Volume 23 — Chapter XXV
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Of the great oppositions suffered by the province in that time
[However, in these early days, even, peace and quiet are not for the religious; and they find their [265] work hindered and even opposed by encomenderos and other Spaniards who work much evil against them, and turn the natives against them. Our author mentions certain cases, for the entire truth of which he vouches, which show the manner in which some Spaniards act.]
Besides this war waged on us by the secular element, that which was most feared and dangerous, and caused the religious most anxiety, was the spiritual war. This arose from the zeal of the bishop of Manila, Don Domingo de Salazar, the first bishop of this city a man of vast knowledge on all subjects, and who was not ignorant of the privileges of the mendicant orders in the administration of the natives. [272] He was bishop in Manila, and thought that he ought not to allow the religious so much freedom in the office that they were administering. He tried to restrict them in many ways, and refused to concede much. The religious, however, did not do less than to answer by pointing to the bulls of the supreme pontiffs (called forth many times at the instance of the Catholic sovereigns of España), and other motus proprios—all made for the furtherance of good administration, and that the faith might be propagated throughout the new kingdoms of their domains. The bishop denied to the ministers everything pertaining to jurisdiction and power; for he imagined that we could not grant dispensation in that second degree for marriages, or exercise any judicial act of those which recently—that is, ordinarily—they exercise over the newly converted. This occasioned a great contention, and even scandal; for as the country was new, and there was no other learning than that of his Lordship—which doubtless was very great, and authorized by his dignity and person—and that of our fathers, some said “yes,” and others “no,” some that they could, others that they could not. Thus everything was in confusion, not only among Ours, but throughout the islands.
The father provincial was like a drowning man in this matter, and was obliged to give attention to so grave a necessity as the present. As he could devise no remedy here, he resolved to go to España, in order to settle the whole matter. The bishop, who wished only to do the proper thing, was glad of the voyage. He wrote some letters to religious of the province of Méjico, whom he thoroughly trusted and believed in. He set his doubts before them, and the [273] arguments on which he grounded his position, in order that the controversy might be settled amicably; and that the province of Méjico, as the mother of this province, might correct what his Lordship considered as excesses.
[Father Aguirre returned to the islands in 1593, where he was received with joy. He died as was his wish, in the islands “which he loved greatly, as he was one of the founders of that province.”] [275]