Words of the instructions to Legaspi; of the laws of Partìdas;[33] of Felipe II. Thus was it commanded scores of times to the authorities of these islands, and in harmony with that legislation, in the instructions to the great Legaspi, it is expressly stated:
“You shall have special care in all the negotiations that you shall have with the natives of those districts to have with you some of the religious, both in order to make use of their good counsel, and so that the natives may recognize and understand the great consideration in which you hold them; for seeing that and the great reverence given them by the soldiers, they will also come to respect them. That will be very important, so that, when the religious impart to them the matters pertaining to our holy Catholic faith, they may give them full credit; since you know that his Majesty’s chiefest end is the salvation of the souls of those infidels. For that purpose, in whatever district, you shall take particular care to aid the said religious … so that, having learned the language, they may labor to bring the natives to the knowledge of our holy Catholic faith, convert them to it, and reduce them to the obedience and friendship of his Majesty.” (Colec. de Doc. Inéd. de Ultramar, ii, p. 188.)[34]
That is the genuinely Spanish spirit, the glory of the human race, and especially of Christianity, which caused our legislators to write in the Partidas (Partida i, tít. vi, law lxii, and tít. xi): “Laymen must honor and regard the clergy greatly, each one according to his rank and his dignity: firstly, because they are mediators between God and them; secondly, because by honoring them, they honor Holy Church, whose servants they are, and honor the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is their head, for they are called Christians. And this honor and this regard must be shown in three ways; in speech; in deed; and in counsel.” “The churches of the emperors, kings, and other seigniors of the countries, have great privileges and liberties; and these were very rightfully [given them], for the things of God should have greater honor than those of men.”
That is the spirit that was expressed by the mouth of Felipe II when he answered those who proposed to him the abandonment of these islands, in consideration of the few resources that the public treasury derived from them: “For the conversion of only one soul of those there, I would give all the treasures of the Indias, and were they not sufficient I would give most willingly whatever España yields. Under no consideration shall I abandon or discontinue to send preachers and ministers to give the light of the holy gospel to all and whatever provinces may be discovered, however poor, rude, and barren they may be, for the holy apostolic see has given to us and to our heirs the duty possessed by the apostles of publishing and preaching the gospel, which must be spread there and into an infinite number of kingdoms, taking them from the power of devils and giving them to know the true God, without any hope of temporal blessings.”
Duties of the government and of others in regard to religious interests in the islands. Consequently, those offenses that should be most prosecuted in Filipinas, and against which the government should prove especially active, are offenses against religion and against ecclesiastical persons, as such offenses are those which wound the greatest social welfare, and are most directly opposed to the fundamental obligation that España contracted on incorporating these islands with its crown. Hence, masonry, an anti-Catholic and anti-national society, ought not to be permitted, but punished severely; every propaganda against the dogmas, precepts, and institutions of our holy Mother, the Church, ought to be proscribed; outrages against the clergy and religious ought to be punished with greater rigor than when committed against any other class of persons, giving such outrages the character of sacrilege, which they positively possess; all, from the governor-general to the lowest dependent of the State, ought to exert themselves to demonstrate by their word and example, in public and in private, and without those conventional exteriorities of pure social form (a Catholicism that becomes naught but mere observance and courtesy, and which, unfortunately, abounds so widely), that they love and respect the Catholic religion, and that they esteem more the duties toward God and toward His holy Church that proceed from it, than any other duty and obligation, however exalted and respectable may be the institution that imposes it.
