Note 39 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

It has been shown in the preceding chapter that before the coming of the audiencia, the church had utilized the weapon of excommunication on very slight pretext, and it had been partly for the purpose of restraining this abuse that the audiencia was established.39 The early governors, especially, had many difficulties with this phase of ecclesiastical high-handedness and the letters of such executives as De Vera, Tello, Dasmariñas, and Morga complained continually against this particular abuse of power by the prelates,40 regretting the lack of any authority to set aside these excessive acts on the part of the churchmen. All the above-mentioned governors had been excommunicated for various acts in opposition to the ecclesiastical power. Governor Ronquillo, in the characteristic letter which is quoted in another part of this treatise, reported that the audiencia, after its establishment, had effectively restrained the excesses of excommunication on the part of the church.41 Indeed, during the twenty-five years succeeding Ronquillo’s term as governor, the audiencia had so frequently set aside ecclesiastical censures, and so completely terminated the abuses of the privilege of sanctuary by friars and priests, in fact so generally held at naught the principle of ecclesiastical immunity, that the king, on November 13, 1626, was obliged to issue a special cédula in restraint of his Manila tribunal and for the protection of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions.42