Note 47 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

A department of the church over which the audiencia did not have such complete authority, either judicially or administratively, was the Inquisition. Properly speaking, there was no tribunal of the Holy Office in the Philippines, the Inquisition being represented in Manila by a commissary.47 This representative was sufficiently powerful, however, to constitute a worthy opponent for the civil power and one who, on account of the immunities which he enjoyed and because of the secret methods which he was able to employ, kept all the tribunals and authorities of the civil government at a respectful distance.