Note 34 — Chapter X · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ROYAL PATRONAGE

A great many reasons for removals were purely ecclesiastical, such as questions of the private lives and conduct of priests and friars and their insubordination and non-compliance with ecclesiastical or monastic rules. With these matters the audiencia did not concern itself unless deportation was involved, or the offenses of the priests constituted crimes against the civil government. There is record of many removals from curacies because of infractions of the marriage laws by priests, such, for instance, as uniting heathen Chinese with Christian women, which was a violation of the pragmatic law of March 23, 1776. Such cases, and indeed all which had to do with removals from curacies after 1795, were settled by ecclesiastical tribunals with appeal to the papal delegate, without the intervention of the audiencia.34