Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

In the same manner that the audiencia performed the functions of a civil court, so did it exercise jurisdiction as a superior tribunal or court of appeal over prelates, church tribunals, and ecclesiastical judges. It will be our purpose in this chapter to determine the relations of the audiencia with the various ecclesiastical tribunals and to direct attention to the occasions on which it acted as a court, either with original or appellate jurisdiction in ecclesiastical cases.

In this particular phase of the investigation an effort will be made to distinguish between the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the audiencia and its acts relative to the royal patronage. Not only may this distinction be made for conveniences of discussion, but it will be readily seen that the character of the powers and jurisdiction exercised was widely different. When acting as a tribunal of appeal over prelates, provincials, and ecclesiastical courts the chief concern of the audiencia was the administration of justice. When acting in defense of the royal patronage, as noted in the preceding chapter, its authority was primarily executive and administrative, designed always to safeguard the interests of the civil government.

It will be our function in this chapter to determine the participation of the civil courts in these matters.

The power of intervention in ecclesiastical matters which was exercised by the civil tribunals was always a source of discord in the Philippines. The attitude of the churchmen on this question is well shown by a letter written January 20, 1688, by Fray Alonso Laudín, procurator in Madrid for the Franciscans of the Philippines, in protest against the encroachments of civil government. He wrote that

Laudín described the helplessness of the ecclesiastical judges and the ineffectiveness of their jurisdiction, circumscribed as it was by that of the civil magistrates. He stated that all the judicial acts of the ecclesiastical ordinaries were rendered null by the magistrates of the audiencia and that the ecclesiastical authorities were reduced to such a condition that they did not know where to turn for relief or remedy, as even the papal decrees were rendered ineffectual by the encroachments of the civil jurisdiction. He stated that “the ecclesiastical judges see in all this a meddling and interference with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which has always been allowed, but they cannot hereafter give fulfillment to the provisions of the audiencia, even at the risk of expulsion from their districts.” Laudín was of the opinion that the laws had been misinterpreted by the civil officials and that the king had never intended that the churchmen should be so entirely shorn of their powers. He concluded his appeal with the solicitation that such laws should be made as would determine the questions at issue and bring about harmony between church and state in the Islands. This should be done, he said, “in order that each may be caused to see clearly the duties and jurisdiction which belongs to him and that each may freely make use of his own powers and prerogatives, and thus avoid suits and other disagreements.”

In the treatment of cases of fuerza an informal judicial hearing was given; the spirit of the proceeding was supposed to be that of a harmonious investigation, in which both sides, ecclesiastical and civil, were mutually and equally concerned in the solution of a given problem, and in ascertaining wherein error had been committed. The object of this proceeding was said to be the furtherance of the interests of the crown, the salvation of souls and the spread of the benevolent influence of the church. That the spirit of peace and harmony failed to manifest itself at many of these investigations, is shown by the bitter contests which arose between the civil and ecclesiastical judges as results of the entertainment of the recurso de fuerza. The spiritual authorities alleged on these occasions that they regarded the restraining action of the government as presumption, unauthorized by ecclesiastical canons.

In the well-known Pardo controversy (1683–1689), references to which may be found in any history of the Philippines, there occurred many occasions on which the audiencia was obliged to avail itself of the recurso de fuerza. By this means the audiencia sought to restrain Archbishop Pardo from usurping the civil jurisdiction and that of the religious orders and of the metropolitan chapter. Interference with these orders was in violation of the royal patronage, the ultimate authority over them being the patron and not the archbishop. Such action, therefore, became a civil offense, punishable by the civil tribunals, the highest of which and the one properly equipped to deal with such cases, was the audiencia. It will be noted that Pardo paid the penalty of exile for repeatedly ignoring the audiencia and its right of interposition through the recurso de fuerza, and the subsequent ineffectiveness of the audiencia was due to reasons and conditions other than the decline of the authority and importance of the recurso de fuerza. This controversy which is more fully described in preceding chapters affords the best example extant of the operation of the recurso de fuerza, its nature and effects, hence the citation of minor cases is rendered unnecessary.

