orenso Goreto would preach on the following Tuesday at the
church of the Society of Jesus, on the good thief. [69] He added
that that feast of the thief was very suitable for the Society,
characterizing its members as thieves. Later in the course of his
sermon, he brought in the balance which, as I have told your Grace, the
accountant Juan Bautista de Zubiaga presented against the Franciscan
fathers concerning the hospitals. He declared it to be an Inquisition
case, and that, if that holy tribunal did not take cognizance of it,
he himself would seize him. This he said with loud words and a menacing
aspect. And, so that your Grace may have a good laugh, I will tell
you his argument for saying that it was an Inquisition case--namely,
that the pontiff had seen in dreams St. Francis and St. Dominic with
their shoulders holding up the church of San Giovanni in Laterano,
which was about to fall--a sign that their sons must keep the Church
of God upright by means of their glorious labors, as if for that
reason no one of the said orders could do anything wrong. Besides the
fact that your Grace will see that this vision is not of the Divine
attestation--although it pertains to Christian piety to believe it,
as so many others--I would never finish if I should try to tell
your Grace the disorder that has reigned in the pulpits all this
year. I only tell, in general, what occurred this past Lent, and
even since Advent. I and many others have gone through curiosity to
hear the preachers of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and the Recollects of
St. Augustine. Most of the sermons have consisted of satires against
the governor, the Audiencia, the judge-conservator, and the fathers
of the Society of Jesus; and in utterances so extravagant that they
caused a great scandal, and in things ridiculous and unworthy of the
pulpit. The latter they made a professor's chair for the avenging
of their passions, instead of one for teaching the doctrine of
Christ. Your Grace can see what fruit the audience would get from it.

Returning to our narrative, the fathers of St. Dominic were not
content with saying the above-mentioned things in and out of the
pulpits, but they incited a petition to the dean of this holy church,
Don Miguel Garcetas, who, as the archbishop was excommunicated by
the judge-conservator, was exercising the office of provisor and
vicar-general in it; they asked him to declare the governor to be
excommunicated. For I cannot tell your Grac