Note 4 — COLLEGE-SEMINARY OF SAN FELIPE

2. During his government [i.e., of the new archbishop, Fray Francisco de la Cuesta, of the Order of San Geronimo] arrived the resolution regarding the seminary college of San Phelipe. Its erection was entrusted to his Excellency, Señor Cuesta. He having made the foundation, proceeded to draw up its rules, which being milder for the seminarists, corrected those of the most illustrious Camacho. However, most of them were not in accord with the royal patronage, and its rights. His Excellency incurred the inadvertence of prescribing in the second of his rules that the escutcheon of the royal arms should be placed on a prominent spot, while in the interior or in any other part of the said seminary, were also to be placed the arms of the archbishop. In doing so, he said that he was in accord with the second law of the first book and twenty-third título of the Recopilación 4 of these kingdoms. That would be allowable if the seminary had been founded at his cost or at the cost pro rata given by his prebendaries and others who are mentioned in the Council of Trent. In that he claimed the right of private patronage, reserving for his Majesty only the universal patronage. That was a surprising resolution, since the archbishop himself confessed that the seminary had been founded at the expense of the royal treasury, while the placing of escutcheons and arms signifies one’s private expenses and special zeal; when his Majesty, without any controversy, is the sole founder. Therefore its foundation was purely lay, and in such concept, beyond any question the universal and private patronage belonged to his Majesty, as it was founded at the expense of his royal patrimony. Still more harmful were the fourth and fourteenth rules, in which it is declared that the nomination and election of the collegiates is at the disposition of the ordinary, after conferring and obtaining the opinion of the prebendaries; as is also their expulsion in the case of incorrigibles, after their rector has informed the ordinary of such: although that nomination and expulsion belonged very properly (and exclusively) to his Majesty, as its foundation was not couched in the terms mentioned by the Council of Trent. To him could only pertain by delivery and by royal disposition their spiritual government, because of the greater care in investigating and restraining their morals. The error of his Excellency was notable in this regard, for although the governor petitioned that he be given possession of such seminary, in the name of his dignity and of his church he declares that the appointment of rector, administrator, and master is in the first place, a right of the superior government by virtue of the laws of the royal patronage, and that he deign to make provision of such posts in persons justified and qualified as most fitting. For being univocal and in accord with the doctrine, founded on laws, the naming and disposition of the collegiates ought also to be private.