Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 51).djvu/30

24 in general it is notorious that, on account of their origin, lack of education, the very obscure condition in which they are reared, and the little (if any) knowledge that they possess, they do not inspire in their parishioners that respect and veneration with which the latter regard the religious – who, on account of being Spaniards, possess the art of dominating the minds of the Indians, in order to maintain them in those conditions on which depends the preservation of these your Majesty's dominions. The religious know how to guide the Indians, without violence, to whatever ends are expedient for both religion and the State, as the results of never becoming too familiar with the natives. The Indian clerics not only follow the opposite course, but, lacking the dignity that belongs to their character as priests, they mingle familiarly with their parishioners not only in their sports, but in feasting and other things which are entirely unfitting; and not seldom they dress themselves in the same manner as do the natives, abandoning the very garb of their priestly estate." He proceeded to say that only deplorable consequences could result from the surrender of the curacies entirely to the native priests; and that the religious of the orders must be employed therein, unless they could be supplied with properly qualified secular priests who were Spaniards. The same ideas were expressed by the municipal council of Manila, who said of the native priests: "The weak and yielding disposition which has been for so long a time noticed in these islanders does not permit in them that steadfastness which is so proper for the priestly character and the difficult office of the care of souls."

"In June, 1805, the Frenchman Félix Renouard