The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 28 of 55. Unknown

in my office, etc.

      “To the petition in the memorial and brief as presented, the reverend father Master Peter Ribadeneira,7 assistant [general] for the Spains and procurator for the Indias [or Philippines], made answer as follows: That his clients were not bound thereto, inasmuch as the said ordinances could not be carried into effect by reason of impossibility, since the brethren who were given the habit [of the order] in the Indias are fewer in number than the offices [or positions] to be filled [by the same]; wherefore the decree de alternativa8 cannot be complied with in the conferral of the said offices. Moreover, that the said brief was obtained without a hearing of his clients, and therefore is surreptitious, besides being contrary to truth in that the charge was made therein that a sedition had taken place among the [brethren]. Wherefore protest has been entered that no further steps be taken unless by [due process of law], etc.

      “Whereupon I the undersigned, a notary-public, have been requested to have made and drawn up one or more public instruments in reference to all and singular the above, according as may be needed or demanded.

      “Done at Rome in my office, etc., of the Rione del Ponte,9 in the presence and hearing and cognizance of Don Bernardino Pacheto10 and Don Jacobo Francisco Belgio, fellow-notaries and witnesses, especially called, requested, and summoned to all and singular the above.”

      We also present an original letter from the general of our order, and another from the father assistant of the province of España, in which they tell us how his Holiness had already revoked the said brief; also another letter, from the procurator of this province at that court [i.e., Madrid], in which he notified us that he had presented the brief of revocation in the royal Council of the Indias. But, notwithstanding these letters, the religious who had taken the habit in the Indias persisted all the more in persuading their judge to hurry forward the legal proceedings and to urge on the acts of violence which he was executing against us; and in this importunity, and in the opposition which the said religious made to the letters and advices of the general and of the assistant in the Spanish provinces, was admirably displayed the obedience and respect that they have for their superior. At this juncture also arose disturbances made by the relatives of the said religious, occasioning many scandals; and the friars, encouraged by the support which these people gave them, could not be corrected within the convent, and disturbed it to the utmost. They made promises to the lay brethren to ordain them as priests in order to draw these into their following; and so far did they go that all of them together sallied out from the convent one morning—the second day of August in last year—more than two hours before daylight, and carried with them the doorkeeper and three lay brethren, leaving the gates of the convent open. Roaming through the streets at those hours, with very great scandal, they went where they chose until daylight; and then they went to the palace, where they presented themselves before the governor of these islands, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera—demanding, under pretext of desiring freedom to prosecute their just claims, that he shelter them under the royal patronage, take them out of the [Augustinian] convent, and assign them another where they could reside. The governor, with the prudence and great zeal which he displays in all the affairs of his government, rebuked them for this proceeding, ordered that the provincial be summoned, and charged him to take the religious back to the convent, but to treat them kindly; and, although recognizing the serious nature of their act, he requested the provincial not to punish them for it, and the latter acted in accordance with the governor’s wishes.

      But those religious continued to cause much mischief and trouble, and there was reason to fear other and greater difficulties. The procedure of the judge was so violent that he went so far as to issue an act in which he represented the preceding [session of the] chapter as nugatory, and commanded the provincial, with penalties and censures, to surrender within two hours the seal of the province, so that it might be given to the person on whom the said judge should see fit to bestow it. They delayed notification of this act to the provincial until sunset, so that he could not reply within the time set; and as soon as morning came, they declared that he had incurred censures. The governor of these islands, as your Majesty’s lieutenant, interposed the authority of his office; and thus were prevented the great injuries that were beginning outside the order—and, within it, the disturbance and schism which had begun. This was done by means of an act issued by the judge, in which he suspended the former act, and decided that the trial of this cause should be deferred for forty days before the [next] chapter-meeting. Therewith this province remained in peace and quiet,11 and all the religious attended to their obligations—until the arrival, in this year of thirty-seven, of the bull for this province, passed by the royal Council of the Indias, in which our most holy father Urban Eighth revoked the brief for the alternativa; its tenor is as follows:

      “Since, however, it has lately been reported to us by our beloved son, the prior-general of the order12 of the brothers hermits of Saint Augustine, that in the aforesaid province nearly all the brethren of Spanish blood of the said order resident therein were sent to those countries at the expense of our very dear son in Christ, Philip, the Catholic king of the Indias, in order that they might labor for the conversion of heathens and the instruction of converts; that moreover in the province and order of the aforesaid brethren in those countries there are very few [brethren] known as creoles [criolli], who are fit for the charge of those peoples: Therefore in the letters presented as inserted ahead, in view moreover of the fact that it is impossible to have the law carried out since the creole brethren are not numerous enough to fill the aforesaid offices with the care of souls attached thereto, an appeal has been taken to us and to the apostolic see to have the said decrees set aside. Hence the said prior-general has humbly petitioned us of our apostolic kindness to make due provision in the premises.

