orders were repeatedly issued from the throne that such characters as well as vagabond friars who had been unfrocked or expelled from their convents should be sent to Spain.[1]
With regard to the private life of the friars it cannot truthfully be said that it was in keeping with the simplicity and abstinence which their vows required. The contrast between them and the earlier missionaries is striking. Many indulged not only in the pleasures and luxuries of the laity, but also in their vices. Instead of abstemiousness, feasting and carousal prevailed among them, as among the secular clergy; instead of humble garb and bearing, pompous display in embroidered doublets and silken hose of bright color; instead of study and devotional exercises, dice-throwing and card-playing, over which the pious gamblers cursed and swore and drank.[2] Immorality too often usurped the place of celibacy,[3] and murder that of martyrdom.[4] It must not, however, be concluded
- ↑ Ordenes de la Corona, iv. 84-5; vii. 11, 84-5.
- ↑ Gage, i. 82, tells a story of a priest who, having won a large sum, held open one of the sleeves of his habit and swept his gains into it with the other, jocularly explaining that he had taken a vow neither to touch nor keep money, but that his sleeve had permission to do so. Delaporte, x. 198-268, 307.
- ↑ The inquisition in 1742 instituted proceedings against Fray Lázaro Jimenez del Guante, a Franciscan of Querétaro, for soliciting women—some of whom denounced him—and other immoral practices. Being found guilty he was deprived for life of the right of hearing confessions and otherwise punished. Ximenez, Fray Lázaro, Inquisidor fiscal contra, MS., fol. pp. 281.
- ↑ In 1789 Fray Jacinto Miranda, of the order of la Merced, stabbed and killed the comendador Padre Gregorio Corte. Miranda had been placed under severe discipline by the comendador; he was tried before the archbishop for his crime. The order made strenuous efforts to save him from capital punish ment, and he was probably sent to Spain. Miranda, Causa de Homicidio, in Disturbios de Frailes, MS., ii. no. i. pp. 37-128; no. 8, pp. 331-40; Bernal y Malo-Waldo, Indalecio, Aleyato, 1-86. The kings of Spain were unwilling that the excesses committed by friars should become-public if it could be avoided, and left their punishment, as far as possible, to the jurisdiction of the several orders. But it being discovered that such license led to abuses, instructions were issued to the archbishop and bishops, enjoining them, in case merited punishment was not meted out to delinquents by the superiors of the orders, to assume the jurisdiction with which they were invested by the council of Trent. Recop. de Ind., i. 123.
who attended her raised the cry of 'To the church,' whereupon a crowd of negroes, mulattoes, and others, in spite of the resistance of the guard carried her into the cathedral. Attempts of the authorities to release her failed. She was afterward conveyed to the convent of La Concepcion and escaped punishment. Guijo, Diario, 551.
