This case is here on certiorari to the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands. 278 U.S. 588, 49 S.C.t. 17, 73 L. Ed. 522. The subject-matter is a collative chaplaincy in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila, which has been vacant since December 1910. The main questions for decision are whether the petitioner is legally entitled to be appointed the chaplain, and whether he shall recover the surplus income accrued during the vacancy.
Raul Rogerio Gonzalez, by his guardian ad litem, brought the suit against the archbishop in the court of first instance of Manila, on August 5, 1924. He prayed for judgment declaring the petitioner the lawful heir to the chaplaincy and its income; establishing the right of the petitioner and his successors to be appointed to and receive the income of the chaplaincy during their infancy whenever it may be vacant and, pending such appointment, to receive the income for their maintenance and support; declaring the trust character of the property and ordering it to be so recorded; directing the archbishop to appoint the petitioner chaplain and to account to him for the income of the property from 1910 on; and directing the defendant to pay the petitioner 1,000 pesos a month pending the final determination of the case. The trial court directed the archbishop to appoint the petitioner chaplain; and ordered payment to him of 173,725 pesos ($86,862.50), that sum being the aggregate net income of the chaplaincy during the vacancy, less the expense of having the prescribed masses celebrated in each year. It reserved to the petitioner any legal right he may have to proceed in the proper court for cancellation of the certificate of registration of the property in the name of the archbishop. The Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands reversed the judgment on February 4, 1928, and absolved the archbishop from the complaint, 'without prejudice to the right of proper persons in interest to proceed for independent relief,' in respect to the income accrued during the vacancy, or in respect to the reformation of the certificate of registration so as to show the fiduciary character of the title. As the amount in controversy exceeds $25,000, this court has jurisdiction on certiorari. Act Feb. 13, 1925, c. 229, § 7, 43 Stat. 936, 940 (28 USCA § 349).
The chaplaincy was founded in 1820, under the will of Don a Petronila de Guzman. By it, she requested 'the father chaplain to celebrate sixty masses annually' in behalf of the souls of her parents, brothers, sisters, and herself. The deed of foundation, which was executed by the testamentary executor of Don a Petronila, provided that 'said property is segregated from temporal properties and transferred to the spiritual properties of this archbishopric, without its being possible to alienate or convert the property as such into any other estate for any cause, even though it be of a more pious character, * * * so that by virtue of this deed of foundation canonical collation may be conferred on the said appointed chaplain.' By appropriate proceedings an ecclesiastical decree approved 'the foundation of the chaplaincy with all the circumstances and conditions provided for in said clause (of the wall) and in the deed of said clause (of the will) and in the deed of of seventeen hundred pesos against said building, converting said sum into spiritual property of a perpetual character subject to the ecclesiastical forum and jurisdiction.'
The will provided that the foundation should effect the immediate appointment as chaplain of D. Esteban de Guzman, the great-grandson of the testatrix, and 'in his default the nearest relative, and in default of the latter a collegian (colegial) of San Juan de Letran, who should be an orphan mestizo, native of this said town.' It named the president of that college as the patron of the chaplaincy. Esteban was appointed chaplain in 1820. From time to time thereafter four other descendants of the testatrix were successively appointed. The latest of these renounced the chaplaincy in December, 1910, married soon thereafter, and in 1912 became the father of the petitioner, Raul Rogerio Gonzalez, who is a legitimate son of the fifth chaplain, and claims to be the nearest relative in descent from the first chaplain and the foundress.
