Note 4 — CONCILIAR SEMINARIES

Blumentritt says of the relations between the religious orders and the Philippine clergy: “They [i.e., the orders] won for themselves in early times, great gratitude from the natives by protecting them from the government officials, which was increased by admitting them to religious orders. But this happy condition was changed in the present century, for when the orders were abolished in Spain, the Philippines offered an asylum to the crowd of European novices, whose numbers soon barred further admission to the natives. Since that time the Philippine friars have been European Spaniards, who are often the only white men in the country districts, and who, being the only representatives of the ruling race, have made use of that position, in fact, if not with right, and constituted themselves the rulers of the land. In the fear that a liberal government might deprive them of their last refuge—the Philippines—by handing the parishes over to the (native) secular clergy, the Spanish friars began to pose as the only reliable support of Spanish rule in the archipelago, and to throw the suspicion of independence upon the secular clergy. So great is the ignorance of the Spaniards of the affairs of the archipelago, that this suggestion was easily entertained, although all insurrections have been suppressed, not by the friars, but by the government. Their power was further increased by the money they circulated in Spain, and the fear of the Spanish government that they might place their wealth at the disposal of the Carlists.

“These friars have been the enemies of every administrative reform which the colonial ministers have promised or effected from 1868 until the present time, and they have consequently and naturally appealed as the enemies of all progress and improvement in their country, not only to the secular clergy, but also to all the other inhabitants of the islands.... What kind of a spirit actuated them is best shown by the fact that they accused the Jesuits, who are highly esteemed, of liberalism, and so brought suspicion and distrust upon the teachers who were educated in the Jesuit teachers’ seminary.” See Census of Philippines, iii, pp. 612, 613. ↑