The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 36]

1649-1666] RECOLLECT MISSIONS, 1646-60

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altogether accessory, and a heavy responsibility
superadded to the religious estate. For in order that
they might administer in the said form, an apostolic
dispensation has been necessary which is founded on
grave reasons - and that with attention to only what
the religious estate demands from him who has
entered it, according to what is taught by common
law and the doctrine of the saints. If that method
of administering with exemption from the ordinary
is changed, and the regular who has charge of a parish should as such become subject to the correction
and visitation of the ordinary, and in other respects
to the heads of his order, it is certain that it would
be an innovation so great that they would be quite
changed in their respect for public opinion, and in
their mode of life; and the religious would be like
a man cleft in two, those in some houses being subject
to one superior and those in others to another, all of
different hierarchies, and with the dangerous consequences that will be stated. Will the piety of the
pope bind the religious to so great a cross?
730. Let us suppose (as is feasible) that the bishop were to become displeased with any order, or
with any missionary. In such case he could maintain
or remove the missionary against the will of his
provincial by very specious pretexts. If necessary, he
could even threaten the latter with censures, in order
to make him submit to his authority. How fecund a
source of perdition and total ruin that would be for
the orders, any one can conceive; but only those who
have experience in those islands could perfectly
comprehend it. Let the regulars of America tell
how they have to tolerate it through compulsion. If
a religious is found lacking, and the offense has the