Note 1 — The Religious Orders

In their opinion the non-Catholic had no rights in this world—no prospect of gaining the next. If the Pope claimed the whole world (such as was known of it) to be in his gift—how much more so heathen lands! The obligation to convert was imposed by the Pope, and was an inseparable condition of the conceded right of conquest. It was therefore constantly paramount in the conquerorʼs mind.1 The Pope could depose and give away the realm of any sovereign prince “si vel paulum deflexerit.” The Monarch held his sceptre under the sordid condition of vassalage; hence Philip II., for the security of his Crown, could not have disobeyed the will of the Pontiff, whatever his personal inclinations might have been regarding the spread of Christianity.2 If he desired it, he served his ends with advantage to himself—if he were indifferent to it, he secured by its prosecution a formidable ally in Rome. America had already drained the Peninsula of her able-bodied men to such an extent that a military occupation of these Islands would have overtaxed the resources of the mother country. The co-operation of the friars was, therefore, an almost indispensable expedient in the early days, and their power in secular concerns was recognized to the last by the Spanish-Philippine authorities, who continued to solicit the aid of the parish priests in order to secure obedience to decrees affecting their parishioners.