Native Clergy

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIVE CLERGY
IN THE PHILIPPINES
HORACIO DE LA COSTA, SJ.
Woodstock College
T is clear both from the repeated and emphatic declarations of the

I Holy See and from the nature itself of missionary activity that one
of the most important tasks of the missionary, if not the principal one,
is the formation of native priests who can eventually receive from his
hands the administration and propagation of the Catholic Church in
their own country.
"First of all," says Pius XI in his encyclical letter, Rerum Ecclesiae,
"let Us recall to your attention how important it is that you build up a
native clergy. If you do not work with all your might to accomplish
this, We maintain that your apostolate will not only be crippled, but
it will prove to be an obstacle and an impediment for the establishment
and organization of the Church in those countries."1 Seven years
previously, Benedict XV had couched the same idea in no less vigorous
terms: "The main care of those who rule the missions should be to
raise and train a clergy from amidst the nations among which they
dwell, for on this are founded the best hopes for the Church of the
future."2
Benedict XV and Pius XI were not, of course, enjoining anything
new; they were merely repeating what the Sacred Congregation of
Propaganda had insisted on almost from the beginning of its existence,8
and what the Code of Canon Law imposes as a grave obligation on
vicars apostolic.4
The specific purpose of missionary activity is the permanent estab-
lishment, in its entirety, of the visible Church in those lands and
among those relatively isolated groups where it is not yet firmly
1
AAS, XVIII (1926), 73. The translation used for this and subsequent quotations
from Rerum Ecclesiae and Maximum Mud is that of the America Press edition of these
encyclicals, New York, 1944.
2
Encyclical letter Maximum Illud, 30 November, 1919, AAS, XI (1919), 444^5.
3
Cf. Collectanea S. C. de Propaganda Fide (Rome, 1907), I, nn. 62, 150, 1002.
*CIC, 305.
219
220 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
established.6 The Son of God became Man in order to save all men
by uniting them to Himself through membership in His Church.
This imposes an obligation on the Church to render herself visible to
all; that is, so present and accessible that men of good will everywhere
may, if they wish, participate in her life by receiving her doctrine and
partaking of her sacraments. And since the need that men have of
the Church is a permanent need, her presence in every nation and
community must likewise be permanent: she must take root. Finally,
men have need of all that the Church can give them; hence she must
be established everywhere in her entirety, endowed with all the means
necessary for the carrying out of her divine mission, which is to bring
about the eternal and temporal welfare of the individual and of society.
It is easy to see how essential the formation of a native clergy is to
the achievement of this missionary goal; for the Church can neither be
rendered sufficiently accessible, nor permanently established, nor
established in her entirety in any given nation without recruiting her
clergy from among the members of that nation. All other things
being equal, the native priest exerts a greater influence on his country-
men, and is better able to present Christ and His message in a fashion
suited to their genius and character. "Linked to his compatriots as
he is by the bonds of origin, character, feelings and inclinations, the
indigenous priest possesses extraordinary facilities for introducing the
faith to their minds, and is endowed with power of persuasion far
superior to those of any other man."6
Moreover, the Church is only then securely founded when she is
assured of a clergy sufficiently numerous to administer and develop
her various works, and she has no such assurance as long as her person-
nel in any given territory is dependent for its recruitment on foreign
lands. Right order demands that the Church in each nation attend
first to her own needs before providing for the needs of her missions;
and political conditions, as Pius XI points out, will not always permit
her free access to those missions.
5
Cf. E. L. Murphy, S.J., The Purpose of Missions (Missionary Academia Studies, I, 2;
New York: Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 1943), p. 8; P. Charles, S.J., Les
dossiers de Paction missionaire (Louvain: Aucam, 1938), I, 24; Tragella, "Introduction
a la missionologie," in Revue de VUnion Missionaire du Clerge", Janvier, 1934, Supplement.
6
Benedict XV, Maximum Illud, AAS, XI (1919), 445.
NATIVE CLERGY IN THE PHILIPPINES 221
Suppose that on account of a war or on account of other political events, one
government supplants another in the territory of the missions, and that it demands
or orders expulsion of foreign missioners of a certain nationality; suppose likewise
(although this is not likely to happen), that the inhabitants who have attained a
higher degree of civilization, and as a result a correspondingly civil maturity,
should wish to render themselves independent, drive from the territory both the
governor and the soldiers and the missioners of a foreign nation under whose rule
they are, and that they cannot do this save by recourse to violence, what great
harm would accrue to the Church in those regions, We ask, unless the native clergy,
which has been spread as a network throughout the territory, could provide com-
pletely for the population converted to Christ?7
Finally, the Church in her entirety is the Church completely or-

ganized. Until the full hierarchy of bishops, priests and laity has
been articulated or at least sketched in outline, the Church cannot
strictly be said to have been brought into existence in any country,
as Father Charles well points out:
The native clergy, therefore, is not the coping stone of the missionary edifice;
it is the foundation stone. The truth is, that as long as it does not yet exist, the
mission itself does not exist either. To have a clergy of their own is not a reward
held out to those peoples who render themselves worthy of it; it is the necessary
instrument to render them worthy of God. No one dreams of giving a stonemason
a trowel because he has done a good construction job, or of placing wheels on a
carriage because it has successfully negotiated a journey. . . . The Church is no-
where planted, it is nowhere established in any permanent fashion, as long as the
continuance of the priestly function is not stably assured by the inhabitants
themselves of the region.8
We may consider it as certain, then, that one of the indispensable

objectives of missionary work, intrinsic to its very nature and in-
separable from it, is the formation of a native clergy; and that until
that formation is accomplished, a territory cannot be said to have
ceased to be a mission. Only where "an indigenous clergy, adequate
in numbers and training, and worthy of its vocation" has been brought
into existence, can the missionary's work be considered brought to a
happy close; only there may the Church be said to be established.9
In the light of these considerations, it is somewhat disconcerting to
tRerum Ecclesiae, AAS, XVIII (1926), 75.
8
Missiologie (Paris: Desclee, 1939), I, 111-12.
9
Cf. Benedict XV, Maximum Illud, AAS, XI (1919), 445.
observe that after more than three hundred years of missionary

endeavor, this objective has not yet been fully accomplished in the
Philippines. Although it has recently become a politically independ-
ent nation, it remains, to a large extent, mission territory.
Claimed for Spain by Magellan in 1521, the Philippine Islands
began to be effectively colonized in 1565, when Miguel Lopez de
Legaspi founded the settlement of Cebu. Manila's first bishop,
Fray Domingo de Salazar of the Order of Preachers, arrived in 1581;
and in 1598, Manila became an archbishopric with the creation of three
suffragan dioceses: Cebu, Nueva Caceres and Nueva Segovia.10 By
1605, thanks to the missionary zeal of Spanish Augustinians, Domin-
icans, Franciscans, and Jesuits, the majority of the population had
been baptized.11 Since that date, the Filipinos have been over-
whelmingly Catholic in numbers, and they remain so today.
At the same time, there are at present not nearly enough priests to
take care of this Catholic population. Partial statistics compiled
soon after the late war place the number of priests, both secular and
religious, at 1,580, which means an average of one priest for every
9,000 Catholics.12 Nor are they all native Filipinos. Approximately
500 of them are foreign missionaries: Spaniards, Americans, English-
men, Canadians, Australians, Irishmen, Germans, Belgians, Italians,
Dutchmen. Three of the fifteen dioceses and three prefectures
apostolic are manned almost entirely by these missionaries. They
staff the seminaries, and, together with the various missionary sister-
hoods, administer practically all the Catholic schools and works of
charity. Naturally their establishments are, with few exceptions,
financially supported from abroad.
If we contrast these figures with those of the China Mission—2,026
Chinese priests in 1939, or one to every 1,500 Catholics13—it will
10
Cf. El archipiilago filipino (Washington: Imprenta del Gobierno, 1900), I, 376-9.
This is a collection of data on the Philippines compiled by Jesuit missionaires and published
by the United States Government.
11
Cf. E. G. Bourne's historical introduction to E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson's The
Philippine Islands (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1902-1909), I, 33-7. This is a col-
lection of Philippine source material translated into English.
12
These figures are computed from data given in the Almanaque de Nuestra Senora del
Rosario (Manila: Imprenta de Santo Tomas, 1946), pp. 200-274, published by the Domin-
ican Fathers of the University of Santo Tomas.
13
Cf. J. P. Ryan, M.M., The Church in China (Missionary Academia Studies, I, 5; New
York: Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 1944), p. 26.
appear that the development of the native clergy in the Philippines

has been abnormally slow, and calls for an explanation. The purpose
of this paper is, by means of a brief historical survey, to determine
what causes have contributed to retard the formation of a Filipino
clergy.
ORIGIN OF THE SITUATION
The Philippine Islands were evangelized as a Spanish colony under

