Volume 34 — LETTER FROM THE ECCLESIASTICAL CABILDO TO FELIPE III
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Sire:
The king our sovereign, your Majesty’s father, (may he be in heaven), having been informed of the slight service enjoyed by this church (which amounts to only four prebendaries, to whom a stipend is paid from your royal treasury), was pleased to despatch a decree ordering the president and auditors of these islands to inform him of the facts regarding this matter so that he could enact the advisable measures. An investigation was made in accordance with that order, and this cabildo published the need of this church of being better served than others, as it is surrounded by so many barbarous nations who are daily receiving the light of the gospel and entering through its gates. We petition your Majesty, as a service to your Lord to please consider this matter, and enact regarding it what most pleases you.
Report has also been given your Majesty that the royal Audiencia is trying to have the ecclesiastical judge plead its aid in arresting Indians. Were that to be done it would be a great wrong to the miserable wretches, for the aid is not given unless the secular judge first examine the acts which are not fulminated in regular form against the Indians. We however, proceed briefly and summarily against the Indians, conforming thereby with the royal decrees. If their aid had to be asked, it would necessarily become a cause for receiving witnesses and issuing peremptory orders, and the expenses which now amount to nothing would be heavy. The provisor is continually taking Indian women from the houses of the inhabitants and soldiers with whom they are living in evil relations. If account had to be given to the civil judge for that, delays would ensue and the [guilty] parties would hear of it and would hide themselves so that the sin could not be corrected. The correction of sin is the end of the ecclesiastical tribunal and it has no other object. Consequently, since the aid [of the Audiencia] is not asked for any matter concerning the Indians throughout the Indias, it would not be advisable to cause any innovation in this region where the Indians are so poor that besides a few chiefs no one possesses ten pesos’ worth of property. In consideration of the above arguments and others, the former Audiencia issued acts of revision and review, by which the ecclesiastical judge was permitted to arrest the Indians without any aid until your Majesty was consulted. We humbly petition you to please order the course taken in this hitherto to be followed; since in what concerns the Spaniards and other matters we conform so closely to the laws that we have never, so far as we are concerned, had any encounters with your judges.
Some of the orders in this city claim a concession from your Majesty for the founding of a university, the establishment of chairs, and the granting of degrees in their courses. The unfitness of that has also been expressed to your Majesty by our letters, and if for no other reason than the consideration that all the greater part and the best of these islands have religious, and that the latter are all from the outside, while the poor sons of this land who are inclined to take the habit of St. Peter (who are in great number now by the grace of God, and have nothing to which they can aspire while the bishop has nothing to give them), will with the attraction of a chair, and the so honorable reward that will thereby be attained, be encouraged to work in their studies and there will always be educated men who will glorify this holy church. For so just considerations it is wise for your Majesty to advance its interests and favor its causes. We consider this as one of the most important matters as we wrote more at length to your Majesty last year, six hundred and one. We petition your Majesty to have the matter re-examined and to have enacted what appears best for your royal service and the advancement of these islands.
We said in a private letter that we wrote to your Majesty in the said year six hundred and one that the conquistadors of these islands, in order to ease their consciences, had made certain restitutions to the natives in common by agreement with Don Fray Domingo de Salazar, first bishop of these islands. With those restitutions quitrents were bought, and the money received therefrom is spent in ransoming the many captives in the power of surrounding enemies and in other alms which are made, both general and private. In the times of famine and sickness which the Indians suffer, they are aided. Very often this alms assists the hospital of the Indians of this city and that of the city of [Nueva] Caceres in the province of Camarines. In particular another hospital was founded a year ago among various natives who have been discovered twelve leguas from this city, where a great number of sick people are found, who would die if deprived of this aid. The fathers of the Society of Jesus are trying to have these so fitting works of charity converted into a college building for students. Such an action would be to divert those funds from their true and legitimate masters who are so needy to a matter that can never under any circumstances be of any use to the Indians. A father of the said Society and others are now going [to Spain] with that object in view. We petition your Majesty, for the love of our Lord, not to allow any innovation in this particular or in any other that concerns us without first hearing us, and your Majesty being informed by disinterested persons.
It is the custom here to give to all the monasteries both of this city and those outside it wine and flour from your royal treasury in order to celebrate [mass] each year. Since this church is so poor as appears to your Majesty, we petition your Majesty to order that it enjoy this alms and that sufficient be given of these two articles for that purpose, since the conventual masses which are celebrated in it are for your Majesty to whom this church belongs.
We have also advised your Majesty of two innovations in this church which no other church has. The first is a bench for the wives of the auditors to use which fills a great part of the principal chapel. The other is a very long bench with an inscription in large letters for the officials of the Holy Office. Both are very improper for a cathedral and metropolitan church. From the second it has resulted, moreover, that because a canon of this church had the bench removed one day and shoved over to the wall, for just reason, the commissary who is a Dominican friar excommunicated him and had him placed on the lists as excommunicated. Not content with that he gave the tribunal of Mexico what information he wished, from which it has resulted that after the arrival of the ships from Nueva España at these islands this year he arrested the canon, and kept him in prison for seventeen days and fulminated a cause against him which he sent to Mexico. It is not known where he will stop; and the same may be said of an unbridled letter which the inquisitors wrote to this cabildo, of which we complain more at length to your Majesty in your royal Council of the Holy Inquisition. In this letter we petition your Majesty to please correct this matter, and have these two benches removed. There are just causes for it as may be seen in a letter written the past year of six hundred and one.
Above all we petition your Majesty to consider that this church is so poor that we are unable for that reason to send a person to look after its causes as the religious are doing. The latter are sending persons suitable for the matters that concern them, and so that they may not leave anything undone. We humbly petition your Majesty for correction in this and in all things. We petition our Lord God to communicate to your Majesty grace and ability to serve Him and aid you to govern the kingdoms rightly in which He has placed your Majesty. May He preserve you for us many long and happy years as He is able, and as we have need. Manila, July 3, 1602. Your Majesty’s chaplains and vassals.
Don Juan de Bivero, dean of Manila.
Archdeacon Arellano
Sancto de Castro, precentor of Manila.
Juan de la Za, canon.
Diego de Leon, canon.
Licentiate Gabriel Sanz
Juan Galindo de Mesa
Ramirez de Cartajena, canon.
Pablo Ruiz de Talavera
Blas Vela Melquior
Crisanto de Tapiayo