Note 65 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

The audiencia, after it had been reconstructed by Governor León, gave some account to the king of the excesses of “Fray Joseph de Paternina, religious of the order of San Agustín, and commissary of the Holy Inquisition, who has been so vain and haughty since the imprisonment of Governor Salcedo, a thing very unfortunate for these Islands.”65 The most harmful result of the affair, in the estimation of the audiencia, was the growing feeling on the part of the people of the Philippines “that the Inquisition (was) the most powerful agency there, and that every person in the colony was subject to it.” The effrontery of the commissary was said to have gone so far on one occasion that he entered the acuerdo session of the audiencia and violently interfered with its proceedings, forcibly arresting and carrying away persons attendant thereupon. This defiant and insolent act was the greatest offense that could be offered to the royal authority, and the audiencia felt that if a continuance of these excesses were tolerated the royal tribunal would be despised and held at naught by the very citizens who should regard it with the most veneration.