the regime of the Patronato. The Patronato was an arrangement
based on the Bull Universalis Ecclesiae of Julius II, by which the
Roman Pontiff granted to Ferdinand and his successors on the throne
of Spain the exclusive right: (1) to erect or to permit the erection of
all churches in the Spanish colonies; and (2) to present suitable candi-
dates for colonial bishoprics, abbacies, canonries and other ecclesiastical
benefices. This concession was made in view of the Spanish sovereign
having undertaken to promote the evangelization of his pagan subjects,
and to provide for the material needs of the Church in his dominions.14
The Spanish kings took their patronage of the Church in the Indies
very seriously. In 1594, for instance, we find Philip II writing to his
governor in the Philippines:
Because I have learned that better results will be obtained by assigning each
[religious] order a district by itself, I command you, together with the Bishop, to
divide the provinces among the religious in such manner that where Augustinians
go there shall be no Franciscans, nor religious of the Society [of Jesus] where there
are Dominicans. Thus you will proceed, taking note that the province allotted to
the Society must have the same manner of instruction as the others; for this same
obligation rests upon them as upon the others, and it does not at all differ from
them.15
The colonial administrators, in their turn, looked upon the authority

of the Spanish Crown as competent to dispose of ecclesiastical person-
nel. Governor Luis Perez Dasmarinas, writing to the King, seems to
consider this a perfectly natural assumption.
14
For the text of Universalis Ecclesiae, cf. F. J. Herndez, S.J., Coleccion de hulas, breves
y otros documentos relativos a la Iglesia de America y Filipinas (Brussels: Vromant, 1879),
I, 25 ff. For a brief summary, cf. J. YUa, O.P., "Constitutio Quae mari sinico" in Boletin
eclesidstico (Manila), XVI (1938), 381-2.
15
Philip II to Dasmarinas, Aranjuez, April 27,1594; in Blair and Robertson, The Philip-
pine Islands, IX, 120.
For many years this colony has desired and hoped for the coming of priests of
the Society of Jesus, for the benefits of their presence and for the good of souls in
these Islands, in whose conversion and advancement the Society has the dexterity
known to Your Majesty. . . . I request that it may please Your Majesty to com-
mand Father General [of the Society] to order the provinces of Europe to gather
perhaps forty priests whom Your Majesty may send to the help of these Islands.16
Thus, in virtue of the Patronato, the Spanish King wielded a pre-

ponderant and decisive influence on the administration of the Church
in his dominions. His right of presentation, in practice, meant that
every missionary bishop and priest was appointed or approved by the
Crown and depended on the Crown for his support; the priest was, in
other words, a salaried government official. As such, the Crown
assigned to him the sphere of his activities, and decided any conflicts
that arose between him and the civil government of the colony, or
between him and other ecclesiastical officials.
This arrangement resulted in many and obvious advantages. It
relieved the missionaries of all financial anxiety by placing the material
resources of the government at their disposal. It distributed and
coordinated their activity, thus avoiding in many cases duplication of
effort and conflicts of jurisdiction. It gave stability to their work,
whose continuity and ordered development was assured by an imperial
power at least equally as zealous for the spread of the true faith as it
was for the extension of its sovereignty. The comment of the six-
teenth-century colonial historian Herrera has, therefore, a broad basis
in fact:
The concession which the Holy and Apostolic See of Rome made to the Crown
of Castile and Leon of the ecclesiastical patronage of that New World was a measure
greatly beneficial, whereby God Our Lord, who alone sees and makes provision for
what the future has in store, brought about a work worthy of His great goodness;
for experience has shown that if this New World had been governed in any other
fashion, it would never have been administered with that balanced harmony and
consonance which now exists between religion, justice a<nd good government, and
the [resulting] obedience and tranquillity [of the colonies].17
16
Dasmarinas to Philip II, June 20,1595; in Colin-Pastells, Labor evangelica (Barcelona:
Henrich, 1900-1902), II, 9, n. 1.
17
Description de las Indias occidtntales^ dScad. 1, cap. 28; cited by Ylla, art, tit., pp.
381-2.
On the other hand, the actual working out of this close cooperation
between the Church and the Spanish Crown circumscribed and re-
tarded the normal development of a native secular clergy in a way that
could scarcely have been foreseen. We saw above how Philip II, with
a view to the equitable distribution of labor, partitioned the mission
field in the Philippines among the various religious orders. He had
previously decreed, by royal cedulas of 1557 and 1561, that the doctrinas
or mission parishes which were assigned to the regular clergy could not
be transferred by the bishops to the secular clergy. Secular priests
were to be given parishes in territory which had not previously been
assigned to any religious order. This was all very well in theory, but
since, as far as the Philippines was concerned, the entire mission had
already been divided among the religious orders, what territory was
left for the secular clergy? The secular priest was practically reduced
by royal legislation to being an assistant of the religious parish priest.18
Everyone knew, of course, that parish work was the proper sphere
of the secular clergy; that the religious missionaries had charge of the
doctrinas which they had founded only for the purpose of building them
up into regular parishes; and that when this had been accomplished,
these pioneers were to give way to the secular clergy and push on to the
frontier. Such had always been the policy of the Church; but the
regime of the Patronato placed great difficulties in the way of carrying it
out.
Any transfer of parishes, as we have seen, required the consent of the
Crown; and the Crown, or at least the Crown administrators, were
extremely reluctant to permit such a transfer. Since the Spanish
religious were, in the great majority of doctrinas, the only colonial
officials who were willing to take up permanent residence with the
natives, it was thought necessary to the good government of the colony
to keep them there. And as a matter of fact, the mere presence of
these zealous missionaries and thoroughly loyal subjects in regions far
from the capital dispensed with the expense and effort, which might
otherwise have been necessary, of maintaining large armed forces for
the purpose of policing the colony. Hence Governor Sarrio was merely
18
Cf. A. Brou, S.J., "Notes sur les origines du clerge* philippin," Revm d'histoire mis-
sionaire, IV (1927), 541-2.
giving expression to a long-standing policy when he wrote to the King

in 1787 that
a second consideration which has decided me not to remove the religious from the
doctrinas is that, even if the indios and Chinese mestizos19 possessed all the neces-
sary qualifications [for administering them], it would never conduce to the advan-
tage of the State and the royal service of Your Majesty to hand over to them all the
parishes. The experience of more than two centuries has shown that in all the
wars, rebellions, and uprisings that have broken out, the religious parish priests
were the ones who contributed most to the pacification of the malcontents.20
The actual functioning of the Patronato, then, led to royal legislation

and to a colonial policy which left little scope for the secular clergy, and
gave no encouragement either to native candidates to aspire for the
priesthood, or the missionaries to train them. Nor was ecclesiastical
legislation and policy in the Spanish colonies of the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries any more favorable. The first missionaries to
the New World, it is true, and even some of the first civil officials, were
thoroughly in favor of the immediate formation of a native clergy.
Thus Father Constantino Bayle, S.J., is able to cite a certain Rodrigo
de Albornoz as writing to the King from Mexico in 152S:
In order that the sons of the caciques21 and lords be instructed in the Faith, Your
Majesty must needs command that a college be founded wherein they may be
taught reading and grammar and philosophy and other arts, to the end that they
may be ordained priests; for he who shall become such among them will be of
greater profit in attracting others to the Faith than fifty Christians [i.e., Euro-
peans].22
This and similar petitions induced the King to found the famous
college of Santiago Tlatelolco, which was entrusted to the Franciscans
and solemnly inaugurated in 1536. It was limited to the sons of the
native aristocracy, and was expected to serve the double purpose of
forming a cultured elite among the laity and providing a certain number
of native priests.23
19
Indios were native Filipinos; Chinese mestizos were persons of mixed Chinese and
Filipino blood.
20
Pedro Sarri6 to the King, Manila, December 22, 1787; cited by Sinibaldo de Mas,
Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1842 (Madrid, 1843), III, 33. Only a lim-
ited number of this third volume of Mas' work was printed for the exclusive use of the
royal ministers. There is a copy in the Peabody Institute, Baltimore.
21
The caciques constituted the native nobility.
22
"Espafia y el clero indfgena de America," Razon y Ft, XCIV (1931), 216.
However, the high hopes conceived in the beginning with regard to

