The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 21 of 55. Unknown
Christoval de Santa Ana, preacher and commissary visitor of the discalced Franciscans of this province of San Gregorio, etc.: I declare that, as I have been informed that your Lordship intends to visit the missions and their ministers of the said my order in this archbishopric—which is not only an innovation, and a thing not done by the other archbishops, the predecessors of your most illustrious Lordship, but also contrary to the ordinance of the brief of his Holiness Pius V, despatched in Roma, March twenty-four, one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven, in which, notwithstanding the ordinance of the holy council of Trent, authority is given to the religious who are occupied in the conversion of, and preaching to, the Indians, to perform the office of curas and administer the holy sacraments, with subordination to the superiors of their order, and exemption from the bishops and ordinary judges—accordingly the said my order receives violence and injury from your Lordship’s endeavor.17
I petition and entreat you, in observance of the ordinance of his Holiness, to preserve the said ministers and the said my order in their exemption and privileges; if this be not done, I protest that I shall make use of the other powers conceded to my order by the apostolic see, and the remedies that belong to it by law. I petition justice, etc.
Fray Christoval de Santa Ana, commissary-visitor.
… His Lordship having seen the said petition and having noted the brief of his Holiness and its contents, declared: That besides that the said brief is revoked by a motu proprio of his Holiness Gregory XIII, under date of Roma, on the kalends of March, of the year five hundred and seventy-three, by which are revoked all concessions and privileges that his Holiness Pius V conceded to the religious of the mendicant orders, reducing them to the terms of the law and of the holy council of Trent, even in case that the brief of his Holiness Pius V, which has been read, is not comprehended in the said revocation, his Holiness Pius V did not make any innovation in the rulings of the holy council in regard to the religious who administer souls being immediately subject as far as such ministers are concerned, and in everything that pertains to the administration of sacraments, to the jurisdiction, visit, and correction of the bishop in whose diocese they minister. For, as is evident by the said brief, his Holiness was requested, at the instance of his Majesty, to be pleased to decree concerning as many things as had been ordered in the holy council of Trent; namely: first, that marriages should not be allowed to be celebrated except in the presence of the parish priest or by his permission; second, that the religious could not preach without the permission of the bishop; third, that they could not hear confessions without having been examined by the ordinary; fourth, that the bishops could erect new parishes in places very far apart.18
And in regard to the fact that the religious were exercising the duties of parish priests in the Yndias, it was necessary to provide relief in the above four things. His Holiness, in accordance with that petition and request, decides the first three points in favor of the said religious, so that, having been examined and approved by their superiors, in the form ordered by the said brief, the permission of the ordinaries was not necessary in order to exercise their offices; and then his Holiness, immediately providing for the fourth, orders that there be no innovation by the ordinaries in the custom followed before. Consequently, his Holiness decided in this regard that, if it were the custom before the council for the ordinaries to erect new parishes in the missions administered by the religious of the Yndias, his Holiness orders that that custom be retained; and if not, that there be no innovation; and that the said brief does not treat of other things. Consequently, his Lordship orders that the visitation that he has commenced be continued; and he made declaration to that effect through the interpreter, Christoval de Vera. Thus did he decree and order, and he affixed his signature.
[Father Fray Alonso de Valdemoro, definitor of the province of San Gregorio, was then president and minister of the mission and ministry of Dilao. In consequence of the aforesaid, the archbishop having ordered him to open the sacristy, in order to inspect the holy sacrament, and to examine the adornment that was there, he said that he could not do it. Notwithstanding that reply, the prelate ordered him once more to open the sacristy, where the most holy sacrament was kept, in order that he might proceed with the said visit, “which he was to obey immediately under penalty of the greater excommunication, latae sententiae ipso facto incurrenaa, and four years’ suspension from the office of the ministry of souls.” The father minister, having been informed of the act, insisted on his reply, basing his action on the pontifical privileges of his order. In respect to the royal decrees, he said that he was obeying them, but that it was necessary that they should be communicated to his own regular superior, who had the right of answering them; “and consequently, that in virtue of the said briefs, by which he is exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishops in regard to the ministry and visit that his Excellency intends to make; and by law, inasmuch as he is not the archbishop’s sheep or subject, the said excommunication … does not oblige or bind him. Accordingly, let his most illustrious Lordship determine that matter with his superior, whom the said father is bound to obey; and, while this matter is not clear, he does not consider as harmful the penalties and censures imposed by his Excellency. He affixed his signature, witnesses being Captain Gregorio de Galarça, Alférez Antonio de Viana, and Don Melchor de Valdes, and many other persons.
