above-mentioned decree. Given in Madrid,
December twenty-one, one thousand five hundred and ninety-five. [14]

[_I The King_]

By order of the king our sovereign:

_Juan de Ybarra_"

But since it was not expressed in the said royal decree of the year 585
that the religious who should administer the benefices and missions
of the Indians should first be examined and approved by the bishops;
and since the remedy for the public excesses of the said religious
should be limited to the bishops in the decree, if there should be any
excesses even in respect to curacies--the bishops proceeding in this,
not in the form ruled by the said article II, of section 25, of the
holy council, but by that which is declared in article 14, of the
same section: his Majesty afterward decided, for considerations that
satisfied him, that the authority and jurisdiction of the bishops in
regard to the above be extended further, as the holy council rules;
and accordingly, on November 14, one thousand six hundred and three,
he despatched his royal decree for the metropolitan churches of the
Indias, one of which he sent to the archbishop of these islands,
which is of the following tenor:

"The King. Very reverend father in Christ, archbishop of the city
of Manila of the Philipinas Islands, and member of my council:
Notwithstanding that it is very carefully ordered that the ministers
who are appointed to the missions of the Indians, both seculars
and friars, must know the language of the Indians whom they have to
instruct and teach; that they shall have the qualifications that are
required for the duties of the curacies that they have to perform;
and that the religious missionaries be visited by the secular prelates
in regard to the curacies: I have been informed that it is not obeyed
as is advisable; that the prelates do not exercise the care that is
advisable in examining the said religious missionaries, in order to
satisfy you that they are competent and that they thoroughly understand
the language of those whom they are going to teach; and that many of
their omissions and excesses in the administration of the sacraments
and the exercise of the duties of curas are not remedied in the
visitations. That is a great obstacle, and consequently the Indians
suffer considerably in the spiritual and temporal. I have heard that
their superiors are less careful in this, and in the choice of the
persons, than they ought to be. And inasmuch as it is ad