proportion to the tributes), that they have to
maintain three and sometimes four religious with what the king assigns
for one minister. It is endured with the greatest kind of poverty,
and they even lack the necessities for the maintenance of life.

743. I suppose also that, when once the new form of administration
would be established according to the subjection that is claimed,
it would follow that each ministry would have a prior appointed in
the chapters, and a cura assigned by the ordinary with canonical
institution. For this is the observance in America, in order to save
the freedom of the elections in what concerns the regular superiors,
and in order to prevent the religious who are curas from being free
from the vow of obedience. Of these, the parish priest cares for
the administration, the prior looks after matters pertaining to the
regular estate but cannot assist in what pertains to the instruction
[doctrina], for generally he does not know the language. The former
has increased expenses with the visit of the bishop and other matters
relating thereto; and the latter, with the journeys to the chapter
and the visitation of the provincial; and all these expenses must be
paid by the stipends of the mission, for there is no other source
of income. Consequently, it is inferred that it would be necessary
in this case, to reduce the ministries to a new form and assign one
single cura to each five hundred tributes. It would be doing well if
the product of those tributes sufficed for the maintenance of the
two religious, prior and parish priest, with the other unavoidable
and necessary expenses. But if at present two priests scarcely
suffice to administer two hundred families well in our villages,
how could a single one look after five hundred families? Then, if
(and this could be proved with exactness) the children or neophytes
begged the bread of the teaching of the faith, there would be no
one to attend to that need. Therefore, our holy reformed branch
foreseeing so formidable and unavoidable consequences do very well
in abandoning the missions. For there is no reason why they should
load injuries upon themselves which cannot be corrected afterward,
and of which their prelates must render account to God.

744. Let us conclude this matter by stating one other motive for the
justification of our religious in resisting exercise as parish priests,
when one tries to subject them to the visitation and correction of the