posing the incumbrance of collation and
canonical institution? Why does that institution give all favorable
things to the secular and deprive the regular of all relief? It
imposes upon the regular the duty of feeding the sheep. It binds him
to the territory, so that the provincial cannot remove him without
the consent of the vice-patron and of the ordinary. He loses in great
measure the privilege of the exemption, and with those duties does
not have the comfort of being secure in his curacy, for he does not
hold it for life. Neither is he master of the emoluments which the
parish yields, unless it be imagined that he be dispensed from his
vow of poverty. Consequently, he only gets the burdens by reason of
the collation, and nothing to his advantage. If it be said that he
is not capable of being a parish priest, why the pledge in this new
form of administration?

733. Those who are striving for the subjection of the regulars
as parish priests generally oppose the fact that that form of
administration has been introduced into America, and that therefore it
might serve as an example for the Philipinas Islands. But that argument
is not convincing, and contains many remarkable disparities. First,
because there are plenty of secular priests in Peru and Nueva Espana;
therefore the bishops rightly compelled the religious either to abandon
the administration of the parishes, or to submit to the visitation. For
the motive of the privilege of St. Pius V was lacking, not by any
revocation that he made of it, but because its force had ceased,
its object not being realized. Second, because no one will say that
the orders of America were obliged to remain in the charge of souls,
with the insupportable burden of the visitations. On the contrary,
they agreed to it willingly in order not to abandon the parishes. The
fact that they consented to it there is no proof that they have to do
the same in Philipinas. Third, because the experience of what happened
in Mexico and Peru in regard to the diminution of strict observance
by the regulars, which originated beyond doubt from that subjection,
ought to open the eyes of the superiors of orders in Philipinas to
prevent such harm in their houses. This is not to cast blame on those
who are now enjoying the curacies in this manner in the said kingdoms;
we ought to consider them all as very excellent religious. But it
is an undoubted fact that, with the practice by which the missions
are maintaine