In almost all the Indias were being celebrated the masses which they call “masses for Christmas,”[100] mingling with them certain abuses which contaminated these masses with practices that were superstitious, and contrary to the holy rites of the church. These were tolerated under the cloak of devotion, and, although to some they appeared mischievous, they did not dare to rebuke these rites in public lest they excite against themselves the pious feelings of the common people, and as this matter was one of those which belong to the zeal and foresight of the ecclesiastical superiors. Finally the holy Congregation of Rites, in consequence of the representations made by zealous persons, on January 16 in the year 1677 declared the said “masses for Christmas” to be not only opposed to the rubrics, but also cause for scandals, and of superstitious nature, on account of certain ballads that were interwoven with them, and other like abuses. This decree of the Congregation arrived in these islands in the year eighty; acting in conformity thereto, the archbishop prohibited the said masses in his archbishopric. They were no longer celebrated while his illustrious Lordship lived, although afterward they were again established, but with some abatement—I know not whether it was so everywhere—of the abuses which formerly were customary. He also prohibited under severe penalties the practice of bringing sick persons to the church to receive holy communion by way of viaticum—a custom introduced into these islands from the infancy of their Christian faith. It had never been entirely uprooted, although ordinances against it had been issued by various zealous prelates in their decrees, and by our Catholic monarchs in their royal cedulas—commanding that the holy viaticum should be carried to the houses of the sick, even though they were poor and of low estate, as are the natives of these islands. And because the previous ordinances of the king our sovereign on this subject had not had the desired effect, his Majesty again repeated his commands in a royal decree of July 28, 1681, in which he charged our archbishop to banish this abuse, the custom of carrying the sick to the church to receive the holy viaticum, on account of the difficulties which might follow from it. In accordance with this, our archbishop promulgated an edict throughout his diocese, dated September 5, 1682, commanding that all the parish priests should carry the viaticum to the sick, without permitting them to be brought to the church; and although he received from the parish priests entreaties and arguments on this point, his illustrious Lordship did not listen to them, but courageously proceeded in his holy undertaking.
Besides those exceedingly just measures, at the instance of the royal Audiencia of these islands his illustrious Lordship promulgated an edict—which was affixed to the doors of the churches, with penalty of major excommunication—that all executors of wills must within two months present before his tribunal the said wills, which had not been inspected for fourteen years past; and so numerous were those that were presented—not to mention others dating back to forgotten times, which were not yet accomplished—that they gave him work sufficient for several years. He issued other edicts and monitory decrees in regard to the denunciation of various crimes, and so many of these were continually disclosed that soon the ecclesiastical tribunal was tilled with cases, and the numerous officials in its employ could not make room for the legal proceedings therein. Very scandalous lives were revealed, and criminal suits were begun; but these could not be prosecuted on account of appeals and subterfuges which caused delay.
He who attempts to correct abuses and scandals finds it necessary to equip himself with courage to meet the hostilities which he will encounter; for abuses which have already become inveterate, and scandals favored by indulgence, cannot be overcome without strenuous efforts and repeated conflicts. Such was the case of a certain prebend whom the predecessor of his illustrious Lordship had tried to correct, but had never been able to do so on account of the support that the delinquent received from a certain potent personage; accordingly the archbishop’s zeal contented itself with giving information of the whole matter to the king our sovereign—who issued on this matter a royal decree commanding the said archbishop to correct the scandalous acts of that prebend, without fear or regard for any power. As this royal decree arrived at Manila when the said archbishop was already dead, the king our sovereign despatched another decree to our archbishop-elect, Don Fray Felipe Pardo, very earnestly recommending to him the correction of the transgressions of the said prebend.[101] Notwithstanding the activity of our archbishop, he could not end the proceedings in this case for eight years, on account of the evasions of the culprit, and the protection that he found in the officials of the royal Audiencia, who at every step forbade our archbishop to take any further steps in the prosecution of the suits, thus preventing his holy zeal from successfully checking abuses and scandals.
