Note 25 — Chapter X · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ROYAL PATRONAGE

Montero y Vidal, Historia general, I, 357–358. Illustrative of this same authority on the part of the audiencia and the Council of the Indies was the consulta of the latter tribunal, enacted January 22, 1781. The Audiencia of Manila had called the attention of the home government to the fact that the nomination of Fray Manuel de Obelar, a Dominican, to the post of apostolic vicar of the province of Fukien, China, had been irregular because it had lacked the formality of presentation by the Spanish monarch. Other nominations, namely, those of 1753 and 1759, were cited as examples wherein this formality had not been lacking. The Council of the Indies recommended to the King that the nomination should be accepted and that an ayuda de costa should be voted, but that His Holiness should be notified through the Spanish ambassador in Rome that in the future the requirements of the royal patronage should be observed, and that no appointments in China, Spain, or in the Spanish colonies should be made without the consent of the Spanish monarch (A. I., 105–3–2).