Note 15 — The Spanish Friars, After 1898

Since the Treaty of Paris (1898) the Spanish friars are foreigners in these Islands. The Philippine clergy oppose a foreign monopoly of their Church. They declare themselves competent to undertake the cure of souls, and claim the fulfilment of the Council of Trent decrees which prohibit the regular clergy to hold benefices, except on two conditions, viz.:—(1) as missionaries to non-Christians, (2) as temporary parish priests in christian communities where qualified secular clergy cannot be found to take their places. The crux of the whole question is the competency or incompetency of the Philippine clergy. The Aglipayans allege that Pope Leo XIII., in the last years of his pontificate, issued a bull declaring the Filipinos to be incompetent for the cure of souls. They strongly resent this. Whether the bull exists or not, the unfitness of the Philippine clergy to take the place of the regular clergy was suggested by the Holy See in 1902 (vide p. 599).

The Council of Trent was the 18th oecumenical council of the Church, assembled at Trent, a town in the Austrian Tyrol, and sat, with certain interruptions, from December 13, 1545, until December 4, 1563. Nearly every point of doubt or dispute within the Catholic Church was discussed at this Council. Its decrees were confirmed and published by Pope Pius IV. in 1564 by papal decree, being a brief summary of the doctrines known as the Profession of the Tridentine Faith, commonly called also the Creed of Pius IV.