reducing it to writing, or arguing it in the superior court[8] in legal form, or asking for apostolic letters, up to the present time. Nevertheless, he then had, and for twenty-three days had kept, the acts in his archives, as appears from a sworn statement by Lerma, the secretary of the royal Audiencia, which is sent with the documents. On that same day (March 20) and the following, he caused to be published and posted on the doors of the churches in this city two edicts against my authority as delegate—in which, with penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, he commanded (in the first edict) that no one, whether secular or regular, in his churches should permit the reading, publication, or posting of any edicts, or of any other kind of letters or bills whatsoever, except those of his provisor, or of the tribunals of the Holy Inquisition and the Crusade—as if my tribunal, jurisdiction, and authority, which is that of the supreme head of the Church, and resides in me, were inferior to those of the said provisor and the said tribunals. In the second edict, increasing the penalty of major excommunication with the reservation to himself [of absolution], he commanded that no one in his archiepiscopal territory should exercise any jurisdiction—whether ordinary, delegate, or subdelegate—even if it were from your Holiness, unless the originals of the bulls or despatches that he carried be first presented to his Lordship, in order that he might give them the license and fulfilment which by right they should have. But he does not consider that my bull and brief is, and has been for more than 140[9] years since the foundation of the bishoprics of these islands, current and put into practice in them, as also has been its free and independent exercise in this archiepiscopal territory. And I have exercised this freedom, on the only two occasions which have been presented to me—the first time, while the very reverend archbishop Don Fray Felipe Pardo was alive, and the second in the year 91—with the knowledge and approbation of the cabildo close by, sede vacante, both which are proved by authentic documents. These I do not send at this time, as they are in my archives in the city of Nueva Caceres, which is distant from this city of Manila sixty leguas; but I promise to send them at the first opportunity, which will be next year. Notwithstanding all this, the said very reverend archbishop published the said two edicts, endeavoring to impede and embarrass, by all possible measures, means, and ways, the said my jurisdiction as delegate, and to subordinate it to his own, in order that I should not exercise or avail myself of it, either in person or through intermediate persons. On account of this, the superiors of the said religious orders found themselves obliged to resort again to me; and they entreated me to come in person to this city of Manila, to defend my jurisdiction, and with it the ecclesiastical immunity of their property. I did so, notwithstanding my advanced age[10] and the painful infirmities that I suffer, since both these causes are so important a part of my responsibility and obligation. I came to this city on the twelfth day of the past month, May, and with my secretary went to a house on the river where the said very reverend archbishop was residing. After a short conversation, I begged him to be pleased to listen peaceably to an act of which I had come, as delegate of his Holiness, to notify him. I told him that this business should not be conducted more castrorum [i.e., in hostile manner], but that we should listen to each other, and each should state his rights. He agreed to this, and my secretary read the said act, which contains three points. In the first, I declared the said very reverend archbishop to be disobedient, rebellious, and contumacious, considering that he had not obeyed as he should the said my compulsory act, sent to him from the city of Nueva Caceres; likewise, I declared that he had incurred the penalty of suspension from the priestly office latæ sententiæ, under which I had commanded him to order his secretary within twenty-four hours to surrender the acts for which I had asked, or to make an authentic copy of them. And because he had exercised the said priestly office on Holy Thursday, consecrating the sacred oils; and on Holy Saturday, in conferring the higher orders of the ministry;[11] and likewise on other days, in saying mass while he was under suspension: I declared that he was under censure as irregular. In the second part of the said act, I again commanded him, under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, and of a fine of two thousand pesos to be applied according to law, to order his secretary within six days to deliver up the papers as aforesaid, or make an authentic copy of them. And in the third part, under penalty of being considered rebellious and contumacious, in order to place him under greater obligation, I prohibited to him in the interim the cognizance of this cause and legal proceeding therein. After the said very reverend archbishop had heard the act, he appealed from it, in writing, and on the following day brought this appeal into court. I did not on this account defer the declaration of the said censures, since the appeal was frivolous and useless; and I yielded in the matter of the copy of the documents only for the reason that he alleged, that the originals of these were in the Audiencia. After he had interposed the said appeal, he immediately ordered his secretary to notify me of an act by himself, in which he commanded me, under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, and a fine of 4,000 pesos, to depart instantly and without delay from this archdiocese, to go to reside in my own bishopric, and not to meddle with his jurisdiction. To this I replied that I had received this notification, and asked him to give me a copy of the said document, solely for the purpose of showing in what consisted his illegal and unwarranted act; and I took leave of him and returned to my house. On the following day, the thirteenth of the said month of May, the said very reverend archbishop sent his secretary to notify me of another act, in which also he again commanded me, under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, and of another 4,000 pesos, to depart within two days from the archdiocese. To this I replied that I had come [to Manila] on account of the appeal [made to me]; that I was a delegate of your Holiness, and moreover superior to the said very reverend archbishop, and as such I did not listen to his acts or censures. On the next day, the fourteenth of the said month of May, he sent to me notification of another act; and as I refused to listen to it, for the same reason as before, about two o’clock in the afternoon he posted on the doors of the churches, and in other public places, notices in which he declared me, to the great scandal of all this community, to be publicly excommunicated.