securing favor from some of them. Those evils would probably be
remedied by rigorously obeying the commands of Benedict XIV in his
constitution beginning _Firmandis_, given November 6, 1744, in which
it is ruled that the regular curas may be removed from their curacies
according to the will of one or the other superior, without its being
necessary for either to declare to the other the causes of the removal.

As a result of these continuous and obstinate quarrels between the
regular curas and the bishops and civil authorities, and as if to
cut the Gordian knot, the government ordered, in 1753, that all
the curacies be handed over to secular priests of the country. The
execution of this decree presented so many difficulties, and raised so
many remonstrances that it was decided in 1757 that, until it should
be ordered otherwise, none of the curacies administered by regulars
should be granted to a secular priest under any circumstances, until
it was really vacant, and that then the viceroy and the diocesan should
agree together whether or no it were advisable to make it secular; and
the opinion of both should be carried into effect, and that in equal
accord they should execute the decree of 1753. By this decision, the
governor-general had the power to deprive the friars of their curacies
at will, since the bishops have almost always desired or solicited
that. Carlos III, wearied at the obstinacy of the Augustinian religious
in not submitting to the diocesan visit, ordered by decrees of August
5 and November 9, 1774, that all the missions should be secularized
as they fell vacant. The governor, then Don Simon de Anda, in spite
of being at open war with the friars--because they had intrigued in
Madrid against him when the government was conferred on him--and
of his being, perhaps, the governor-general most hated by them,
inveighed so strongly against this order, asserting that it was not
advisable to the service of God and the State, that the same Carlos
III resolved that the decree of 1774 should not have effect, and that
the curacies and missions which the religious had filled before the
decree, should be returned to them. Nevertheless the government of
Madrid was so annoyed and wearied at the continual strife which the
friars maintained with the bishops and authorities, that it desired
to cut the dispute short, at any risk; and in this same decree it was
recommended that a body of Filipino secular priests be formed, so th