The prestige of the church was jealously upheld by law[1] and the Indians continued to pay the regular clergy the reverence which the early missionaries had won from them, a reverence bordering on veneration. This wrought no mischief so long as it was shown to men worthy of it, for the old friars were firm supporters of the government, but when bestowed on a corrupt and presumptuous clergy it became a source of great danger,[2] especially as the lower offices of the church were in the hands of discontented natives, who, being in contact with the masses, must have influenced them in political affairs. This element became a powerful agent, and the time came when it worked upon the hearts of a large majority of the inhabitants against the Spanish domination.
The church of Mexico, like that of the rest of Spanish America, was under the immediate control of the crown, through its representatives, the viceroy and governors, by virtue of the real patronato. This was a right held as the most valuable of the crown's attributes;[3] it was claimed on the ground of prior
- ↑ In 1790 a mulatto, for striking a priest, was awarded 400 lashes well laid on. An alcalde de corte, for a similar offence, was excommunicated. A royal order of the same year prescribed the penalty of death for robberies committed in churches. Robles, Diario, 30-7; Ortega, A., Voto Fund., 19. The worship of the masses, who had little instruction in religion, consisted mainly of external show. The duque de Linares said: 'En este reyno todo es exterioridad, y viviendo poseidos de los vicios. . .les parece á lo mas, que trayendo el rosario al cuello y besando la mano á un sacerdote son Católicos, que los diez mandamientos no sé si los conmutan en ceremonias.' Linares, Instruc., MS., 37. An able writer in 1785 severely criticised the religious practices in the capital, denouncing them as barbarous, because they converted the most solemn mysteries of the Catholic church into acts of superstition and fanaticism in the most ridiculous form; he uses these words: 'En ninguna parte del reino cristiano se presume de mas cristiandad y devocion, y en ninguna está ménos radicada que en esta capital.' Villarroel, Enf. Polit., 75-81, in Bustamante, Voz de la Patria, v.
- ↑ The duque de Linares, in view of the prevailing corruption, and remembering the riots against it the marqués de Gelves in 1624, made it a point to avoid all bickering with churchmen. He gave his reasons as follows: 'Porque son capaces de atropel ar el respeto de la persona, é inquietar los animos de los seculares, porque. . . la cantidal de eclesiasticos ignorantes no es poca, . . . y el todo del pueblo de la voz de católicos en apariencia es comun.' Linares, Instruc., MS., 37, 41-2.
- ↑ 'La piedra mas rica, la mas preciosa Margarita de su Real Diadema,
