s under penalty of censures, loss of benefices, and
other arbitrary penalties." For this clause alone is sufficient to
persuade one that the representations that were made to obtain that
decision from the pope were not ruled by truth. For had his Holiness
well understood all the circumstances, how could he have issued an
order from which would follow the inference of injuries terrible and
irremediable to the holy orders? If those religious, in so far as
they are curas, were to become subject to the bishops, they would
not hold their curacies as a reward after serving his Majesty so
much, but would regard their position as lower than that of those
who remain free from responsibility in their communities. For the
latter have no other obligation than to obey their superior or his
two subordinates, so that there can never be any contrariety in the
orders or any doubt for the religious of what he is to do; while
the former, after all their anxiety, have to study very carefully
over obeying their legitimate superiors and in keeping the bishops
content (which, as will be said, would both be impossible things),
whence must originate many disturbances and much restlessness. And
if it is intolerable that he who serves his king with faithfulness be
not rewarded, the order would be inverted on this occasion; for after
so much labor they could only succeed in multiplying subjections, and
be less free in their ministries. The orders would receive as their
reward the abolition of the exemption which the holy see conceded to
them as a recompense for the noble fruits which they have gathered
in the universal Church by their virtue and holiness--preserving it
fresh and beautiful by watering it with the blood of so many martyrs,
by which they made it illustrious; and increasing it with new worlds,
provinces, and millions of children whom they have subjected to it,
of which the histories are full. They will be obliged to place in the
curacies those who solicit them the most urgently, importuning by means
from which the more retiring and the more worthy shrink. They will
expose their religious to danger even after they have well fulfilled
the obligations of their ministries, in case that they are not to
the liking of the ordinary--besides many other annoyances which will
inevitably come upon the regulars. And if the orders have no other
means to avoid that and the rest which will be stated below than to
resign their missions, how could the b