This was made more plainly evident in the suit regarding another ecclesiastic, the cura of Bigan, against whom the provisor appointed by his illustrious Lordship (since the government of that bishopric pertained to him) began to institute proceedings in a criminal suit, in consequence of various denunciations and accusations. As the culprit was on intimate terms with one of the auditors, the latter managed the affair so dexterously that he caused the issue of a royal decree in which the royal Audiencia commanded the archbishop to remove thence [i.e., from Vigan] the said provisor and oblige him to reside in the city of Lalo all to the end that he should not proceed in the suit. This measure was ineffectual, on account of the reply and representations made by the archbishop; the provisor therefore proceeded in his suit. The delinquent, finding himself in a tight place, fled from Bigan and came to Manila; and, when he was arrested by the archbishop for this flight, he demanded to be released on bail—which his illustrious Lordship granted, by an act in which he designated the city as the prisoner’s bounds until his suit should be ended. The culprit consented to this, thanking his illustrious Lordship for this concession, and therewith submitting to his tribunal. Affairs being in this condition, there came [in 1680], with proprietary appointment as bishop-elect of Nueva Segovia, a prebend of this holy church, who was an intimate friend of the culprit; the latter, availing himself of this opportunity, undertook to shake off the yoke of his illustrious Lordship’s authority with an appeal to the new bishop-elect—who, desiring to shelter the other, demanded from the archbishop the acts [which he had issued]. As his illustrious Lordship did not choose to furnish these—as this suit was firmly established, by the consent of the delinquent himself, in his metropolitan tribunal—the new bishop had recourse to the royal Audiencia, asking them to command the archbishop to deliver the acts. In virtue of the representation made by the new bishop, a royal decree was despatched to Señor Pardo, in which he was commanded to deliver the said acts to the bishop of Nueva Segovia; his illustrious Lordship answered this by saying that the suit proceedings therein were already established in his own tribunal by the delinquent having accepted certain acts, and the law, therefore, afforded no occasion for removing this suit and the proceedings therein from the tribunal of the metropolitan, and restoring it to the culprit’s ordinary judge. His illustrious Lordship well knew that all these were frivolous measures of delay, so that the case might not reach the point of sentence, and the scandals should be left without restraint, accordingly, although the second and the third royal decrees on this matter were served upon him, he never consented to yield his rights, or to acquiesce in the illegal commands laid upon him. For this cause the officials of the royal Audiencia issued a fourth royal ordinance and decree, condemning our archbishop to exile; this sentence was not executed at the time, but with occasion of the new emergencies which afterward arose, it was enforced with severity in the following year.
Now that the archbishop was on bad terms with the royal Audiencia, it was easy for the subordinates of his illustrious Lordship to have recourse to this supreme tribunal in order to challenge the jurisdiction or appeal from the proceedings of the ecclesiastical judge; and therefore royal decrees were continually emanating, forbidding our archbishop to prosecute suits and proceedings, and commanding him to deliver up the documents regarding them—by which the course of the suits was hindered or delayed. His illustrious Lordship answered these requisitions with so much clearness and proof that the officials who issued them often considered themselves vanquished, and did not follow up their efforts; and although they resented what they called rebellion and audacity, they found his opposition so justified by law that they did not dare to condemn him for disobedience, no matter how much they chose to give his conduct this title to outsiders—for these tribunals are not accustomed to hear “no” to what they ordain in the name of the king our sovereign. And knowing that the greater force of the replies and representations of the archbishop depended on the assistance of the consultor, father Fray Raymundo Berart, they strove to separate the latter from his side, in order that his illustrious Lordship, destitute of this aid, might be reduced with more blind submission to the decrees and despatches of the royal Audiencia; and therefore that court issued a mandate demanding and requiring our archbishop to remove from his side Father Berart, and another to the same effect, addressed to our provincial, to assign that father to a ministry among the Indians. Suitable reply was made to both these decrees, without causing any change, for the time, in the aspect of affairs—until, a new occasion and emergency arising, they again insisted upon this point.
