Conference
1. Whether in view of the writ of foundation of the college-university of Santo Tomás, which is enclosed, the ministry has the right to reorganize education therein, without taking account of the religious corporation of the Dominicans.
2. Whether, in case of a ministerial resolution, contrary to the native autonomy of the said college, the latter may offer opposition by legal means, and what would be the most efficacious method.
Decision
The foundation of the college of Santo Tomás, which seems to have been commenced under the advocacy of our Lady of the Rosary, in Manila, was ordained by a writ of April 28, 1611, before the notary of his Majesty, Juan Yllán, in order to observe the last will of the deceased archbishop, Fray Miguel de Benavides; and to the new institution were applied besides, the few resources which the latter left, and others also modest, which proceeded from the estates of Pablo Rodriguez de Aranjo and Anfrés de Hermosa. There were hopes that new liberalities would augment the capital of so useful a work. Its origin is, then, entirely private.
Section 1 of the said foundation spiritualized the properties and their future increases, so that use might be made of them under such concept for the ministry of the college, and the welfare of the souls of the three deceased testators, and of future benefactors. Section 2 entrusted the management to the then or future father provincial of the Order of Preachers of St. Dominic. Section 3 gave the government correction, and instruction of the college to the prior of the convent of that order in Manila. Section 4 allowed the provincial, as patron, to appoint the lecturers who were to give the instruction, and the workmen and helpers necessary for the good administration and for the temporal government, except that if any ecclesiastical or secular person were to endow the college with a large sum, the chapter of the province could give him the patronage, provided that he did not introduce any innovation, contrary to the authority of the father provincial in respect to the provision of lectures, or withdraw the college from the Order and province [of the Preachers], or deprive the prior of the management. Section 5 established that the arts and sciences should always be read and taught in the college by the religious of the province and Order [of the Preachers], and not by any other order, or by seculars. The same was true in regard to the religious pupils, and for the secular collegiates. Section 6 permitted the admission of bequests, gifts, and other aids weighted with charges of piety, which the convent was to fulfil and observe [levantaria]. Section 7 gave to the provincial chapter the power to make new rules and regulations, both in regard to the distribution and administration of the properties, and in what related to the ministry and instruction, and to appoint a rector. Those rules once made were not to be changed without the special authority and order of his Holiness. Section 10 says: “If at any time, any ecclesiastical or secular prince should try by act and right to exercise any power by way of patronage or in any other manner, in order to try to dispose of the properties and incomes of the said college, or to meddle with the administration and government of it, or hinder and disturb its effect in any way and manner whatever, and by means of any judge or powerful person, or by any other person who may do it, from that time and thenceforth, we apply the said properties and estates with which the said college is founded, and all the others which shall be augmented and applied, and which it shall receive in any manner, to the said province and to the religious of the said order, so that the latter may possess and enjoy as its own properties, acquired by just and right title, all of that property with the said houses and college, and their increases and improvements. We consider this foundation [under such circumstances] as null and void, and as if it had never been made. The said order is charged to be careful to say masses and other benefices and suffrages for the souls of the said archbishop and the others with whose alms and properties this foundation is begun, and all of those who, in the future, in any time and manner, shall leave and apply any other properties to it, so that by this way satisfaction may be given on the part of the said province, for the said alms, to the givers of those alms.”
Although the writ of 1611 does not indicate that its signers thought of it, the royal license was inexcusable. According to law i, título iii, book i, of Recopilación de las leyes de Indias, it was ordered from the time of Felipe II that permission should be petitioned before the building of a church, convent, or hospice, for the conversion and instruction of the natives, and the preaching of the holy gospel. Law ii of título vi, devoted especially to the royal patronage, ordered that no cathedral or parish church, monastery, hospital, or votive church, should be erected, instituted, founded, or constructed in any other pious or religious place, without the express permit of his Majesty. However, law xliii, of the same título, rules that when any person wishes to found a monastery, hospital, hermitage, church, or other pious and charitable work in Indias, from his own property, the will of the founders shall be observed, and the persons appointed and summoned shall have the patronage. The attributes of the royal patronage which declare that “our permission shall be received beforehand for whatever is needed,” shall always be reserved.
Royal permission, beyond any doubt, was obtained, although by an indirect method. For law liii, of título xxii, [book i] (which treats of universities and general and private studies in the Yndias) declares that “by the license of the ordinary and governor of the Filipinas Islands, and the decision of the royal Audiencia of those islands, the religious of the Order of St. Dominic in the city of Manila, founded a college where grammar, arts, and theology were read, in which they placed two religious of each branch, and twenty secular collegiates. Great gain resulted therefrom,” and it is ordered that for the present and so long as his Majesty orders no other thing, “the religious make use of the license which the governor gave them for the foundation.” That was not to be understood “to the prejudice of what was ordained in regard to similar foundations, so that they should not be instituted or commenced without express permission” from the king.
With such requirements, respect for the foundation is declared not only by the judicial force of the foundation itself, but also by the above-cited law xliii of título vi; for that respect is equally capable of being required from persons and authorities who are strange to the institution, and from the patrons, administrators, and ministers of the institution itself. The will of such patrons would have no power against the fundamental law whence proceeds their authority. Their end is to preserve and obey that law strictly, and to cause it to be respected by others without any change or violation of it by them. The admissible innovations in the institutions under discussion have the limit and form which were laid down by the foundation. Consequently, therefore, those innovations which might have been made in the patronage, in the administrative management, or in the academical order, provided that they respected that limit and observed the jurisdiction and formality laid down by the writ of 1611, could not be considered as violations, but as faithful applications of the peculiar law of the college.
The first part of the conference admits only the following categorical reply: “In the college-university, the ministry has no right to reorganize the instruction.” It has a right, beyond any doubt, to organize the public instruction in Manila, in the manner which it considers most adequate for obtaining the ends of the same. One of the fundamentals which it may adopt could be the elimination [as teachers] of the fathers of the said order. But that will not fall within the college whose foundation we have before us, and the funds and properties of the same cannot be applied totally or partially to the university or college which the government may erect in such manner.