the enterprise did not seem to have been realized, for we find the
Dominican Provincial of Mexico vigorously representing in 1544 that
the Indians ought not to be permitted to study [arts and theologyl, because no good
will come of it; in the first place, because they will never turn out to be regular
preachers, since to preach effectively it is necessary that the preacher have some
ascendancy over the people, and these natives have no ascendancy whatever over
their own. Secondly, because one cannot be sure of them, and the preaching of the
Gospel cannot be entrusted to them, for they are but new in the Faith and it has
not yet taken firm root in them. Thus they are liable to give expression to erro-
neous doctrines, as we know from experience some have actually done. Thirdly,
because they have not the capacity to understand firmly and aright what pertains
to the Faith, and the reasons thereof, nor is their language such as to be able to
express them with propriety And from this it follows that they ought not to be
ordained to the priesthood, for their being priests will give them no better standing
than they have now.24
Not many years later, Bishop Zum&rraga was writing to the King
that "it seemed to the religious themselves that the revenues would be
better employed in the hospital than in the College of Santiago, which
we know not whether it will continue in existence much longer, as the
best grammarians among the native students tendunt ad nuptias potius
quant ad continentiam"2*
The failure of this first experiment and of others like it seems to have
led to a very strong reaction against the native clergy, and under the
influence of this reaction the councils and synods of the New World in
the latter half of the sixteenth century passed rather drastic measures
forbidding or severely limiting the ordination of natives and even their
religious profession. The first Council of Mexico (1555) declared that
sacred orders were not to be conferred on Indians, mestizos and mulat-
toes, who were classed with the descendants of Moors and persons who
had been sentenced by the Inquisition as lacking the good repute which
befitted the sacerdotal character.26 The third Council of Mexico
(1585) repeated the prohibition, while softening it somewhat:
23
Cf. R. Ricard, £tudes et documents pour Vhistoire missionaire de VEspagne et de Portugal
(Louvain: Aucam, 1931), pp. 155-7.
24
Letter to the Visitor of New Spain; cf. Bayle, art. cit., pp. 221-2.
28
Cf. Bayle, art. tit., p. 223.
28
Ibid., p. 522.
That respect and reverence may be shown to the order of clerics, thg sacred
canons decree that those who suffer from natural or other defects which, though not
culpable, detract from the dignity of the clerical state, should not be ordained, lest
the recipients of holy orders suffer contempt and their ministry be held in derision.
Wherefore this Synod forbids . . . that Mexicans who are descended in the first de-
gree from Indians, or from Moors, or from parents of whom one is a Negro, be
admitted to holy orders without great care being exercised in their selection [sine
magna dekctu].27
The second Council of Lima (1591), however, decided with laconic

severity that "Indians are not to receive any of the orders of the
Church."28 Thus Father Bayle concludes that "after the generous
intentions of the beginning had suffered shipwreck on the reefs of ex-
perience, the ordinary legislation [of the Church in New Spain] was
unfavorable to the native clergy, whose ignorance and natural in-
stability inspired no confidence, and whose mean origin obscured the
dignity [of the priesthood].29 This ecclesiastical policy was naturally
extended to the Phillippine mission, which was officially attached to
the Church of Spanish America. An interesting indication of this
may be noted in the rules and regulations drawn up by Governor Cor-
cuera for the Seminary of San Felipe de Austria, which he founded in
Manila in 1641. Rule 3 provides that "the collegiates must be of pure
race and have no mixture of Moorish or Jewish blood, to the fourth
degree, and shall have no Negro or Bengal blood, or that of any similar
nation, in their veins, or a fourth part of Filipino blood."30
The wisdom of this procedure has been questioned. It certainly
forms a contrast with the policy of the Holy See in the missions directly
dependent on Propaganda, and even with the practice of missionaries
Within the sphere of the Portuguese Padroado, so similar in many
respects to its Spanish counterpart.
In 1518, a Brief of Leo X authorized the ordination of East Indians
and Negroes "considered capable of serving God in their respective
countries." A year before St. Francis Xavier's arrival in Goa, a native
seminary had been established and several Malabar priests had been
ordained. India, in fact, had its houses of formation for the native
27
Concilium Mexicanum, 1585, lib. 1, tit. 4: "De vita, fama et moribus ordinandorum,"
n. 3; in Mansi, Conciliorutn . . . amplissima collection XXXIV, cols. 1034r-5.
28 29
Cf. Brou, art. cit., p. 544. Ibid., p. 524.
80
Cf. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., XLV, 175.
clergy twenty years before the Council of Trent made such establish-
ments obligatory in every diocese of the Catholic world.81
As early as 1626, Propaganda had enjoined on the Bishop of Japan
"to confer holy orders, the priesthood included, on such Japanese as he
shall consider suitable and necessary.'' Again in 1659, Alexander VII
advised Propaganda to instruct the vicars apostolic being sent to Ton-
kin, China, and Cochinchina that "the principal reason for sending
bishops to those regions was that they might employ every means in
their power to train native youths so as to fit them for the priesthood,
and thus be able to ordain them and distribute them throughout those
vast countries, where they may diligently promote the cause of
Christianity under their [the bishops'] direction"; and hence they
should always have this end in view, namely, "to draw as many as
possible of the most promising native youths to the clerical state, to
educate them, and in due time to ordain them." Succeeding Popes
were no less clear and emphatic in their insistence on this point.82
The famous Visitor of the Jesuit missions in the East, Father Alex-
ander Valignano, went even further, and in a celebrated consultant
caused the following resolution to be adopted:
It is necessary that there should be a bishop in Japan. But let him not be sent
from Europe, a stranger both to the language and the customs. It is abnormal for
a Church to be without a bishop; and yet here a foreign bishop will not do. Con-
sequently natives must be ordained either in Macao or in India. Let them be put
to the test: we shall see whether one of them will be worthy of the episcopate. As
far as the Japanese are concerned, there are grounds for hoping that if they are
well trained in learning and piety in the seminaries, they can become as capable as
Europeans of becoming religious, priests, and bishops.33
Thus the persecuted Japanese Church could boast of several martyr

priests and religious at a time when there was probably not yet a single
native priest in the Philippines.
We must take care, however, not to ascribe this deficiency in the
Philippine mission entirely to the royal cedulas of Philip II or the
decrees of the Spanish-American councils. A third contributing cause
31
Cf. A. Brou, S.J., "L'encyclique sur les missions," £todes, CLXII (1920), 593.
82
Cf. the Instructio of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda of November 23, 1845,
' in the Collectanea (ed. 1907), n. 1002.
33
Cf. Brou, "L'encyclique sur les missions," pp. 593-4.
must be taken into account, namely, the difference in the cultural level
of the two mission territories. As Father Charles points out, the estab-
lishment of the visible Church which is the specific aim of missionary-
activity demands a certain degree of civilization below which it is
impossible.34 It would be difficult, for instance, to encounter suitable
material for the priesthood among a people just beginning to organize
into stable political communities. Now the Filipinos during the early
years of Spanish colonization were just such a people; whereas India,
China, and Japan already had very high and ancient cultures of their
own. Thus the failure of the Tlatelolco experiment was probably due,
at least in part, to the fact that it was a little too premature; and the
prohibitions of the Councils of Mexico and Lima, though perhaps too
sweeping, were fundamentally a sound precaution.
To sum up: three main causes combined to retard the formation of a
native clergy in the Philippines. The first was the primitive condition
of society, which had first to be raised to that level of cultural maturity
required before it could provide suitable aspirants to the Catholic
priesthood. This preliminary work of civilization was mainly if not
solely the achievement of the first Spanish missionaries, and we need
neither add nor detract from an American historian's assessment of it:
In the l i g h t . . . of impartial history raised above race prejudice and religious
prepossessions, after a comparison with the early years of the Spanish conquest of
America or with the first generation or two of the English settlements, the con-
version and civilization of the Philippines in the forty years following Legaspi's
arrival must be pronounced an achievement without parallel in history.35
The second cause was the framework of the ecclesiastical establish-

ment constructed by the Patronato in the colony: a framework which
provided no suitable room for a native clergy even when the mission
was ready for it. And the third was the conciliar and synodal legisla-
tion of Spanish America, extended without modification to the Philip-
pines: legislation which, while it effectively prevented the ordination of
unworthy candidates, did so by excluding even the worthy from the
priesthood.
The first of these causes was by nature transitory. There came a
time when, thanks to the creative energy of the Church even on the
84
Les dossiers de Paction missionaire, I, 31.
35
E. G. Bourne, op. tit., I, 37.
natural and temporal level, there was no longer any valid objection to
admitting native Filipinos to holy orders. The other two causes, how-
ever, had that inelastic tenacity with which human institutions cling
to existence long after they have outlived their usefulness; and so we
must not be surprised to find the idea of a native clergy opposed even
by those who should have been most zealous in promoting it.
OFFICIAL OPPOSITION
In a report submitted to Innocent XI around 1680, the Secretary of

