in two briefs issued by his Holiness Pius V—­one in general for all Christendom, which he conceded at the instance of the mendicant orders, under date of Roma, July 17, 1567, in the second year of his pontificate, whose beginning is, Etsi mendicantium ordines; and the other a special one for the Yndias, at the instance of his Majesty, under date of Roma, of March 26, of the same year—­in those briefs there was no innovation in regard to the first part.  On the contrary, in the brief of his Holiness Gregory XIV which his Majesty sent to these islands, and which was obtained at his instance, under date of Roma, April 18, 1591, the first year in which he commits to the archbishop of Manila the adjustment and restitution of what the conquistadors and other persons had in charge among the Indians, and prohibits religious from going from a pacified district to convert one unpacified, without the permission of the bishops, there is a clause of the following tenor ...:  Praeteria cum praecipuum munus Episcoporum sit proprias oves per se ipsos pascere et visitare. [7]

In regard to the second part of the two things ordered by the holy council—­that is, that the religious, before they can exercise the duties of the care of souls, must first get the consent of, and be examined by, the bishops or their vicars—­that order also appears today in its entire force and vigor.  For although it is true that his Holiness Pius V reserved the said religious from the said permission and examination, by the two privileges above mentioned, afterward his Holiness Gregory XIII reduced these and all the other favors and concessions given to the mendicant orders by Pius V to the terms of law and the holy council of Trent, as appears by his motu proprio given at Roma, on the kalends of March, 1573, the first year of his pontificate, whose beginning is In tanta rerum, etc., and which father Fray Manuel Rodriguez inserted in the book that he published concerning the privileges of the orders, [8] in number 38 of those of that same supreme pontiff.

Although it is true that it is stated in the memorial which the Order of St. Francis in Nueva Espana presented regarding the substance of the privileges of the mendicant orders in the Yndias, at the provincial council that was convened in Mexico in the year 1585, at the instance of the same council (as is mentioned by father Fray Juan Baptista, of the said order, in the second part of his book of advice for confessors), that the said revocation had no effect, because the cardinal protectors of the orders immediately appealed from it, asking his Holiness to suspend the said motu proprio and that it be not promulgated; and that his Holiness agreed to it, and that, accordingly, no account was taken of it—­it appears that no attention must be paid to that, for the said memorial has no further proof or authority than the certification of Father Master Veracruz, who was in Sevilla when