I The King By order of his Majesty:  Antonio de Erasso”

[7] Referring to his Nova collectio et compilatio privilegiorum apostolicorum regularium (Turnoni, 1609).

[8] Gregory XIV, in his brief Cum sicuti nuper accepimus, after approving the first diocesan council (convened in Manila by Bishop Salazar), and the reservation of cases that the bishop should make with the advice of the said council, imposes on him the visitation of his flock and of the religious who administer it, forbidding any religious to go out for the conquest of unpacified infidels without the express command of their regular superior and the license of the bishop in writing.  The extract to this effect is as follows: 

“And lest the rules and resolutions made for the said bishop [i.e., of Manila], and the religious and missionaries assembled in the same place, for the happy progress of the Christians newly converted to the faith, should be infringed by them for their own special pleasure, profit, or inclination, we will and decree by our apostolic authority that those things that shall have been ordained and commanded by that congregation, by the votes of the majority, for the protection of the Christian faith or for the salvation of souls for the thorough conversion of those converted Indians, be steadfastly and rigorously observed, as long and so far as that congregation shall ordain and command it.

“Moreover, whenever that bishop, at the advice of the said congregation, shall have reserved any case for himself, according to what shall have appeared expedient for the nature of the times, persons, and affairs, no secular priest nor a member of any religious order or congregation shall, under pretext of any privilege or indult (even though apostolic), excepting the bishop himself, or by his express license and command, be authorized, or dare or presume to grant absolution in any manner in cases so reserved, during the said reservation, under penalty of being suspended from the ministry of the mass and from the confession of the faithful, incurring that penalty by the very act.

“Moreover, we enjoin and order that bishop that, since it is the special duty of the bishop to minister to his own sheep and to visit them in person, he shall visit the flock entrusted to him, the religious of the Christian instruction, and those missions, in his own person or in that of his vicar-general in spiritual things, or at least in the persons of other very grave men, and not at all by simple and unskilled clergy, ignorant of letters, and of no judgment.