Propaganda, Monsignor Urbano Cerri, remarked about conditions in
the Philippine mission that
notwithstanding the great number of Monks in these Islands, and the progress of
the Catholick Faith, there are some faults; particularly the neglect of many con-
versions, which might be attempted without great Labour; and want of Charity
towards the Sick, who are obliged to get themselves carried to Church, to receive
the Viaticum, and the Extreme Unction. Besides, no Care is taken to make the
Natives study; and Holy Orders are never conferred on them, though they have the
necessary qualifications to be Ordained.86
Cerri's observation is borne out by a very interesting letter written

by Archbishop Pardo of Manila to the King at this same time. It was
a strongly worded protest against a royal decree issued in 1677 which
sought to encourage the formation of a native clergy in the Philippines.
The following is Blair and Robertson's summary of Archbishop Pardo's
letter:
The archbishop stated the little inclination that the Indians have for theological
and moral studies, and that there was the additional difficulty of their evil customs,
their vices, and their preconceived ideas—which made it necessary to treat them as
children, even when they were fifty or sixty years old. He considered even the
sons of Spaniards, born in the Islands, unsuitable for priests, since they were reared
by Indian or slave women, because of their defective training and education in
youth. Finally, on account of the sloth produced by the climate, and of effeminacy
and levity of disposition, it was evident tha,t if they were ordained priests and made
ministers to the Indians when they were not sufficiently qualified therefor, through
36
The quotation is taken from an English translation published in London in 1715,
entitled, An account of the state of the Roman Catholick religion throughout the world, written
for the use of Pope Innocent XI by Monsignor Cerri, secretary of the Congregation de Propa-
ganda Fide, pp. 113-14. There is a copy in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
*Wp. cil.9 XLV, 182-3.
the necessity there was for them, they did not again open a book, and with their
vicious habits set a very bad example to their parishioners. That which should be
done was to send from Espafia those religious who were most zealous for the con-
version of souls.37
It seems obvious that Archbishop Pardo's argument could be valid

only if native candidates to the priesthood had been tried and found
wanting; and yet he objects to any fair trial being made at all of them.
The defects which he alleges—"their evil customs, their vices, their
preconceived ideas," "the sloth produced by the climate," "effeminacy
and levity of disposition"—are not ineradicable; on the contrary, is it
not precisely by seriously undertaking the task of forming priests
according to the mind of the Church that these defects are most effec-
tively eradicated?
At any rate, it appears both from Cerri's report and Archbishop
Pardo's letter that the formation of the native clergy in the Philippines
was not seriously undertaken before 1680. Father Brou states, with-
out citing his sources, that there were already native priests to the num-
ber of sixty in the year 1655 ;38 but the qualification "native" in the
writers of the period is to be received with caution, since it could mean
Creoles, that is, Spaniards or other Europeans born in the colony. The
first ecclesiastical seminary in the Philippines, the Colegio de San
Jose, founded by the Jesuits in 1601, was limited, at least in the begin-
ning, to Spanish students,89 and we have already seen how the charter
of Corcuera's short-lived Colegio de San Felipe de Austria forbade the
admission of applicants who were one-fourth Filipino.40
Any remaining doubts are removed by an enquiry made by the King
in 1697 as to whether there existed in the Philippines any seminary for
the native clergy. Governor Cruzat y Gongora replied in a letter dated
June 13,1700, that there was not and never had been any such institu-
tion in Manila, adding that he did not consider such a foundation
necessary.41
Upon receiving this reply, the King consulted his Council and certain
bishops as to what he should do about it, and in April, 1702, arrived at
38
"Notes sur les origines du clerge* philippin," p. 546.
89
Cf. W. C. Repetti, S.J., History of the Society of Jesus in the Philippine Islands (Ma-
nila: Good Shepherd Press, 1938), II, 168-9.
40
Supra, p. 228.
* Cf. T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Una memoria de Anda y Salazar (Manila, 1899), pp. 48-9.
the decision that "since it has been ordained by the sacred canons and
by pontifical bulls that there should be a seminary for young men
attached to all cathedral churches, that they may assist at the divine
service and at the same time be trained in the sciences/' there should
be founded in the city of Manila a seminary for eight seminarians.42
This royal decree, however, like previous ones to the same effect, was
simply pigeonholed by the local administrators.43 The first man to
take any effective steps towards the establishment of a seminary for
natives in the Philippines seems to have been the Abbe Sidotti, who
came to Manila in 1702 in the entourage of the famous Cardinal de
Tournon. Apparently with the approval of Archbishop Camacho, he
succeeded in collecting enough contributions from the residents of
Manila to begin the construction of a seminary building between the
governor's residence and the city wall, to one side of the postern gate.44
It was to be large enough to house seventy-two seminarians, who were,
according to Sidotti's ambitious project, to be recruited not only from
the Philippines but from the various missions of the Far East. It was,
in fact, to be a regional seminary for the whole Orient.45
Unfortunately the King, upon hearing of the good abbe's activities,
took them as officious interference on the part of a foreigner in the ad-
ministration of his royal patronage—interference, moreover, which
would result in the admission into the colony of all sorts of other for-
eigners: an obvious threat, to his way of thinking, to the peace and good
government of the Philippines.46
He therefore lost no time in commanding his governor to tear down
whatever the Abbe Sidotti had succeeded in constructing on the pro-
posed site of the seminary and to erect in its stead what had been or-
dained in the cedula of 1702, namely, a seminary for eight seminarians,
no more, and those seminarians to be recruited only from the colony.47
This order was effective in putting a stop to the Abbe Sidotti's proj-
42
Loc. cit.
43
So Pardo de Tavera. San Antonio (Crdnicas, I, in Blair and Robertson, op. cit.,
XXVIII, 117-18) reports that they proceeded as far as appropriating the money for
starting the work.
44
Pardo de Tavera, op. cit., p. 49.
46
Cf. Blair and Robertson, op, cit., XLV, 192 ff.
46
Ibid., XXVIII, 120-21.
47
Pardo de Tavera, op, cit,, pp. 49-50; Blair and Robertson, op. cit,, XXVIII, 121.
ect, but as for the King's alternative, nothing more is heard of it until
1720. A royal letter of this year asks the governor whether it would
not be a good idea if the site and foundations of the proposed seminary
be used instead for "the erection of a building for the Royal Exchequer,
the Royal Treasury, and an armory with lodgings for the infantry."48
Thus the seminary for native priests did not advance beyond the paper
stage until 1772, when Archbishop Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina
transformed the University of San Ignacio, after the explusion of the
Jesuits, into the diocesan seminary of San Carlos.
FIRST SEMINARIES FOR NATIVES
Earlier in the eighteenth century, however, various educational in-

stitutions which had originally been founded exclusively for Spaniards
had begun to educate native Filipinos for the priesthood. The Jesuit
historian Murillo Velarde, writing in 1762, remarks drily that "there
are in the Philippines, as in other parts of the world, many who are
stupid and ignorant; but there are not wanting some who have wit
and ability, sufficient for the study of Grammar, Philosophy and Theo-
logy, in which they have made some progress, though not much."49
If "some progress" had already been made in 1752, the first step
must have been taken some years earlier; and this is doubtless what the
Augustinian, Fray Gaspar de San Agustin, tried to prevent when he
wrote in 1725:
It does not seem good that I should refrain from touching on a matter which is
most worthy of consideration, and that is, that if God because of our sins and theirs
should desire to chastise the flourishing Christian communities of these Islands by
placing them in the hands of natives ordained to the priesthood (which seems likely
to happen very soon), if (I say) God does not provide a remedy for this, what abomi-
nations will result from it!60
San Agustin's warning seems to have had little effect, for in 1750
native priests had charge of 142 parishes and missions out of a total of
569.S1 These first-fruits of the Filipino clergy seem to have been equal
to the exacting demands of their vocation. The Spanish Jesuit Del-
48
Pardo de Tavera, loc. cit.
i9
Geographia historica (Madrid: Ramirez, 1752), VIII, 37.
60
Cf. Mas, Informe, III, 33. Italics ours.
61
Cf. Brou, "Notes sur les origines du clerge" philippin," pp. 546-7.
gado could even say of some of them that "although they are indios,
they can serve as an example to shame Europeans."52 He cites two
instances: Eugenio de Santa Cruz, a native of Pampanga, who became
Judge Provisor of the Diocese of Cebu and Qualificator of the Holy
Office; and Bartolome Saguinsin, a native of Antipolo and parish priest
of a partido of Quiapo—"omitting mention, only because brevity com-
pels me to do so, of many others, living and dead, who are worthy of
having their names mentioned in this history."53
The passage occurs in that part of his history where Delgado under-
takes to refute the animadversions made by Fray Gaspar de San
Agustln a quarter of a century earlier regarding the Filipino character
in general, and in particular its unfitness for the clerical state. Since
San Agustin's letter became a kind of locus communis from which later
controversialists quarried their arguments, and since Delgado's reply,
being that of one who was himself a Spaniard, may be expected to be
free from racial bias, it will not be amiss to give the substance of both.
San Agustln argued that the ordination of Filipinos to the priesthood
would in no way change their character, to the detailed description of
whose numerous and grave defects he devotes the major portion of his
letter. Rather, he insists:
Rather, their pride will be aggravated with their elevation to so sublime a state;
their avarice with the increased opportunity of preying on others; their sloth with
their no longer having to work for a living; and their vanity with the adulation that
they must needs £eek, desiring to be served by those whom in another state of life
they would have had to respect and obey; in such wise, that the malediction of
Isaias, 24, shall overtake this nation: 'It shall be as with the people, so with the
priest.' For the in&io who seeks holy orders does so not because he has a call to a
more perfect state of life, but because of the great and almost infinite advantages
which accrue to him along with the new state of life which he chooses. How much
better it is to be a Reverend Father than to be a yeoman or a sexton! What a
difference between paying tribute and being paid a stipend! Between being
drafted to cut timber54 and being waited on hand and foot! Between rowing a
galley and riding in one! All of which does not apply to the Spaniard, who by be-
coming a cleric deprives himself of the opportunity of becoming a mayor, a captain
62
Historic general sacro-profana, politico- y natural de las Islas del Poniente llamadas
Filipinas (Manila; Atayde, 1892), p. 293. The date is that of the printed edition; the
manuscript was completed in 1754.
5g
Loc. cit.
64
Forced labor supplied lumber for the shipyards.
or a general, together with many other comforts of his native land, where his estate
has more to offer than the whole nation of indios. Imagine the airs with which
such a one will extend his hand to be kissed! What an incubus upon the people
shall his father be, and his mother, his sisters, his female cousins, when they shall
have become great ladies overnight, while their betters are still pounding rice for
their supper! For if the indio is insolent and insufferable with little or no excuse,
what will he be when elevated to so high a station? . . . What reverence will the
indios themselves have for such a priest, when they see that he is of their color and
race? Especially when they realize that they are the equals or betters, perhaps, of
one who manged to get himself ordained, when his proper station in life should have
been that of a convict or a slave?56
Delgado's refutation of these strictures is as devastating as it is ur-