At the first foundation of Manila, only two parishes were formed for the Spaniards—one for those who lived within the walls, and another for those who lived outside the city, this latter being located in a place where at that time most of them were wont to live. Afterward that site appeared to them unsuitable for the conveniences of human life, and so they went to live in another part of the city, and even on the other side of the river which washes it. Consequently, they lived very far from their parish church, and suffered great inconvenience in attending it, because it was necessary for the administration of the sacraments that the parish priest should cross the entire city, or make the circuit of its walls, and finally he had to cross the river. As this often had to be done at night, and at other times with the risk of being drowned through the fury of the winds and waves, it was soon evident how great difficulty there must be in giving prompt aid to the sick—especially as the distance of the parish church was so great that many parishioners lived half a legua from it. On this account the burials also were solemnized with extreme inconvenience, and without the processional order which is the custom of the church. Besides this, it caused great confusion that the Spaniard who was owner of the house should belong to the said parish, and the servants, whether Indians or negroes, to that of the territory in which they happened to be. The Spaniards also were ashamed of having a parish church so poor and in so wretched a condition, for it was only a shelter of bamboos covered with nipa. For these reasons the parishioners had at various times asked that they might be joined to the parishes in which they lived; and now, on the occasion of a controversy which arose between the said cura and another parish priest over the question, to which of them belonged [the interment of] a deceased person, the Spaniards publicly appeared before the ordinary, asking that he would assign the parish churches according to the territories, in accordance with the custom throughout the church. When this request was considered by his illustrious Lordship, he gave information of it, and a copy of the petition, to the vice-patron, to whom this matter pertained by law. The governor showed this to the fiscal of his Majesty, who approved the desired change; and with this decision the governor decreed that the parishes should be divided according to the territories. He gave commission for this to his illustrious Lordship, who divided and allotted the parishes in the suburbs of Manila, with the system and order which are observed to this day declaring that to each parish church belonged all the persons who dwelt in its territory, whether Spaniards, Indians, or negroes.
Notwithstanding that this arrangement was in every way so judicious, and had been made by the order of the vice-patron, with the approval and advice of the auditor fiscal, the former cura of the Spaniards considered it an injury and injustice, casting the blame for it all on his illustrious Lordship; and, making common cause with the clergy, he continued to disturb and disquiet their minds, until finally the cabildo arrogated to itself authority, interposing a letter to his illustrious Lordship that was very offensive to his dignity, complaining of the severity of his government, in terms that libeled his uprightness, and other expressions that were very unbecoming and inappropriate to the dignity of a cabildo. Accordingly, for the sake of their reputation, his illustrious Lordship was not willing to make the document public, and he only showed it privately to the governor of these islands—who was deeply irritated at what they had done, and promised all his protection to the archbishop for correcting his prebends. The archbishop did not choose to avail himself of this aid, because he intended to bring them back to sober judgment by means of kindness and gentle treatment. He therefore replied to his cabildo with another pastoral letter, couched in affectionate terms, and full of learning and paternal affection in which he gently admonished them to recognize and correct their error. Again they wrote to his illustrious Lordship, in more submissive tone, although it was apparently only to pay him compliments; for almost on the same day they appeared before the royal Audiencia with another document, making complaint against their prelate of injuries, and saying that although they had represented these to his illustrious Lordship, he had not answered them to the point. The effect of this petition was, that the royal Audiencia issued new commands, not only to the archbishop but to the father provincial of this province, that father Fray Raymundo Berart (of whom the cabildo bitterly complained) must leave his association with his illustrious Lordship, and depart to the ministries among the Indians; this was carried out (at the instance of the father himself), in order to wreak the wrath of those who were in power. On this occasion the royal Audiencia also ordered that a secret investigation be made of the lives and conduct of our religious, commencing with the archbishop; and, although a beginning was made in the fabrication of this information, the plan soon fell through on account of another and public report which was made, by command of the archbishop, in favor of the religious—in which their reputation was so well vindicated by testimony that those who undertook to blacken it through the secret inquiry were left confounded and abashed.
