Note 7 — Chapter X · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ROYAL PATRONAGE

Archbishop Pardo’s well known opposition to the exercise of governmental control on the basis of the royal patronage and his resistance to the pretensions of ultimate superiority over the church which the temporal government claimed and assumed are referred to in another part of this treatise. In a letter written by the archbishop relative to the ecclesiastical controversy bearing his name, Pardo made the assertion that no person was more zealous to encourage or conform to the royal authority than he, for he realized the necessity of complete temporal jurisdiction over all things secular. He stated that he had always encouraged the ecclesiastics to comply with the just demands of the civil government, “for it is just,” he wrote to the king, “to observe the temporal things over which Your Majesty has providence, since the secular power must be obeyed, ... yet I cannot offend the royal person by allowing him or his servants to transgress the rules or authority of God without interposing my influence against it, even at the risk of being disgraced; ... while I am allied to the civil authority in things secular, I am the superior in spiritual matters.” He continued: “God has placed side by side the ecclesiastical and temporal authorities and the latter were intended to be subject to the former, and therefore, the temporal ministers ought to cede to the spiritual, according to the rules of the Holy Catholic Church. It is manifestly unjust, therefore, that a governor, maestre de campo, or other royal official should command or summon to justice a prelate who is charged with the welfare of the souls of the people of his commonwealth” (Pardo to King, September 7, 1686, A. I., 68–1–44).

A violent, though ineffective resistance was maintained by the church when Governor Simón de Anda y Salazar sought to abolish certain practices observed in the chanting of mass. Anda based his action on his authority as vicepatron. In his stand he was supported by the archbishop and by two suffragan bishops. However, Bishop de Luna, of Camarines, who was also papal delegate, violently opposed “sending [a copy of] this scandalous mandate to the royal Audiencia—a body consisting of three magistrates, to whom an appeal may lie against the governor” (Letter of a Franciscan Friar, December 13, 1771, Blair and Robertson, L, 318–319.) That a soldier should be the final arbiter in a question belonging so pre-eminently to the ecclesiastical sphere, seemed to this bishop to be entirely subversive of the interests of religion and he turned to the audiencia for protection and support. The governor sent a squad of soldiers to arrest the prelate, and the latter was forced to leave the Islands.

In 1770, Governor Anda was vehemently opposed by the ecclesiastical authorities of the colony in his efforts, as the churchmen described it, “to interfere in the governmental and judicial rights and pre-eminences of the church.” This was during the struggle over the question of episcopal visitation; in this matter the governor supported the archbishop. The former had gone so far as to declare that the friars had neither the right nor the authority to administer the sacraments. The replies of Fray Sebastián de Asunción, a Recollect, and of Antonio de San Próspero, of the Augustinians, attacked the whole foundation of the royal patronage, claiming that the church should be given entire control in ecclesiastical matters. According to their views the attention of the governor should be confined to administrative affairs (Expediente de los provinciales de Filipinas, 15 de Julio, 1772, A. I., 107–7–6). As these friars were the provincials of their orders, their opinions are of value in reflecting the ideas of the religious in the Islands on the subject of episcopal visitation. These opinions were contrary to the accepted practices and to the ideas of men of higher standing in Spain’s colonial empire.

Archbishop Pardo’s well-known opposition to the exercise of governmental control on the basis of the royal patronage gave him pre-eminence in these same matters.