Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/691

Rh regular orders was the exclusion of their ordained members from the right of administering the sacraments, and their being limited to the celebration of mass and the instruction of the Indians. Their consciousness of the prominent part they had taken in conversion, their sincere zeal, and their ardent desire to maintain the superior influence over the natives which they had once possessed, naturally combined to make them claim the privilege of administering the most solemn rites. Apart from what they deemed injustice, to be debarred from the performance of the higher ceremonies lowered their position in the eyes of converts. Their representations to the throne with regard to this matter had the desired effect, and at the request of Philip, Pope Pius issued a bull, on the 24th of March, 1567, granting to the religious orders the privilege of administering the sacraments in Indian towns.

I may further illustrate the feeling which existed at this time between the ecclesiastical factions and their respective supporters, by describing a tumult which occurred in the city of Mexico in 1569, occasioned by the interference of the clergymen at a procession of the Franciscan friars. On the virgin's day it had long been the custom of this order to march in solemn procession to the church of Santa María de la Redonda, and there celebrate mass; but in this year the secular clergy opposed the performance. The Indian followers of the friars, becoming incensed, began to throw stones at those who interrupted their procession, which led to a volley of similar missiles from natives on the other side. The result was a general disturbance, in which stones and other