be proved
that there was a sufficient supply of secular priests to take care of
them; and that they be assisted with the usual emoluments. He asked
and charged the reverend fathers-provincial to look after the spiritual
administration with their accustomed zeal. The royal Audiencia having
so ordered in toto by an act of February 17, the holy orders returned
very willingly to apply their shoulders to the work. Those acts
were sent to the royal Council of the Indias. The cause having been
discussed there, in view of the reports of the governor (which were
throughout favorable to the orders), and of the manifestos presented
by the orders in justification of their rights, the documents were
approved on October 23, 1666, and the result was to make no innovation
in what had been decided, and it does not appear that any other decree
was enacted against the observance and practice that the religious
have always maintained in those islands. Therefore the archbishop,
having claimed that the appointments for the missions devolved on him
by the form of canonical collation in cases where his Majesty did
not make use of the privilege which belonged to him as patron; and
endeavoring by that means to deprive the orders of the right which
they possess of making those appointments without the intervention
of his Excellency: the royal Council by a decree of September 26,
1687, ordered that the matter be continued in the form in which it
had been administered until then, and that no change be permitted.

723. Shortly after the archbishop of Manila, Don Diego Camacho, making
use of the most powerful means, attempted to subject the religious to
his approbation, visitation, and correction in officio officiando. For
that purpose he had recourse to his Holiness, to whom in the year 1697,
he represented that there were many religious in the islands employed
in more than seven hundred parishes, who had refused and were refusing
to receive the visitation and correction of the diocesans; and he asked
that they be compelled to receive such visitation. Upon seeing that,
his Holiness Clement XI decided (January 30, 1705) that the right
of visiting the parochial regulars belonged to the said archbishop
and other bishops; but he made no mention of the other points which
had been referred to him, and which were also under dispute. This
appears from the brief despatched in this regard. This brief having
been presented in the Council of the Indias, it appe