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]

I649-I666]

EPISCOPAL VISITATION

269

For it is sufficient to consider that, if serious men
of learning and virtue subject themselves to the ordinary in order to minister in a doctrina, it may happen
that they will be punished for a slight omission or
neglect, perhaps one that they could not avoid - such
as not being able to arrive in time to hear the confession of a dying person or to give him the holy oil;
or to baptize a new-born infant. It is possible that
this fear alone would make some refuse the ministries of the islands with such a risk. For although
the ordinary cannot punish them as religious, he can
punish them as curas; and in such a case it is difficult
to proceed between cura and religious.
In the first place the religious's definitorio may
assign him also to a house with a vote, all of which
have ministries in the Filipinas; and an ambitious
man may by the exercise of skill, and by influence, intercessions, and presents deprive him of the place, and
perhaps may impute to him faults and defects that he
does not possess in order to attain his purpose better
and to justify his action. That can not fail to be a
cause for sorrow, and more so to one who has no
foundation in the islands, but who is rather disgusted
at being there; and it will be a sufficient cause for
him to retire from his ministries and even to attempt
to return to Espafia.
And even though the superiors may order the religious to live in their missions with that subjection, it
may be that they cannot obtain it by entreaty from
them, and that the religious will excuse themselves
by saying with St. Paul: Unusquisque enim in ea
vocatione qua vocatus est permanet.6 They may
also say that they wish to persevere in the vocation
61 I Corinthians, vii, 20.