The king, by a royal decree of January 17, 1593, addressed to Bishop Salazar, notifies him that the governor has been ordered to take possession of the hospitals for the natives in Manila in accordance with the king’s right as patron of the hospitals.
Ecclesiastical matters are discussed in a letter from the Manila ecclesiastical cabildo to Felipe III (July 3, 1602). The royal Audiencia is trying to force the ecclesiastical judge to make arrests by its aid; but such a course would involve much time and expense to the wretched Indian, whose case as now conducted by the ecclesiastical judge is summarily completed, while recourse to the Audiencia would bring into play all the slow legal machinery. Such ecclesiastical arrests are only made in order to correct sin. Some of the religious orders in Manila claim royal concession for universities and appointments therein. Such a course would be unfair to the seculars, for even now the religious have all the best things, and if they found universities, the seculars will have nothing to which to aspire, while the lure of an appointment to a professorship would cause them to take heart and study hard, so that the cathedral would always have men of learning. The Jesuits desire to use the money restored from the tributes collected by the encomenderos, as a result of Salazar’s contentions, for the founding of a hospital. Such use would divert it from its true employment—the ransoming of Filipino captives and the aiding of their hospitals, and therefore the cabildo petitions that the request be not acceded to. The Jesuits are trying to obtain the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of a town opposite Manila (which is now administered by a secular cura) where they have some years before bought an estate, and have been gradually acquiring all the land which they have rented to the Chinese. In addition the Jesuits are also attempting to obtain the spiritual administration of San Miguel, a small village outside Manila, now administered by seculars. The cabildo petitions that the curas now in charge of these two places be allowed to retain them. The Augustinians have also been guilty of depriving the seculars of their jurisdiction in Cavite and in the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Guia. And so unbridled are they that they resist the visitor sent out by their own order. The Franciscans, in spite of their humility, have built a church at Dilao on their own authority. Thus the royal patronage is transcended, and the governor has been cognizant thereto, through his partiality to the orders. The cabildo asks that the alms generally given to the religious be also granted to the cathedral, for it is very poor. In the cathedral is a bench for the wives of the auditors and another for the officials of the Holy Office—both unusual in other cathedrals. The bench belonging to the Holy Office has led to the excommunication of one of the canons of the cathedral who moved it one day, through the passion engendered in the commissary, a Dominican religious. The cabildo asks that both benches be removed, and that justice be shown them, as they are unable to send anyone to Spain to plead their case, as do the religious.