The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 21 of 55. Unknown
for souls in the said mission of Dilao, and the said offense is dependent on the visit which his said Excellency is making on him as such minister, inasmuch as he is, in that regard, under his Lordship’s jurisdiction and subject to him....”
The investigation ended on June 26 of the said year. In it the depositions were taken of Licentiate Juan de Arguijo, ecclesiastical fiscal of the archbishop; Don Alonso García de León, canon; Licentiate Jerónimo Rodriguez Luján, presbyter; Miguel Calderón, presbyter; and Alférez Francisco del Castillo, chief constable of the archbishop. The archbishop ordered that the father minister of Dilao be arrested, “and placed as a prisoner in one of the convents—that of St. Dominic, or St. Augustine, or the Society of Jesus, or St. Nicolas of the Recollects of this city—the one which the said father should select. That convent the archbishop assigns to him as a prison and place of confinement; and he is ordered not to break it under penalty of greater excommunication, latæ senteniæ ipso facto incurrenda, and suspension from active and passive vote for three years. And in order that the said imprisonment might be effective, and not be hindered by the religious of the said order, the royal aid shall be petitioned through this royal Audiencia, to whom it rightly belongs to give that aid, in order that they may fulfil the decrees of the holy council of Trent, and a royal decree given for this purpose, under date of San Lorenzo, November fourteen, six hundred and three, directed to this royal Audiencia, and another royal decree of the same date directed to the archbishop of these islands, in which they are ordered to make effectual the said visit, as such is advisable for the relief of the consciences of his Majesty and of the said archbishop....”
The Audiencia having been asked for aid on June 27, declared on July 4, that “there was no occasion at the present time for imparting to the archbishop of these islands the royal aid asked in his name....”
While the above was happening, one Sunday, June 26, papers were seen to be posted on the doors of the cathedral and convents of Manila. They were signed by father Fray Pedro de Muriel, by order of the judge conservator appointed to prevent the said visit. He was father Fray Tomás Villar, rector of the college of St. Dominic, by virtue of two briefs of Pius V: the first given March 24, 1567; and the second September 23, 1571 Universis et singulis venerabilibus fratribus. He had accepted his charge one day before the said posters were put up. In those posters, Don Juan Cevicós was declared to have incurred the excommunication of the canon si quis suadente diabolo, for having taken Father Valdemoro from the procession the twenty-fourth of the same month.
The matter being communicated to the archbishop, “he summoned the said conservator to immediately refrain from proceeding in the said causes, under penalty of incurring the penalties established by law; besides which he would proceed to punish the scandal caused in this community by his having affixed decrees in which the said provisor was said to be excommunicated.”
Father Villar replied, declaring his charge as apostolic judge conservator, and that, as such, “he must proceed in the said cause. Accordingly, he petitions and requests his Lordship to cease to proceed in the said visit, that he has intended to make in the said mission of Dilao; and that he send all that has been written and done to the said judge conservator; and if not, the latter will proceed to what is advisable, in accordance with law. In respect to the provisor, through his having incurred that contained in the said canon, si quis suadente, he ordered that he be proclaimed in the public parts of this city as excommunicated, so that all may know of it, and that no person remove, or cause to be removed, the said posters, under penalty of greater excommunication, ipso facto incurrenda … ”
In view of the aforesaid, and considering that the Audiencia gave no support to the archbishop, so that he might prosecute the said visit that he had begun, he insisted no further on it. But “so that the aforesaid might be apparent to his Majesty, and that the latter might provide what relief he pleased, the archbishop ordered—and he did so order—a testimony to be sent to the royal Council of the Yndias of all that had been done, and that the briefs mentioned in this act be sent also … ”
At the same time he wrote the following letter to his Majesty:]
Sire.
Finding myself obliged, both by the holy council of Trent and a brief of his Holiness Gregory Fourteenth, and by the restraining decrees of your Majesty, in regard to the visiting of the religious missionaries by the bishops—respecting curacies, and that they do not exercise such office without being examined beforehand in the language of the natives that they administer—I determined to carry out so holy mandates, from which so many blessings must result to the service of God and that of your Majesty. Accordingly, having declared my purpose to the superiors of the said orders, three months before beginning the said visit, by means of a letter or notification which I gave them, in which I cited the passages of the said holy council, the brief of his Holiness, and the decrees of your Majesty, they responded to me orally, saying that they had an indult from his Holiness, Pius Fifth, in order that they might not be visited in matters touching curas and ministers of souls; and that the bishops had no jurisdiction over their ministries. I began, in fulfilment of the aforesaid, the visitation on the twenty-fourth of the past month of June, at a ministry in charge of the Order of St. Francis, in the suburbs of Manila. Proceeding to the visit, I found so much resistance from the religious missionaries, both on reading the edict, and when I happened to request them to open the sacristy in order to inspect the casket of the most holy sacrament, that it was necessary to order that under censure, and that was not sufficient to make them agree to my request. Accordingly, I declared and announced that the minister of that mission was excommunicated. For the time being I contented myself with that effort, with which, in order to avoid scandal, I returned home, with the intention of asking aid from this royal Audiencia.
But the said minister regarded the ecclesiastical censures and his prelate as of so little moment, that his subsequent action was just as if he had not been excommunicated and denounced. In a general procession that this cathedral made to the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Guia, for the happy arrival of the ships that we were awaiting from Nueva España, in which were the royal Audiencia, cabildo, city, and orders—all aware of the event of the previous day, for even the most secret thing is known in a city so small—all were universally scandalized. Consequently, my provisor, in order to avoid that scandal, was obliged to order the said minister to leave the procession, and not to furnish the bad example that he was setting by showing contempt for ecclesiastical censures. As he refused to leave, the provisor removed him from the procession, ordering the fiscal of this archbishopric to follow him until he ejected him from the procession. As it was a matter that concerns, and is dependent on, the visit, all the orders were so angry over it that, speaking through the mouth of the Order of St. Francis, they elected as judge conservator a friar of St. Dominic, the rector of this college of Manila, in order to avoid any further attempts in the said visit to the ministries of the orders. The judge conservator, without informing me of any apostolic letter or brief of his Holiness pertaining to the said conservatorship, posted decrees next day in the churches and public places, declaring the said provisor as excommunicated and as fallen into the penalties of the clause si quis suadente Diabolo … I continued to prosecute the cause of the visit, and, having found the said minister guilty, I requested aid in order to proceed against him, and, until he should become obedient, to keep him confined in one of these convents of Manila.
The royal Audiencia voted that there was at present no occasion for the said aid. Thereupon I issued an act, in which I abandoned the visit until I could give an account to your Majesty—to whom I enclose a testimony of everything with this letter, and with it another testimony of the act of the royal Audiencia in regard to the case against my provisor, whom the judge conservator tried to arrest, and for which he requested aid, which the auditors refused him.
I have written your Majesty this relation in order to comply with your orders to inform you of what should be done in this, and so that you may see the freedom with which the religious proceed in this country, confident that they are the greatest part of the community; and that having, as they do, so great influence in all these provinces which they administer, they must succeed with whatever they undertake, even creating a judge conservator, contrary to the ruling of the holy council and the royal will of your Majesty. That is so true that they proclaimed in Manila that if the archbishop proceeded with the visit, they would place him on the list as excommunicated,