bane. To the charge that the native candidates for the priesthood will
have no standing in the community, being congenital slaves or potential
jailbirds, he replies:
Those [natives] who are being educated in any of the four colleges in Manila
which are devoted to the formation of the clergy are all sons of the better class,
looked up to by the indios themselves, and are not timam or of the olipon class, as
the Visayas—or maharlica or alipin, as the Tagalogs—call the slaves and freedmen.
These boys are being educated by the Reverend Fathers of Saint Dominic or of the
Society [of Jesus]; they instruct them in virtue and letters, and if any of the bad
habits of the indio cling to them, these are corrected and removed by the teaching
and conversation of the Fathers. Moreover, their Lordships the Bishops, when
they promote any of them to holy orders, do not go about the matter blindfolded,
ordaining any one who is set before them, but with great care and prudence gather
information regarding their purity of blood and de moribus et vita, examining them
and putting them to the test before they are made pastors of souls; and to say
otherwise is injurious to these illustrious prelates, to whom we owe so much respect
and reverence.59
This is not to say, of course, that native priests have without excep-
tion lived up to expectations. To demand as much from the priest-
hood of any nation is to show complete ignorance of human nature.
It is possible, no doubt, that some have not justified the high regard which has
been shown them in entrusting to them the dispensation of the divine mysteries;
but it is bad logic to argue that because one or many are bad, therefore all are like-
wise bad. And it is to be noted that if any cleric or parish priest among them is bad
or gives scandal, their prelates, who are holy and zealous, correct and chastise them
M
«Cf. Mas, Informe, III, 33-4. Ibid., pp. 293-4.
and even remove them from their posts and deprive them of their ministry; and
often, as I myself have seen, they summon them and cause them to say Mass and
perform their spiritual duties under their eye, until they are certain of their refor-
mation and amendment. Thus they do not permit that 'it shall be as with the
people, so with the priest.' Moreover, it is a gratuitous assertion to say that the
indio seeks holy orders, not because he has a vocation to a more perfect state of
life, but because of the great and almost infinite advantages which accrue to him
along with the priesthood—the advantages, that is, of being a parish priest over
being a yeoman, or a sexton, or a galley slave, or a jailbird. For it is common
knowledge that there are also many in Spain who seek the ecclesiastical state for
the sake of a livelihood; and others enter religion for the same reason. Nor may we
conclude that therefore such persons did not have a true vocation; for if the Church
non judical de occultis, such judgment being reserved to God who scrutat renes et
corda, much less is it permitted to any private writer to pass judgment on this
matter.87
Delgado clinches his argument by examining the supposition on

which San Agustin's whole thesis is based, namely, that there are cer-
tain sections of the human race—among which the Filipinos are to be
counted—which are by nature unfit for the priestly state.
Finally, I shall answer the example brought forward by the reverend author of
this hyperbolical letter to prove that it is impossible for the indios to divest them-
selves of their racial traits, even though they be consecrated bishops, etc. I say,
then, that this was precisely the practice of the holy apostles, namely, to ordain
priests and bishops from among the natives of those regions where they preached,
whether they be Indians or Negroes. And it is a historical fact that when Saint
Francis Xavier arrived in India, he found many Comorin clerics, who are negroes,
already preaching the Gospel in those newly founded Christian communities. And
so likewise there were in Japan many Japanese priests belonging to religious orders,
and in China there are today, as we read in the printed accounts of the venerable
martyrs of Saint Dominic and the Society of Jesus.58
We have thus sufficient warrant for saying that in spite of the official
attitude unfavorable to the formation of a native clergy, in spite of the
obstacles placed in its way by the clumsy machinery of the Patronbto,
in spite of the often bitter prejudice against the indio—which, though
perhaps unjustifiable, was in many cases quite understandable—there
were not lacking, in the first half of the eighteenth century, writers to
champion what the Church has always held regarding the necessity of
a native priesthood, and educators to carry it into effect. Delgado's
67
Ibid., pp. 294-5. **Ibid., p. 295.
reply to San Agustin reveals that by 1754, at least four educational

establishments in Manila were training native candidates for the priest-
hood; that some of these natives had already been ordained and put in
charge of parishes; that a few had even distinguished themselves and
been appointed to positions of trust; in a word, that man-made bar-
riers, and even the conscious opposition of the Church's own instru-
ments, were powerless to withstand, in this as in so many other cases,
the secret springs of the Church's vitality.
The fact that these barriers had been surmounted, however, does not
mean that they were removed. They remained; and they continued
to interfere in every imaginable fashion with the normal development
of the clergy that had so far won the bare right to exist.
REGULAR AND SECULAR CLERGY
We have seen how the regime of the Patronato tended to keep the
parishes in the hands of the regular clergy.59 This meant, of course,
that the bishop could exercise only a limited jurisdiction over the
majority of his parish priests, who were also religious and hence subject
to their religious superiors.
This overlapping of authority occasioned numerous clashes between
the bishops and the religious orders, and it is easy to see how the secular
clergy would be drawn, willy-nilly, into the quarrel. An obvious solu-
tion to every conflict was for the bishop to take away their parishes
from recalcitrant religious and hand them over to secular priests who
would be completely under his authority; and the temptation was to
do this even if the secular priest had no other qualification for the post
save that of being amenable.
An incompetent parish priest was scarcely an improvement over a
rebellious one; but incompetent or not, such tactics on the part of the
bishop obviously did not make for harmonious relations between the
regular and the secular clergy. Rather, the religious in charge of
parishes came to look upon the secular clergy as a standing threat to
their security; the more so, since within the peculiar framework main-
tained by the Patronato, the only way in which the secular clergy
69
They had 427 of the 569 parishes in 1750, distributed as follows: Augustinians, 115;
Recollects, 105; Jesuits, 93; Franciscans, 63; Dominicans, 51. Cf. C. B. Elliott, The Phil-
ippines to the End of the Military Regime (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1917), p. 219, note.
could obtain any parishes at all was at the expense of the regular clergy.
This antagonism was underscored by the fact that while the religious
orders admitted practically no natives into their ranks, the secular
clergy in the Philippines was composed almost entirely of them. Thus,
racial prejudice confused and embittered the rivalry between seculars
and regulars from the very beginning, and serves to account for such
startling outbursts as the memorial of Fray Gaspar de San Agustin.
Another factor must be taken into consideration, and this is that
until the foundation of the first diocesan seminary in the latter part of
the eighteenth century, the training of native priests was exclusively in
the hands of religious. It is to their credit, as we pointed out, that the
religious undertook this task at all, in spite of the prevailing attitude
against it; although, of course, it was to their advantage to have native
assistants in their parishes. And the temptation was precisely to give
these seminarians just enough education to enable them to be assist-
ants to parish priests, and no more; to water down that "intensive,
severe and solid training"60 which is demanded by the Church for all
her priests, and which alone could have fitted them for positions of
responsibility.
The recurrent charges made by the religious of the time against the
Filipino secular clergy—that it was composed of men who were ignor-
ant, incompetent, unstable, unworthy of the high dignity of the priest-
hood—may have been to some extent merited; but if they were merited,
could not a large part of the blame for it be justly laid at the door of the
religious themselves, who failed to give them the formation necessary
to render them worthy? Thus there seems to be a kernel of truth in
Governor Simon de Anda's somewhat exaggerated statement that
it is to the interest of the religious orders that there should not be formed and
should never be any secular clergy, for so, there being no one to take their places,
they may continue in their possession of the curacies, and the King in his long-
standing and thoroughly troublesome burden of sending out missionaries at his own
expense, who when they arrive here are so many more enemies to his interests. In
accordance with this policy and with remarkable harmony, the two universitie s
60
The phrase is that of the late General of the Society of Jesus, Father Ledochowski.
For a classic statement of the standards set by the Church for the training of the native
clergy, cf. his letter to the Jesuit Superior of the Mission of Kiang-nan, China, August 15,
1919, in Acta Romana S. /., Ill (1919), 122-44.
have made it an invariable rule to impart a merely cursory training, in order to

