Note 112 — The Pardo Controversy

At last God chose to reward his labors, and his zeal in defense of the Church; and thus, the previous storms calmed, God took him, triumphant over impiety and injustice, from this life to that which is eternal, with a holy and enviable death. This occurred on the last day of December in the year 1689, when he was seventy-eight years of age, most of these employed in the service of God our Lord.112 He was given honorable burial at the steps of the clergy-house of our church of Santo Domingo at Manila: and at his funeral were present the royal Audiencia and the ecclesiastical and secular cabildos, all the religious orders, and the rest of this community, all bitterly sorrowing for the loss of such a pastor and prelate. Although his government at first ran counter to many who were discontented, as he seemed to them excessive in his rectitude, yet finally—his cause justified, and the truth declared by so many tribunals; and his blameless and holy life being seen [by all]—they hailed him unanimously as a holy prelate, and an example worthy of imitation. And even those who formerly regarded his rule as grievous now felt the lack of such a father, and were grieved that they had not treated him with more respect, their prejudice not having allowed them to know his virtue and holiness. The cabildo was left with the government of the cabildo, and transferred it to the bishop of Troya, Don Fray Gines Barrientos, a member of our own order—not only to show their affection for the deceased archbishop, but to make some amends for the resistance which in past times they had made to his rule, when, at the time of the banishment and exile of the archbishop, he had left the bishop with appointment as his governor. Thus the cabildo made acknowledgment of their past errors, for now were lacking in their number the two prebends who had been the principal authors of that resistance, and of all the incivilities shown to his illustrious Lordship; and these two seditious persons being removed, the rest professed filial reverence to the mitre and to his episcopal dignity.