      “Therefore hearkening to the petition of the said prior-general, desirous moreover of rewarding him with especial favors and graces [we hereby,] in order that these presents alone be carried into effect, do absolve him and declare him thus absolved from whatsoever excommunication, suspension, interdict, and other ecclesiastical sentences, censures, and penalties incurred by law or individual court, should he in any manner have been entangled thereby; moreover through these presents we charge and order your fraternity that, should the petition be grounded on truth, you interpret benignly and recall the letters inserted ahead, to the end that by our apostolic authority the elections for the future be free, in accordance with the constitutions of the said order, the same as if the letters inserted ahead had not been issued. The same letters inserted ahead and all other things to the contrary notwithstanding.

      “Given in Castel Gandolfo13 of the diocese of Albano, under the seal of the Fisherman, the eighteenth day of May, the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-four, and the eleventh year of our pontificate.”

      This entire clause appears inserted in the brief, after the relation which is made therein of the brief which his Holiness Gregory XV issued in favor of the alternate elections—which is the one which his Holiness [Urban VIII] revoked by the said letters, as appears by them. We presented this brief to the archbishop of Manila, to whom its execution came committed, with the cognizance of the clause si preces veritate nitantur;14 and with the said brief the attorneys for our cause presented three certified statements by the provincial and definitory of this province, drawn from its books, and sworn to and signed by all. In one of these statements is contained the number of the religious in this province who took the habit and made profession in the kingdoms of España. Of these there are ninety-three, among whom are two youths graduated in theology; ten lecturers in arts and theology; thirty preachers who completed their studies in the realms and universities of España, and in that country received their diplomas as preachers; and twenty-four preachers who came to these islands before they completed their studies, and received that title in these provinces. In another statement is contained the number of the religious in this province who have taken the habit in the Indias; these are thirty-three. Six of them should be excluded: two of these are of Portuguese nationality, sons of the Congregation of Yndia—who, by a decree of his Majesty, and the

7

Presumably Pedro de Ribadeneira, a Spaniard of Toledo; he was provincial of Castilla, and assistant to the general of the order. About 1635 he was sent by Felipe IV as his ambassador to the duke of Modena and the republic of Lucca; afterward he was named by the king bishop of Cotrone (the ancient Crotona), Italy, but declined this honor. He died on August 20, 1643; and left various writings.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

8

There is frequent mention in canon law of alternativa decrees by the Holy See—a device in the interests of fairness, applied in the conferral of benefices and church offices, in order to do away with discords and displays of partisanship. Thereby in elections the preferments, etc., were to go to the opposite party, according at times, to very singular rules, applicable, for instance, according to the month wherein the said benefice fell vacant. The usage of the “alternation” was introduced in the time of Pope Martin V. (A.D. 1417–1431.)

The text of the present document concerns the extension of the alternativa rules to the Augustinians in the Philippine Islands, by force of which the offices in the order (distributed in provincial chapters every four years) were to be conferred one term on religious born in Spain, and the next on religious born in the Indias. The latter were known as Creoles (crioli)—thus in the Constitutions of the order, of 1685, where reference is made to decrees of Gregory XV, dated November 29, 1621 (confirmed by Urban VIII in 1628), with regard to elections of the brethren in Mechoacan, in Mexico. As the alternativa held in Mexico and South America—in fact, in Spanish colonies everywhere—these same papal decrees were presumably observed in all those colonies. Later, in Mexico, the statutes of the Augustinians required that in provincial chapters religious of Spanish blood should be chosen alternately with those of Indian, in the election of provincials, definitors, priors, and other officers; but this plan did not operate very satisfactorily.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

9

The name (Latin, regio pontis), of a ward in the city of Rome.

10

So in MS., but an improbable name; more likely to be Pacheco.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

11

Diaz here says (Conquistas, p. 385): “The fathers from the provinces of España interposed an appeal from the fuerza [committed] by this act, saying that the said judge had not authority to postpone the matter, but only to execute [the decree]; and from this proceeded continual disputes until the time for the chapter-meeting.”

12

The prior general of the Augustinians in 1634, the date of this bull, was Jerome de Rigoliis, of Corneto, elected May 18, 1630; he died (out of office, however) seven years later, in June, 1637, at the age of seventy and upwards. In 1636 (May 10), his successor in the generalship, Hippolytus dei Monti, was elected.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

13

Castel Gandolpho, a beautiful place in the Alban Hills, was the summer resort of the supreme pontiffs.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

14

i.e., “should the petition be grounded on fact.”