Note 17 — Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Philippines

Fray Christoval de Santa Ana, preacher and commissary visitor of the discalced Franciscans of this province of San Gregorio, etc.: I declare that, as I have been informed that your Lordship intends to visit the missions and their ministers of the said my order in this archbishopric—which is not only an innovation, and a thing not done by the other archbishops, the predecessors of your most illustrious Lordship, but also contrary to the ordinance of the brief of his Holiness Pius V, despatched in Roma, March twenty-four, one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven, in which, notwithstanding the ordinance of the holy council of Trent, authority is given to the religious who are occupied in the conversion of, and preaching to, the Indians, to perform the office of curas and administer the holy sacraments, with subordination to the superiors of their order, and exemption from the bishops and ordinary judges—accordingly the said my order receives violence and injury from your Lordship’s endeavor.17 [56]