Who reigned and who ruled?

THE FRIARS AND THE CIVIL STATE

Mitschek, Ariane B.BSE-ENG1A

Subsequent increase in prestige and material wealth.

Lowering of standards- Intellectually and morally.Real possibility of getting materially rich.The unusual combination power of the friars and

principalia, made the friar the principal figure and the church the de facto dominant institution in the country.

With the friars economic power, indispensable role in civil administration, and spiritual authority the friars assume a more prominent role than would be seemly for the demands of a spiritual life.

Possible factors contributed to the abuses of the friars:

Subsequent increase in prestige and material wealth.

Conflict: Who was to be the guardian over the lives of the encomienda's inhabitants whose labor and property after all served as the source of both the friars and the encomendero's revenues?

The friars complained

the abuses in the

encomienda system

Friars complaint were often

seen as self-serving

Governor-General Gomez Perez

Dasmariñas felt the friars were

using the alleged abuses

to highlight what they

believed to be their own superior

qualifications

The friars complained about the abuses of the encomenderos. Including the

encomenderos’ withholding the friars’ fair share of the tributes-to the colonial

government and to the king.

Lowering of standards- Intellectually and morally;Real possibility of getting materially rich.

Conflict: Sovereignty and Adjudication, "by natural right belong to the Indios and neither the King nor the Pope can take it away from them…the Indios are as free in their lands and as the Spaniards are in theirs, and their liberty is not taken away by the King or by the Gospel.” – Council of Clerics 1582

The declaration of this constitution,

convened by first Bishop of

Manila, Domingo de

Salazar, easily and

subsequently disregarded.

The constitutio

n is resolutely

anti-colonial

Domingo de Salazar first Bishop of Manila

He convened a council of clerics in 1582. The council declared that sovereignty and

adjudication “by natural right belong to the Indios and neither the King nor the Pope can

take it away from them.”

Conflict: Exorbitant fees charge by the friars to hear a confession, to failure carrying the individual to the church for Holy Communion to be administered;Charging parishioners for supplying them with religious items such as rosary.

By 1698, the Manila

Archbishop had to forbid the exaction

of fees for the performance

of the sacraments

The archbishop found the

charging of fee to hear

a confession uncommon

His order prohibitin

g this practice

was ignored

According to Onofre D. Corpuz book, The Roots of the Filipino Nation,

“this had been the practice of the Spanish friars and curates since the early days of Hispanic Christianity in Filipinas. Previous

orders prohibiting this practice…were ignored.”

The unusual combination power of the friars and principalia, made the friar the principal figure and the church the de facto dominant institution in the country.

Conflict: Transferring more land to fewer people, mostly to friars with the aid of the principalia.

The friars were aided by the pricipalia,

agents of the Spanish colonial

apparatus, took advantage

to the privatization of

property.

Principalia were able to acquire individual and legal titles to

land

Having the position

and privilege, the friars were able

to manipulate state affairs

Estate-owning friar orders

Provincial Hierarchy (1800)

With the friars economic power, indispensable role in civil administration, and spiritual authority the friars assume a more prominent role than would be seemly for the demands of a spiritual life.

Conflict: The friars misused of the system of obras pias, building the road to heaven come cheap.

Governor General Fernando

Bustamante found out that the friars had

borrowed heavily from

the government and from the obras pias.

Bustamante demanded

repayment of loans and to,

assert his authority, had

the archbishop imprisoned

on charges of having

conspired against the

government.

In 1719, he was slain by a mob led by friars, who stormed at the palace, overpowered

the guard, and knifed the governor and

his son to death.

Governor-General Fernando Bustamante

• Activist governor•A military commander of high rank

and first such to be appointed governor general of the

Philippines

Conflict: The Dispute of Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera with Archbishop Hernando Guerrero

Once Hurtado stepped down, the clergy

insisted he be brought to court and

punished. He was found guilty and

imprisoned for five years before finally being freed by royal

order.

Francisco de Nava had knifed his

female ex-slave in front of the

church for refusing to marry him.

After he was found guilty of murder, he was hanged at the

gallows erected right

across the church.

Officials of the archdiocese

requested the release of the prisoner and

his return to directly in front of the church

where Nava had claimed sanctuary. The same day the

archbishop ordered an interdict and the

church, but the governor refused to

see them. The sentence was soon

carried out (September 6, 1635),

on a specially built gallows suspension of

religious services.

Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, Spanish governor of the

Philippines, 1635-44

Hernando Guerrero, Archbishop of Manila, Philippines (1635-1641))

It wasn’t as though the civil authorities themselves were models of democratic behavior and restraint. They were no less exploitative.

The Guardia Civil, was much feared by the local populace for their often arbitrary and abusive behavior.

Extracting the most profit out of the colony turned into a pierce albeit unofficial competition between two rival spheres.

CONCLUSION

~FIN~