Note 3 — LETTER FROM THE ECCLESIASTICAL CABILDO TO FELIPE III

As your Majesty will have heard, the Order of St. Augustine has charge of the instruction of the best villages in these islands. Although there are many villages in the island without any convent, where they could spread and exercise their charity by preaching to and teaching the people who have no knowledge of God, without going to any great distance from this city, they thought it best to found a convent in the port of Cavite, two leguas from this city, where there has been a racionero of this church for the last sixteen years, as poor as the others. For that purpose the Augustinians went to the said port one day accompanied by the governor, Don Francisco Tello, who gave it to them as theirs to found a convent without any permission from the ordinary (according to his right) having preceded. He put them in possession of it and they immediately established a chapel, and said mass. When we tried to repair the harm that had been done us by this, the said Don Francisco Tello favored the Augustinians by saying that his permission alone was sufficient for the deed, and that ours was unnecessary. We had the provincial of the said order notified of the acts in order that he might have the church torn down, but he answered us as had the governor, saying that it had been established by the latter’s permission, and no other was necessary. Although the ecclesiastical arm has sufficient authority of itself to tear down that church, in order to avoid a scandal and the wrath of the governor which was terrible, the aid of the royal Audiencia was asked. There in order to justify our cause more thoroughly, the royal patronage, which orders that such foundations be made with the double permissions of the patron and the ordinary, was presented, as was also a clause of a letter of the king our sovereign, your Majesty’s father who is with God, written to Gomez Perez Dasmariñas. In that letter order was given the governor not to allow a church to be established in any other village where there was an establishment without the said two licenses, and it is your royal will that one should not be given without the other. However, as yet no decision has been reached in regard to the matter. This same conduct is true of all the affairs that work in favor of the church in this land, while those things that work against it are rushed through as your Majesty will see. There is a chapel an arquebus-shot from the walls of this city, called Nuestra Señora de Guia, where the natives outside the walls have always been administered. Archbishop Don Fray Ygnacio de Santivañes erected it into a parish church, and placed a cura in charge of it, giving him lately charge of the instruction of the said natives with canonical provision and collation. There was a suit with your royal officials before your royal Audiencia, as to whether he was to be paid a stipend or not. Acts of investigation and review were issued by the Audiencia in which they were ordered to pay the stipend. The said beneficiary having been in quiet and peaceful possession for four years, the said religious of St. Augustine, not satisfied with the past, published a royal decree which had been gained at the petition of Fray Francisco de Ortega of their order in the year ninety-four, by mentioning a doubtful relation which he had made, so that if it seemed best to the governor, he could give them that chapel as a house of retreat.3 However, it was so unsuitable for that, that they having recognized it, have kept the decree until the present without caring to make use of it. But now piqued by the affair of the house of Cabite, they presented the decree to the said Don Francisco Tello, who, as he was so favorable to them, deemed it advisable to give it to them without notifying us or giving a copy [of the decree] to the cura of the said chapel. He ordered the Augustinians to be put in possession of it, and immediately sent an alcalde-in-ordinary to give it to them, in company with eighteen friars. We heard of it, and it was necessary to defend our house by closing the door and by making protests and petitions to the alcalde. In the meanwhile the said cura presented himself as the interested party to the royal Audiencia and appealed from the governor’s measure. He was ordered to cease and to go to make a relation, by which a great scandal was avoided, which would easily have happened if we had not had patience. The cause is now pending. We humbly petition your Majesty to pity our want of protection, in consideration of the fact that we are subject to innumerable insults and so far from relief, and to have silence imposed on the claim of that chapel, since it has become a parish church and a collated curacy as abovesaid. Will your Majesty also order your governors to keep the royal patronage, and not permit or consent that a church be erected in any other place where there is a religious establishment unless that of the ordinary precede. By so doing troubles will cease and peace and harmony will reign among all. If the contrary be done, many damages will ensue, for license is being so extended that even the Franciscan friars, with all the humility that they profess, also deny the jurisdiction to the ordinary, and have built another church in the village of Dilao, outside the walls of this city, by their own authority and without other license or permission, in order to instruct the Japanese. Although the provisor enacted an act ordering them not to do it, they have also made a suit and have occasioned no less scandal than the other friars. In order that your Majesty may see how unrestrained some of the religious live here, in these ships which arrived here from Nueva España this year, came a visitor for the Order of St. Augustine with authority from their superiors. They have refused to receive him, but have on the contrary treated him so that they obliged him to retire to the convent of St. Francis. He goes through the village with a friar of the latter order at his side. That has caused a great scandal in the community among Spaniards and Indians. It is thought that he will return without making the visit, although there are so many excesses and disorders that demanded that correction be not postponed, that perhaps we can not have it later by human agencies.