spoil in this way even the small number of assistant priests.61
There was at least a very strong temptation, as we have said, to take

this course of action; and human nature being what it is, it is
very likely that the temptation was not always successfully resisted.
For there can be no doubt that many Filipino priests of this period,
unlike those of a generation earlier, were as a matter of fact not up to
standard. The reason most commonly given for this was the innate
incapacity of the national character; but aside from the fact that this
had been disproved time and again by such examples as those adduced
by Delgado,62 such an argument cannot be valid unless a fair trial is
made of that character's capabilities; which certainly was not the case
if a stunted education did not give it a chance for full development.
Moreover, the charge of incompetence came with very bad grace
from those who were willing enough to make extensive use of these in-
competents, as Archbishop Sancho pointed out:
Is it not common knowledge to aU of us here [in the Philippines] that the actual
spiritual ministry falls entirely on the shoulders of the secular coadjutor, the Father
Minister [i.e., the religious parish priest] reserving to himself merely the task of
collecting, at ease in his rectory, the parish stipends? How can they deny this,
when it is so well known? If the secular priests are so incompetent, how can they
[the religious] permit and entrust to them the spiritual administration of their
parishes? If they are not incompetent, how can they dare to cast discredit on the
secular clergy with the strange, not to say unjust accusation of being inept and
incapable?... To such excesses are the religious led by the black jealousy with
which they look upon the secular clergy; for they are afraid that by its ability and
upright conduct it is bound to prove, and has already begun to do so, that although
the religious render good service, service of a very high order, they are nevertheless
not as necessary as they assume.63
The argument has point; but of course, as with all the controversial
writings of this troubled period, we must always make allowances for
heated exaggeration in the writings of the pugnacious Archbishop
Sancho. The cold residue of fact seems to be this: that the system of
the Patronato had so muddled ecclesiastical affairs iii the Philippines as
to create an endemic conflict between the religious in charge of
61 M
Pardo de Tavera, op. eit., p. 10. Supra, p. 237.
68
Sancho to Carlos III, Manila, October 1,1768; cf. Pardo de Tavera, op. tit., pp. 52-3.
parishes and their bishops: a conflict which made very difficult the nor-
mal development of the native clergyt.
Moreover, not content with having thus created the elements of this
conflict, the royal patron and his colonial officials were forever exerting
direct pressure on one or the other side of the quarrel, thus adding a
tangle of political intrigue to an ecclesiastical problem already confused
by every shade of professional and racial bias.
Archbishop Sancho's administration is a case in point. We have
already seen how the Spanish government was as a general rule against
the religious parish priests being replaced by the native clergy. An
exception to this general rule were Carlos III and his ministers, who
found the most determined opponents of their "enlightened" policies
among the religious orders. They succeeded in suppressing the Society
of Jesus in all the Spanish dominions, and as a part of a plan to cripple
the others, a court prelate, Basilio Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina,
was sent as archbishop to Manila in 1767.
No sooner had Archbishop Sancho reached Manila than he proceeded
at once to enforce episcopal visitation on the religious parish priests.
We need not delay on this vexed question of episcopal visitation, be-
yond noting that the religious orders looked upon the way Archbishop
Sancho proposed to conduct it as an attack upon their respective in-
stitutes to which they could not in conscience yield. This was pre-
cisely the excuse the Archbishop was looking for to warrant his trans-
ferring* as many parishes as he could from the regular to the
secular clergy.
To the scandal and sincere regret of all good and loyal Spaniards, the Arch-
bishop of Manila now began to hand over to the native clergy almost all
the missions and parishes, wresting them under various pretexts and on different
occasions from the religious who had conquered and organized them at the price
of their blood and sweat.64
Thus in 1773 the Augustinians were expelled from their parishes in

the province of Pampanga and native priests installed in their places.
In addition to the vacancies thus created, the Archbishop also had to
provide for the parishes abandoned by the suppressed Society of
64
J. Ferrando, O.P., and J. Fonseca, O.P., Historic de los PP. Dominicos en las Islas
Filipinas y en sus misiones del Jap6n% China, Tung-kin y Formosa (Madrid: Rivadeneyra,
1870), V, 35-6.
Jesus. He was therefore compelled to ordain priests hurriedly, in

quantity, and with little regard for the thoroughness of their training.
However, this did not seem to have given him any scruples, for we find
him writing complacently to the King:
At the cost of intensive labor I have succeeded in the space of a year in setting
up this seminary,65 which has supplied a sufficient number of suitable ministers
for the towns which had been administered by the Jesuit Fathers; and to put it in
a nutshell, I have removed its reproach from the insignificant clergy that has existed
hitherto, which was a national disgrace.66
There were others who did not see eye to eye with the Archbishop as
to the merits of his achievement. The quip became current in Manila
that "there were no oarsmen to be found for the coastirg vessels, be-
cause the Archbishop had ordained them all."67
And sure enough, it was not long before his hasty ordinations began
to bear bitter fruit for Archbishop Sancho. In a pastoral letter dated
October 25,1771, he gives violent expression to his disappointment, and
a lurid summary of the shocking reports that had caused it.
How can We refrain from weeping and lamenting, when the news comes to Us
that the parish priest of such and such a town is not a father of souls, but a galley
boatswain who punishes with the lash—O accursed and most execrable crime!
—even the very maidens! The example of a good life, the exact fulfilment of
one's duties, serious and repeated admonitions, prayer and preaching: these are
the arms of our profession. Neither Jesus Christ nor our patron, Saint Peter,
bequeathed to us the scourge or the whip.68
Then in a dramatic passage the heartbroken Archbishop pictures

couriers arriving at his palace from every part of his diocese, bringing
sombre news of the misdemeanors of his clergy.
65
What he actually did was to change the Jesuit Colegio de San Jose* into a diocesan
seminary, contrary to the terms of the endowment. Upon being taken to task by the King
for this, he restored San Jos6 and took over instead the former University of San Ignacio.
Cf. J. Martinez de Zuiiiga, O.S.A., Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, ed. W. E. Retana
(Madrid: Minuesa, 1893), I, 232-235; Blair and Robertson, op. cit.} XLV, 123-4,128-130.
66
Cf. Ferrando-Fonseca, op. tit., V, 36.
67
M. Buzeta, O.S.A., and F. Bravo, O.S.A., Diccionario geogrdfico, estadisticoy histdric
de las Islas Filipinas (Madrid, 1851), II, 279.
68
The text of this Carta pastoral is given in full by Ferrando-Fonseca, op. tit., V, 36.
Here comes a messenger with another letter which pierces Our heart with the
certain information that in such and such a town Father So-and-so multiplies
visits to suspicious houses at suspicious hours; that the town and its parishioners
are greatly shocked; that on the night of such-and-such a day certain persons
followed said Father and stoned him. Good God! Is this a father of souls, or a
ravening wolf who spills their life-blood and devours them? . . . Other messengers
and letters come pouring in.
'My Lord: Father So-and-so of such and such a town is a wine-bibber, and on
such a day rendered himself incapable of administering the sacraments. He has
become a byword, an object of derision and contempt for old and young alike.'
'This other parish priest does not observe the established scale of stole fees;
he is a tyrant, a robber; he does not practice the works of mercy, nor give Christian
burial to the dead of those who are unable to offer a stipend.'
'That one has eaten up and spirited away . . . the income of the Church.'
'And that one does not teach the catechism in the Spanish language.'
'My Lord: such and such a town is in a state of revolt, disturbance and con-
fusion, because the parish priest or vicar who was assigned to it has brought with
him all his relatives: aunts, male cousins, female cousins, who, puffed up with the
high station of their kinsman, wish to order everything according to their fancy,
and treat all the parishioners with high-handed contempt.'
'My Lord: the rectory of such and such a town is wide open to all sorts of people
at all sorts of hours, and on such and such a day, to the scandal of the God-fearing
and discreet, it was the scene of a, fandango and other provocative dances in which
both sexes took part.'
'My Lord: this priest temporarily in charge of a parish has eaten up the fees and
what silver plate the church contained, and has paid no attention to the eighths
and other ecclesiastical taxes '
'My Lord: the majority of the parish priests and coadjutors look with horror
and distaste at attendance on the moral conferences, and very few open a book or
bother to buy one.'
'My Lord: in this town and that other, the parish priests do not practice or care
about almsgiving; they are very strict in exacting stipends and fees, but they want
all the money for themselves, or distribute it among their relatives; the churches
are bare, and they turn a deaf ear when they are asked for an alms.'69
Allowing for the good Archbishop's habitual vigor of speech, more

