Note 240 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos

100. It is also a fact that the sacred canons do not demand from those who are ordained more than an honorable life and example, and a sufficient knowledge. Then, in order to dispense the spurious and legitimate240 and the mestizos, there is a brief of Gregory XIII which begins “Nuper ad nos relatum est,”241 issued at Roma, January 25, one thousand five hundred and seventy-five. For all that, I regard them [i.e., Indians as priests] as irregular, not only for the reasons given and stated above, but also because they lack the ecclesiastical and priestly mental ability, and the prudence necessary; and without these all the rest serves as almost nothing, as Pedro Urceolo sang with graceful elegance in his “Epigrams:”