Note 66 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

There was no tribunal or any other agency in the Philippines able to place an effective check on the triumphant inquisitor. The only relief that could come was furnished on June 4, 1671, in the appointment of a new commissary, who was ordered to arrest Paternina and send him back to New Spain. This timely relief emanated from the tribunal of the Inquisition of Mexico, which by this act manifested its disapproval of all that had been done by its ambitious agent. On August 12, 1672, the Council of the Indies also disapproved of Paternina’s acts in connection with the establishment of a Philippine tribunal.66 The new commissary did nothing toward the continuance of the tribunal which his predecessor had established illegally.