Hence the government of the nation and exalted authorities must be the first who ought to destroy, not only in their official, but in their private acts, and as politicians, authors, government employees, military men, in the different orders of social life, the ridiculous and contemptuous idea that free thought has sown against priests and religious, permitting themselves to talk of them in a tone that honors the clergy so little, and which when known by the elements of other inferior social classes, cause respect to the Catholic priest to become weakened daily, many judging that the religion of officials is frequently nothing more than a social hypocrisy and a practice of pure political convenience. Hence the government ought to very carefully see that all its personnel in the archipelago be sincere and earnest Catholics, in order that the sad spectacle may not be again seen, that we have so often and so prodigally witnessed, by which the chief ones, in opposing the apostolic labor of the religious corporations, are the very ones, who, inasmuch as they are functionaries of a Catholic state, ought to be those who support and strengthen it the most. Hence every association, assembly, or undertaking which is trying to sow here anti-religious or anti-clerical ideas, under any color or pretext, even the exercise of political rights, ought to be prevented at all hazards from having any representation or branch in these islands; and the previous censorship over every kind of book, pamphlet, and engraving that comes from outside, and over those which shall be published here, should be restored, or better said, strengthened. Hence, the close union of all the peninsular element here resident becomes more necessary, so that, all united for the protection of our divine religion, by all respected and obeyed, we may resist the enemies of the fatherland with greater force; may not by our discords give the rebel camp opportunity to gain strength; and as far as possible, may succeed in elevating the moral prestige, today, unfortunately fallen so low. Hence, likewise, is the great necessity of the disappearance in gubernatorial circles of an erroneous idea, most fatal and extremely disrespectful to the orders, which, propagated by sectarian spirits or by bad or lukewarm Catholics, seems now to be a postulate of many politicians in Madrid, and of the majority of peninsulars who come to this archipelago.
Infamous idea in regard to the importance of the orders and the manner in which they are generally regarded. We refer to the idea which began to spread after the revolution of ’68, which looks upon the religious of Filipinas as an evil necessity, as an archaic institution, with which differences must be composed for reasons of state; as a purely political resource, and a convenience to the nation, which cannot be substituted with others. That infamous idea, manifested at times frankly, and at times with reticence or with insinuations that cut more deeply than a knife, is known by our declared enemies. It is known by the natives of the country who have been in the Peninsula. It is known, because it has been propagated in newspapers and other products of the press that have penetrated the archipelago, by a vast number of natives, who, with having left Filipinas, are notably offended by it. All the peninsulars who make war on us, whether by anti-religious prejudices, by doctrinal compromise, by personal resentment, by flippancy, or by envy (for among all those classes do we have enemies) help to spread and propagate that idea throughout the islands.
From that idea many deduce the opinion that we are dragging out in this country an existence of pure compassion and condescension; that we are living here, tolerated and as if on alms, instead of honored and respected as any other institution of the mother-country; that in many ways, one would believe that we religious are less and have less value than the military, than the government employes, or than those of other professions and careers; and that with wonderful facility one imputes to us, as to the most abandoned and destitute, the blame for all the evils that afflict the country, governors and other representatives of the government and administration of the islands availing themselves of our name of obliged appeal, in order to evade and shun responsibilities, whenever any calamity comes upon them or whenever there is any unpleasant event to bewail in their conduct. For all, there is indulgence, for all, excuse, for all kindness and the eyes of charity. The epoch is one of adjustment and respect for all manner of extensions, although with the loss of morality and justice. Only in what concerns priests and religious must one look with contemptuous pride, with extreme rigor, and with despotic exaction. The religious has to pay it all; on him must all the blame be cast; to him belong the feelings of anger, the aversions, the censures, the expressions of contempt. We appear, your Excellency, to be only the anima vilis[35] of the archipelago.
It is evident that we, as the priestly and religious class, and as a Spanish corporation, cannot in any manner consent to this humiliating position, which, as private persons, obliged to greater perfection than the generality of Christians, we endure patiently, remembering the words of the apostle “tamquam purgamenta hujus mundi facti sumus omnium peripsema usque adhuc,”[36] and of which we would not speak if the evil were restricted to one of so many annoyances annexed to our ministry; so much the more as we unfortunately see that that injurious and erroneous idea is greatly injuring our ministry, and is daily causing our influence among the people who are entrusted to us to become lessened, since they are assailed strongly and tenaciously by all the disturbing agents that have caused the insurrection.
Respect that they merit as religious and as Spaniards. The religious corporations ought to be greatly honored and distinguished (and it grieves us deeply, your Excellency, to have to speak of these things): firstly, because their individual members are adorned with the priestly character, which is the greatest honor and dignity among Christians that men can have; secondly, because their apostolic mission has here propagated and preserves the splendors of Catholicism. They are priests and they are religious: thus they unite the two devices that inspire the greatest veneration among any society, which feels some needs superior to the material, or those of their proud reason divorced from Jesus Christ.