noted for its vividness than for its exactitude, the picture of the native
clergy that emerges from his pastoral is still not a very edifying one.
We can easily understand the bitterness with which religious observers
of the time saw the prosperous parishes which their predecessors had
69
Ibid., pp. 57-8.
built up "at the price of their blood and sweat" run to seed under the
mismanagement of this hastily created clergy.
I t was painful to see brought to ruin [one of them wrote] all the labors of our
ancient Fathers; and what was for me especially mortifying was to find that the
libraries which they had left behind in some of the rectories had been entirely
destroyed, having been exposed to leaks in the roof or eaten by moths through their
new owners never handling or reading them.70
Now, indeed, Fray Gaspar de San Agustin's dire prophecy is ful-

filled, and with a vengeance. Had he not—and so many others before
and after him—foretold that nothing but evil would come of trying to
make priests out of this hopelessly ignorant, indolent, unreliable race?
Surely the event has given proof positive of their thesis that the indio
is congenitally incapable of the clerical state?
It may be permitted to conjecture, however, that if these essentially
just and prudent men were given to stand where we stand now, outside
the orbit of factional strife and with their perspectives corrected by
time and subsequent experience, they would admit that such a thesis
is an oversimplification of what was really a more complicated reality.
Enough of the evidence has been presented to suggest that the native
clergy were as much victims as the religious were of a particular form
of union between the ecclesiastical and the civil order which injured
rather than helped the work of the Church. They were, in fact, the
ones more heavily victimized. For the religious orders suffered little
beyond the loss of a few parishes; whereas the native clergy as a whole
sustained an injury to its reputation which has crippled its growth until
very recent times.
Be that as it may, Archbishop Sancho's disastrous experiment his-
torically resulted in the general acceptance, on the part of both civil
and ecclesiastical officials, of San Agustin's thesis. Filipinos, being
by nature incapable of the full responsibilities of the priesthood, were
to be employed only in strictly subordinate positions in the Church,
and to be trained as such. This was the prevailing attitude towards
them until almost the last years of the nineteenth century: an attitude,
at its best, of pitying tolerance, at its worst, of unconcealed contempt.
It recurs regularly in the writings of the period.
70
Martinez de Z&iiiga, O.S.A., Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, I, 479.
Tom&s de Comyn, writing in 1810, reported that by that time the

number of native priests and seminarians exceeded that of the regular
clergy. In spite of this, he suggests that natives should be prevented
from becoming parish priests.
At present there are no more than three hundred [religious], including old men,
jubilarians and lay brothers; whereas the number of indio clerics in effective
possession of curacies, temporary parish priests, assistant parish priests and semi-
narians exceed a thousand. And since the latter, unworthy as a general rule of the
priesthood, are prejudicial rather than of real usefulness to the State, it would
not be an injustice to deprive them, as a general policy, of the dignity of parish
priests, enabling them merely to be substitutes in necessary cases, and aggregating
them to the curacies in the role of coadjutors. In this way, in the measure that
the towns are provided with suitable ministers, the said clerics will be given their
respective places, and will acquire knowledge and decorum at the side of the reli-
gious, and with time may come to earn a certain amount of standing and good
repute among their countrymen.71
Seventy years later, the publicist Francisco Canamaque comes up

with the suggestion that the limited talents of Filipinos could be more
usefully employed in the development of industry and commerce
than in the study of theology and Latin:
•
Seven hundred and forty-eight indio priests . . . not only indicate a deviation
h\ the choice of a profession as mistaken as it is censurable, but to my way of think-
ing, given the religious fanaticism of the Filipino people, constitute political dy-
namite which is bound sooner or later to explode. No one gains by this policy of
ordaining Filipino priests; neither themselves, because in exchange for the habit
they relinquish to foreigners the practice of the national crafts, industries and
commerce; nor the friars, because they find in every secular priest a jealous rival;
nor the Philippines, because it is not gifted with talents in such abundance as to be
able with impunity to exercise them in theology and Latin; nor the mother country,
which has suffered enough since the beginning of the century from the thanks that
it ordinarily receives from the native clergy of the colonies. The governors and
bishops ought to give weighty consideration to this matter, and direct the incli-
nations of the natives along more useful lines, until conditions in the Islands shall
permit the employment along other lines of a part of its resources without fatal
injury to the general interests of the country.72
71
Estado de las Islas Filipinos en 1810, ed. F. del P£n (Manila: Oceania Espafiola,
1878), pp. 159-60.
71
Las Islas Filipinos: de todo un poco (Madrid: Fernando F6, 1880), pp. 63-5.
The same author elsewhere makes clear why he considers Filipino

priests such a waste of time and energy:
The indio priest is a real caricature.... He is a caricature of the priest, a cari-
cature of the indio, a caricature of the Spaniard, a caricature of the mestizo, a
caricature of everybody. He is a patchwork of many things, and is nothing. I
put it badly; he is something, after all; more than something . . . he is an enemy of
Spain.73
And in that last phrase, the rather haphazard scalpel of Canamaque's

wit blunders upon the true political reason for discouraging a native
clergy in the Philippines—fear. Behind the repeated assertions that
the Filipino was incapable of assimilating any but the most rudimen-
tary education lurked the fear that if he should be given more than that,
he might conceivably use it to conduct his own affairs, and eventually
discover that he no longer stood in need of a mother country. There
were indications of this in the way the few Filipino priests who man-
aged to rise by sheer talent or strength of will above the mediocrity to
which they were condemned were immediately surrounded by large
numbers of their admiring countrymen, ready to follow their lead with
a disconcerting devotion. Patricio de la Escosura, another Spanish
observer, notes the symptom:
Here [in the Philippines] every time that a native priest distinguishes himself
by his learning or his activity, every time that he is seen to be successful in his pro-
fession, every time that he shines in one way or another, the same moral pheno-
menon is infallibly produced: public opinion marks him out as a rebel, and the
malcontents seek him out and surround him, while those who are loyal [to Spain]
withdraw more or less openly from his company It seems to me indisputable
that as long as there are native lawyers and priests of some standing in any town
or province of the archipelago, there shall rebellion and other troubles break out.74
In other words, the "public opinion" to which Escosura refers had

the Filipino priest neatly pinned between the horns of a dilemma. If
he was incompetent, his incompetence proved that he could not be
anything else; if he was competent, his competence proved that he was
a rebel. In either case, the practical conclusion was the same: little
effort need be expended on his formation, any zeal in this regard being
either useless or dangerous. And how inadequate, as a matter of fact,
73
Cf. W. E. Retana, Frailes y cUrigos (Madrid: Fernando F6, 1890), p. 100.
^Ibid., p. 102.
this formation was, may be gathered from a memorial of the Ayunta-

miento, or city council, of Manila to the King in 1804:
In the three provincial capitals which are adorned with episopal sees, there are
no seminaries in which a young man can be trained with firmness and prudence,
since what are called seminaries consist practically of the mere material edifice.
There are barely taught in them, by one or two indio clerics, who speak Spanish
only with difficulty, a very bad Latin and a little of L&rraga.75
A very bad Latin and a little of L&rraga—perhaps this is the answer

