ome at the council read this letter, and the archbishop and religious
were very angry at the absence of the members of the Society from the
meeting. They paid no attention to the fact that the clergy and the
bishop of Nueva Segovia were also absent. They couched their lances
against only those of the Society; and the first thing done in the
said meeting was to enact an act and resolution so harsh that it
seems best not to mention it at all, but to copy it word for word,
so that your Grace may judge what may be your pleasure, and whether it
was only to express some resentment, as the other relation declares,
or to disclose their passion by not telling the hatred that they
felt. The act is as follows:

"In the city of Manila, on the ninth of October, one thousand six
hundred and thirty-five, his Excellency the archbishop of Manila, and
at his summons, the most reverend bishop of Zebu, and the prelates
of the orders of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Augustine, and
the Recollect fathers of the last order, and the readers of all of
the said orders, having assembled in the archiepiscopal palace,
it was resolved that, inasmuch as the fathers of the Society of
Jesus had been summoned to the said assembly, this and another time,
by his Excellency, in order to communicate matters to them touching
the service of God and of His Church, which his Excellency wished to
execute with the advice of all for their better result; and since
both times when they were summoned they excused themselves and in
fact did not attend the said meeting, by which one can see that they
separate themselves from the cause of the Church, and that they leave
her deserted and abandoned in whatever pertains to them: therefore
it was resolved in the said meeting, that from any one who separates
from his mother in her greatest trials and necessities, his brothers,
the children of the Church, ought to separate themselves--namely,
by not attending the functions of common interest that shall be held
or celebrated in the convents and church of the Society of Jesus,
such as are feasts, contests in debate and other things similar to
these; and by not inviting them to those which are celebrated either
in the cathedral church and parochial churches of this city, or in
any other churches whatsoever, whether subject to his Excellency or
to the prelates of the said orders. Also, from this time henceforth,
his Excellency deprives them of the sermons [assigned to them] on