All these occurrences that we have mentioned were preludes and omens of some outbreak; for the minds of the people were disquieted, and jealousy of the archbishop was plainly evident on the part, not only of the clergy, but of the secular government. They were eager for some fresh opportunity to arise for them to take extreme measures at once against the archbishop, or at least against the religious of this province. This soon occurred, in a sermon that was preached in the cathedral by a certain religious,[102] in which he explained moral principles that were pertinent to the disorders then prevailing. The auditors, who were present, began to resent this; and one of them urged the governor to send a message to his illustrious Lordship, asking him to order the preacher to leave the pulpit. The governor did so, in fact: but he himself assumed authority to do this, before his illustrious Lordship’s answer came, and ordered the preacher to stop his sermon, and proceed with mass—an act extremely injurious to the dignity of the archbishop, that in his own church, and before his eyes, the governor (a secular official, too) should interfere to give commands to the ministers of the church. But his illustrious Lordship was obliged to overlook this, in order not to cause greater disturbances or expose his episcopal dignity to the insults of those who had already, it appears, pronounced judgments in defiance of the courts of the church, and were only awaiting an opportunity to assail his jurisdiction and dignity. His illustrious Lordship did not choose to afford this to them, at that time, although zeal stimulated him to defend the honor of the mitre; for affairs were now in such condition that he would [by doing so] cause more injury than benefit.
Notwithstanding the tolerance and patience of the archbishop, on the second day after the sermon sentence was passed in the royal Audiencia, in accordance with the representations made by the ecclesiastical cabildo, against the preacher, condemning him to imprisonment and to banishment from these islands. This was carried out on the following day; Villalba was arrested in his convent of Binondoc and conveyed through the public streets, being finally placed on board a vessel, in which he was sent to a remote island until the time should come for embarking him for Nueva España. This was accomplished in due time, with great injury and hardship to that religious, and not less grief to the archbishop at seeing such dreadful disorders, and even his zeal powerless to remedy them; for these disturbances had now reached such a point, and his subordinates had now become so hard-hearted and rebellious, that they had already lost their dread of [committing] sacrilegious acts, and did not fear to lay violent hands on the persons of ecclesiastics and religious. Accordingly, foreseeing from these acts of violence that which might result to his own person if some new occasion should arise, his prudence caused him to prepare beforehand for what might occur in such an emergency, by an act which he drew up with the utmost secrecy, dated on the twenty-second of the same month of January in the year 1682. By this act he appointed, for any such occasion, as governor of the archbishopric the illustrious Don Fray Gines Barrientos, bishop of Troya and his own assistant; and made other arrangements—which were mild and reasonable, and worthy of his apostolic zeal, piety, and gentleness—that would tend to quiet the disturbances which would arise from any such act of violence, and to favor absolution from the censures which would necessarily be incurred by persons who should commit such acts of irreverence. All this was laid away and kept with great secrecy until the following year, in which occurred the imprisonment of the archbishop.
These melancholy events did not daunt the fervent courage of his illustrious Lordship; rather, with apostolic valor and zeal he proceeded in the correction of evil deeds, notwithstanding that he had reliable information that his case was already concluded in the royal Audiencia and sentence of banishment pronounced against him. He was continually menaced with the execution of this sentence, at every new difficulty which might arise—in this being like the great pastor Jesus Christ, who, the nearer He foresaw His arrest, so much the more freely rebuked vices. It is true that our archbishop in order to give place to wrath and avoid hostilities, judiciously dissimulated in some points which concerned his person or his privileges—for many were the incivilities shown to him at every turn by the members of his cabildo, who disregarded the customary forms of politeness toward him; and again, at critical moments in the controversies which arose between the governor and the archbishop, the latter tried to yield what was his right, or to overlook the lack of courtesy. But when offenses against God, or attacks on his church or his episcopal dignity, came in his way, his apostolic zeal did not allow him to overlook these—the more, as he was needed by the aggrieved party on account of points of justice intervening at the time. And of such character were the events which occurred in the course of this year, and were the final incentive to the acts of violence committed against his illustrious Lordship—his zealous attempt to restrain certain ecclesiastics from carrying on trade and traffic, to which they were greatly addicted and devoted, in contravention of the pontifical decrees, especially of a recent ordinance by Clement IX which prohibited the said commerce to ecclesiastics; and likewise his having endeavored to compel an executor to render an account of the estate which he had in his charge.