to the question posed by one of the regular clergy's most enthusiastic
apologists:
How many Indian theologians, canonists, philosophers, moralists [have gra-
duated from] the conciliar seminaries? Not even one by exception, which usually
is found in any general rule This lack is not due to the professors, for they
were always picked men . . . . What does this signify, if not that the deficiency is in
the race, and not in the professors or the books?76
We are inclined to think that what it really signified was "a very bad
Latin and a little of L&rraga."
As was to be expected, the result of this short-sighted policy was the
exact opposite of what it aimed at. The average Filipino priest re-
ceived just enough education to resent the suspicion and contempt with
which he was treated, but not enough to perceive the real causes for
such treatment, or how to rise above it. Consequently he either re-
lapsed into apathy, and became in fact what he was told he could not
help being; or he sought to escape the vicious circle in which he was
caught by political agitation and intrigue alien to his profession. In
either case, the work of the Church in the Philippines suffered well-
nigh irreparable damage; but so did the stability of the Spanish regime.
For it is always bad statesmanship, in the long run, to put political ex-
pediency before the demands of the spiritual order; and that is exactly
the measure of the failure of the Patronato in its declining years.
75
Ayuntamiento de Manila to the King, July 12, 1804, in Retana, Archivo del HblidjUo
filipino (Madrid: Minuesa, 1895-1905), I, fasc. 8, pp. 24-5. Francisco Larraga, O.P., was
the author of a Spanish Promptuarium theologiae moralis, written in dialogue form, the
first edition of which was published at Pamplona in 1710. Cf. H. Hurter, S.J., Nomen-
clator litterarius (Innsbruck: Academia Wagneriana, 1874-1876), II1, 880.
76
E. Zamora, Las corporaciones religiosas, in Blair and Robertson, op. cit.t XLVI,
348-9.
The education of the native clergy improved appreciably with the

arrival of the Vincentians in 1862 and their taking charge of the
diocesan seminaries; but not to an extent sufficient to enable it to cope
with the emergency resulting from the Revolution of '96 and the trans-
fer of sovereignty from Spain to the United States. The nature and
gravity of that emergency was well described by the present Archbishop
of Manila, the Most Rev. Michael J. O'Doherty:
A careful analysis of after events will lead one to the conclusion that if the
Spanish friars made a mistake in their policy of governing the Filipinos, it was
solely in this that they failed to realize that the day might come when Spanish
sovereignty in the Islands would cease. Hence they made no plans for an emer-
gency such as happened in 1898. They neglected the Catholic principle that no
church can rest upon a substantial basis unless it is manned by a native clergy.
True, native priests had been ordained in the Philippines, but they were seldom, if
ever, allowed to become pastors. To illustrate, the status of affairs in the Archdio-
cese of Manila may be cited. Of the 350 parishes under the jurisdiction of the
Archbishop, only twelve were actually in his control, so far as appointment of
pastors were concerned. Other pastors, although nominally appointed by the
Archbishop, were really the choice of the Spanish friars.
Such being the case, it is by no means strange that the Filipino priests were
wholly unprepared to cope with the situation when full responsibility for the
government of parishes fell unexpectedly upon their shoulders. Perpetual curates
they had intended to be and nothing more. A certain native priest of Bulacan
voiced his sentiments to the bishop some years after the new regime had gone into
effect, exclaiming: 'Your Lordship, we were never trained for this!* And his words
were but too true. 77
Along with the tremendous responsibility, however, there came at

last to the Filipino clergy the freedom to develop normally along the
lines marked out by the Church. This is not the place to make any
invidious comparisons between the Spanish and the American regimes.
Like all human institutions, both had their advantages and their dis-
advantages; and the Filipino people would be obtuse indeed if it ever
ceased to be grateful to both countries, to the one for her gift of the
faith, to the other for her gift of freedom.
There is this to be said, however, for the American period, that while
the separation between Church and State which it introduced was
sometimes taken to mean the estrangement of the State from the
77
"The Religious Situation in the Philippines," American Ecclesiastical Review, LXXIV
(1926), 131-2.
Church, it did remove from the Church the political trammels of the
Patronato, and enabled her to form a Filipino clergy in conformity with
her divine constitution.
CONCLUSION
It is a bit premature to estimate the results of half a century of this
freedom; nor is it necessary, since the scope of this paper has been
merely to suggest a historical solution to the problem of the slow emer-
gence of a native priesthood in the Philippines. Nothing remains,
therefore, but to summarize the conclusions of our study.
Even after the Filipino people had reached that level of cultural
maturity required for the formation of a native clergy, two main causes
retarded its beginnings and interfered with its development.
The first was the ecclesiastical legislation of New Spain, where the
failure of a premature attempt to develop a native clergy resulted in a
reaction unfavorable to the very idea of a native clergy. The letter
of this legislation was, indeed, subsequently interpreted in a very
lenient sense by canonists, and thus rendered to a great extent in-
operative. But its spirit endured in a widespread if largely sub-
conscious prejudice against a native clergy, which came to be looked
upon not as a necessary means to the accomplishment of the missionary
objective, but as a rare privilege to be conceded to native peoples only
if they proved themselves worthy, according to more or less arbitrary
standards of worth.
The second was the system called the Patronato, whereby the Spanish
sovereign, in his capacity as royal patron of the Church in the Indies,
defrayed the expenses of the colonial churches, and in exchange ac-
quired the exclusive right of presentation to all important ecclesiastical
posts in the colonies, together with very wide powers regarding the dis-
position of personnel and the division of ecclesiastical territory.
In such an arrangement, it was almost inevitable that considerations
of political expediency should stir up controversies and influence de-
cisions injurious to the Church's work, and in particular to the normal
development of the native clergy. To summarize only the instances
given in the body of the article:
1) The division of ecclesiastical territory in the Philippines among
the missionary religious orders decreed by Philip II left no scope for a
secular clergy, and antecedently condemned it to the essentially false

position of a subordinate instrument.
2) This arbitrary limitation of its scope necessarily lowered the stand-
ards of its formation. For, on the one hand, the native priest with
such a future before him had no incentive to prepare himself for the full
responsibilities of the priesthood; on the other hand, the advantage to
his religious teachers of training him merely for a subordinate position
was a strong and ever present temptation.
3) The attempt of Carlos III and his ministers to cripple the religious
orders resulted in the sudden imposition of full responsibility on a
poorly trained, half-educated native clergy, with the disastrous results
that were to be expected.
4) This political maneuver also resulted in creating, or at least deep-
ening, an antagonism between the Spanish regular clergy and the native
secular clergy which rapidly degenerated into a national and racial
enmity.
5) Half-hearted attempts on the part of the home government to
secularize parishes in the Philippines were stubbornly and successfully
opposed by colonial officials, who suspected the native clergy of cherish-
ing little love for the mother country; and in view of the treatment
which they received, the suspicion was very often well founded.
Briefly, then, the system of the Patroncto asked for a second-rate
native clergy, and got it; but it did not thereby accomplish the political
objective which it had in mind. Rather, it injured by such short-
sighted statesmanship precisely those two great institutions which it
aimed to serve and which in other ways it served so magnificently: the
Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIVE CLERGY

T is clear both from the repeated and emphatic declarations of the

Finally, the Church in her entirety is the Church completely or-

We may consider it as certain, then, that one of the indispensable

observe that after more than three hundred years of missionary

appear that the development of the native clergy in the Philippines

ORIGIN OF THE SITUATION

The Philippine Islands were evangelized as a Spanish colony under

The colonial administrators, in their turn, looked upon the authority

Thus, in virtue of the Patronato, the Spanish King wielded a pre-

giving expression to a long-standing policy when he wrote to the King

The actual functioning of the Patronato, then, led to royal legislation

However, the high hopes conceived in the beginning with regard to

The second Council of Lima (1591), however, decided with laconic

Thus the persecuted Japanese Church could boast of several martyr

The second cause was the framework of the ecclesiastical establish-

In a report submitted to Innocent XI around 1680, the Secretary of

Cerri's observation is borne out by a very interesting letter written

It seems obvious that Archbishop Pardo's argument could be valid

Earlier in the eighteenth century, however, various educational in-

Delgado's refutation of these strictures is as devastating as it is ur-

Delgado clinches his argument by examining the supposition on

reply to San Agustin reveals that by 1754, at least four educational

have made it an invariable rule to impart a merely cursory training, in order to

There was at least a very strong temptation, as we have said, to take

Thus in 1773 the Augustinians were expelled from their parishes in

Jesus. He was therefore compelled to ordain priests hurriedly, in

Then in a dramatic passage the heartbroken Archbishop pictures

Allowing for the good Archbishop's habitual vigor of speech, more

Now, indeed, Fray Gaspar de San Agustin's dire prophecy is ful-

Tom&s de Comyn, writing in 1810, reported that by that time the

Seventy years later, the publicist Francisco Canamaque comes up

The same author elsewhere makes clear why he considers Filipino

And in that last phrase, the rather haphazard scalpel of Canamaque's

In other words, the "public opinion" to which Escosura refers had

this formation was, may be gathered from a memorial of the Ayunta-

A very bad Latin and a little of L&rraga—perhaps this is the answer

The education of the native clergy improved appreciably with the

Along with the tremendous responsibility, however, there came at

secular clergy, and antecedently condemned it to the essentially false

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