Note 4 — Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Philippines

Act. In the village of Quiapo, which is near the city of Manila, on the twenty-second day of the month of June, one thousand six hundred and twenty-two, his Excellency, Don Fray Miguel García y Serrano, archbishop of these Philipinas Islands, member of his Majesty’s council, etc., declared that, inasmuch as the eleventh chapter of the twenty-fifth session of the holy council of Trent rules and orders that the religious who exercise the duties of curas of souls be immediately subject, in regard to such duties and in all that pertains to the administration of the sacraments, to the jurisdiction, visit, and correction of the bishop in whose diocese they minister; and that no one, even though he be admovibilis ad nutum, can exercise the said office of cura without having obtained beforehand the consent and examination of the bishop or his vicar, etc.,4 which is ordered to be strictly observed and obeyed, both by the bishops and the superiors of the religious, and by the religious [27] themselves, by the twenty-second chapter following, notwithstanding any privileges, constitutions, rules, customs, rights, and others non obstantibus, etc.; besides which, his Holiness Gregory Fourteenth, by his brief which was obtained at the instance of his Majesty, under date of Roma, April 18, one thousand five hundred and ninety-one, charges and orders the archbishop of these islands to visit the missions and the religious in them.5