Examination of a large number of cases shows that the method by which the audiencia set aside excommunication was usually through an ultimate reliance on force. Nevertheless, taking three hundred years of the history of the Philippines into consideration, there were relatively few cases in which matters went so far that the audiencia actually had to use force, the case being usually that the judicial protest of the tribunal against an abuse of this kind was sufficient. Theoretically, any act of excommunication or interdict was suspended, ipso facto, by the intervention of the audiencia pending further investigation, and the prelate was required to abide by the decision of the tribunal.

Some reference should be made at this time to the abuses of the interdict by Archbishop Pardo. This prelate went so far as to place a ban upon the church of the Jesuits because it contained the dead body of an offending oidor. For reasons other than the lack of legal authority, the audiencia was powerless to restrain his censures at that time. On another occasion the audiencia and governor, by placing armed guards at the doors of the Dominican church and preventing the celebration of services therein, suppressed an interdict which had been issued through the influence of that order on behalf of Archbishop Pardo. Governor Bustamante claimed that he was acting in accordance with his own properly constituted authority in 1719, when he appointed his own audiencia, set aside repeated interdicts, penetrated the asylum of the church, arrested the archbishop and defied the entire ecclesiastical organization. He seems to have exceeded his powers no more flagrantly than did some of his predecessors under like circumstances; yet, for personal and political reasons, he was unable to count on the support of the other elements of the colony in this struggle with the ecclesiastical power and the battle ended disastrously for him. Acting-Governor Anda, relying on armed force alone, defended Manila against the British, achieved victory for his cause and secured the approbation of the king in the face of repeated ecclesiastical censures from Archbishop Rojo. These incidents, which occupy a prominent place in the history of the Philippines, illustrate the usual method by which ecclesiastical censures were set aside in actual practice, either by the audiencia or by the vicepatron, who was supported by the tribunal.

A list of the acts of aggression on the part of the commissary was submitted by the audiencia at this time. He had commuted a sentence pronounced by the tribunal and had excused various fines imposed by the tribunal, declaring publicly that it was not necessary to obey the acts of this body of lawyers. He had excommunicated all the magistrates of the audiencia, who remained for a long period without recourse and without the privileges of religious communion. He had interfered on behalf of an encomendero who was on trial before the audiencia. He had produced such a state of affairs that the impotence of the civil government was a subject of common jest, even in the mouths of the natives. The supporters of the government had been reduced to a panic of fear, not knowing where the wrath of the Inquisition would fall next. The commissary, on the other hand, had fortified himself with claims of immunity and had acted in defiance of royal and ecclesiastical law by erecting a tribunal of which he was the head, notwithstanding the fact that such an institution was forbidden in the Philippines. The audiencia presented this picture of affairs in its memorial, admitting its incapacity to cope with this powerful institution, whose acts were prepared and executed in secrecy. The evil situation for which he was responsible could only be repaired by an appeal to Mexico. Meanwhile the government and people in the Philippines were compelled to suffer the consequences of his assumption of authority.

In summarizing the results of the investigation with which this chapter has been concerned, it may be said that the audiencia constituted a court of appeal in ecclesiastical cases wherein the services of an impartial, non-ecclesiastical tribunal were required, or wherein the defense of the royal jurisdiction against the aggression of the churchmen was involved. In defending the civil government from ecclesiastical usurpation the audiencia acted in defense of the royal patronage. Nevertheless, in the cases noted, namely, in settling disputes between orders, between the secular church and the orders, between either of these and the civil government, in entertaining recursos de fuerza, in restraining the interdict, and the abuses of the Inquisition, the audiencia acted by judicial process as a tribunal of justice, and not in the capacity of an administrative committee or an executive agent, as in the cases which have been heretofore described.