Thereupon the archbishop ordered his notary to read the act passed on the twenty-second of the same month, “in which is discussed the right of his Excellency to make this visitation. Together with it the archbishop ordered the clause of the brief of Gregory Fourteenth to be read and communicated to him, which treats of this visitation and the decrees of his Majesty which are in these acts, so that the said father should not pretend ignorance of it. Thus did he order, and he affixed his signature.
The definitor responded “that in consideration of the fact that when his Holiness concedes any indult, and orders any new mandate, he is seen to address himself, as is his constant custom, to the chief men, to whom it pertains to carry out any new mandate, the same law extends to the decrees sent by his Majesty, which are directed to the chief persons, to whom it pertains to answer the said decrees and mandates of his Holiness. Consequently, as it does not appear that his prelate and superior, to whom it pertains to receive and answer the said decrees and clauses of the said brief that have been communicated to him, has been notified of them; and as it is not apparent to him from the said reply: he cannot make any innovation until such time as the will of his superior, with whom those matters must be discussed, is known to him....”
Having received that reply, the archbishop “declared the said father, Fray Alonso de Valdemoro, to have incurred the penalty of greater excommunication and of suspension from his office as minister, which is imposed on him; and that, as such excommunicate, he was deprived of what excommunication deprives one; and in order that he might not allege or pretend ignorance, this declaration, stating that he has incurred the censures imposed, is to be read and communicated to him....”
Having heard the act, Father Valdemoro replied: “that, in consideration of the replies that he has given, and his protestation against the violence that his Excellency has exercised toward his order, and the lack of summons,19 which are an intrinsic right in excommunication, he does not consider himself as such excommunicate, until information has been given to his superior, as he has said, and in the meantime he does not consider himself injured....”
After the aforesaid, Father Valdemoro took part in a procession, in which the image of our Lady of Guidance was carried to the city, so that the Lord might be pleased, through her intervention, to bring safely to port the ships that were to anchor that year in Cavite from Acapulco. The ecclesiastical fiscal was informed of it, and he informed the provisor and vicar-general of it. At that time the latter was the canon and treasurer, Don Juan Cevicós. He ordered the father to leave the procession, and by the archbishop’s order he opened an official inquiry, in order to investigate the offense, and to punish it according
The passage of the brief referred to above, is as follows:
“We, therefore, who gladly favor the increase of Divine worship and the salvation of souls, especially since we have been petitioned by each of the Catholic kings, giving assent to them petitioning after this manner, do, by virtue of our apostolic authority, concede and grant license and authority, by the tenor of these presents, to all and singular, the religious of any, even the mendicant orders, living in monasteries of their orders in the said regions of the Indias (of the Ocean Sea), or outside of them, by the consent of their superiors, so that they may freely and legally use the license obtained from their superiors, as is declared in their provincial chapters, to exercise the office of parish priest in the villages of those regions, such office having been and being assigned to them by a similar license, in the celebration of marriages and in the administration of the ecclesiastical sacraments, as has been their wont hitherto (provided that they observe the form of the said council in other ceremonies); and to preach the word of God and hear confessions, as is declared, so long as those religious know the languages of those districts; and no other permission of the ordinaries of those places, or of any other persons, shall be necessary. And moreover, by the same authority and tenor, we decree and ordain that the said bishop shall make no innovation in the places of those regions where there are monasteries of religious who exercise the care of souls. So likewise [we decree and ordain] that it must be resolved and determined by any judges and commissaries, who exercise any authority whatever, delegated to them or to any one of them, to him determining and interpreting otherwise by virtue of any authority whatever; and we declare null and void whatever else shall be attempted in regard to these things, by anyone under any authority whatever.... Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, under the seal of the fisherman, March 23, 1567.”
See Pastells’s
The passage referred to above, which we translate from the original bull as given in Pastells’s
“Since, therefore, our predecessor Pope Pius V of happy memory, after hearing of the troubles which were said to have been inflicted on the friars of the mendicant orders by the ordinaries of the places and the rectors of ecclesiastical parishes in many ways, in regard to … the care of souls and the administration of the sacraments … not only decreed many things differently in certain of his letters to the said friars, but even those things that were recently decreed in regard to these things in the council of Trent, … we … decree and ordain concerning the said and concerning all other letters and regulations which emanated in any manner from the same predecessor concerning those matters to any orders and congregations of any regulars, including the mendicants, and concerning all and whatever is contained therein, that that regulation and decision, which was legal before the declaration of the said letters and regulations, whether by the ancient law, or by the holy decrees of the said council, or in any other way, be regarded as having force hereafter, and which they would have, had not those letters and regulations emanated, to which regulation and decision and to their former undiminished condition and limitation, we reduce them all.... Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord, 1572 [