CHAPTER XXXII.
THE SECULAR CLERGY.
1600-1800.
Vicious Ecclesiastics — Struggle between the Regular Orders and the Secular Clergy — Influence of the Religious on the Masses — The Royal Prerogative — Privileges of the Ecclesiastics — Right of Sanctuary — The Bishoprics of New Spain — Religious Fraternities — Church Property — Its Confiscation Ordered — Church Revenues — The Inquisition.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the secular clergy included many who had come to New Spain in search of fortune, having little prospect of success in their native country. These were for the most part mere adventurers, vicious, and a cancer in the body ecclesiastic. The natives among the seculars, with a few exceptions, had also become contaminated. Of this we have abundant evidence in papal bulls and royal orders, in the reports of several viceroys, of whom one was a distinguished prelate, and in the edicts of the inquisition. Violations of the vows of chastity, impeding the administration of justice, trading against express prohibitions, manufacturing prohibited liquors, collecting excessive fees, and defrauding the crown, were common practices, and indeed some of their deeds were so scandalous that decency forbids their relation.[1]
- ↑ Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 429-31; Recop. de Ind., i. 90-1; Palafox, Instruc., in Morfi. Col. Docs, MS., 27-9; Mancera Instruc., 469-71; Linares, Instruc., MS., 469-71; Defensor de la Verd., 1; Órd. de la Corona, MS., vii. 77; Crespo, Mem. Ajust., 7, 8; Disposic. Var., v. 5, 13, 29; Reales Cédulas. MS., i. 34-5; Campillo, N. Sistema, 45-6; Villarroel, Enferm. Polit., 6-25, in Bustamante, Voz de la Patria, v. One viceroy, the marqués de Branciforte, gives all the clergy, high and low, a good character, but as he left rather a bad one of his own in the country I hesitate to accept his uncorroborated testimony. Branciforte, Instruc., in Linares, Instruc., MS., 44-6.
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