Note 14 — Chapter XVII

The purpose of the governor and his followers having been obtained, as we have seen, they persuaded the ecclesiastical cabildo to take charge of the government, interpreting the archbishop’s exile as a vacant see, thus opening the door to other disturbances, no less serious, which originated from this intrusion—in the very sight of the archbishop who was [still] within his diocese, and who had left a provisor in Manila, Doctor Don Francisco Fernandez de Ledo. For his forcible banishment and the deprivation of his secular revenues did not extend to his spiritual jurisdiction, which originated from the Roman pontiff. In case that the church had suffered a vacancy by the death of the archbishop, then the bishop of Cebú, Don Pedro de Arce, was to enter its government; for it belonged to him by virtue of the bull and royal decree mentioned in another place. The archbishop had already appointed the father master, Fray Francisco de Paula, of the Order of Preachers, to govern the archbishopric in the first place, and two others in the second, and hence they could not allege the condition of affairs that the law points out in the chapter Si Episcopus: de supplenda negligencia Prælatorum, in Case sixth. That happened afterward in Manila, in the exile of Archbishop Don Fray Felipe Pardo,14 of the Order of Preachers, who had appointed to his place of governor during his absence Don Fray Ginés de Barrientos, bishop of Troya; the cabildo refused to admit him, but [declared] that it was a case of a vacant see, and took charge of the government—which cost the dean, Master Don Miguel Ortiz de Covarrubias, and all the prebendaries, very dear.