the motu proprio of Gregory XIII was issued, and because Father Manuel Rodriguez, of the same Order of St. Francis, affirms the contrary—­who some years later, while residing in Salamanca, where there was more notice of it than in the Yndias, published his books of “questions concerning the regulars,” as appears in article 7, question 8, of the first volume, [9] as well as in other places.  With the same agrees father Fray Alonso de Vega, in his conclusion, chapter 62, case 4, Questio de confessione, and it appears by the declarations of the holy congregation of the cardinals, which Marcilla reports in article 20, of section 25, de regularibus, and in article 15, of section 13, de reformatione, [10] besides others, by which it is manifest that it is a privilege that his Majesty obtained for what he then judged advisable for the proper government of the churches of the Yndias, and the greater increase of their Christianity.  It ought not, nor can it, be understood to be to the prejudice of the privileges that the holy apostolic see has conceded to the kings of Espana for the same purpose, such as that of Alexander VI, in his bull of the concession or confirmation of the Indias, as follows:  Hortamur vos quamplurimum ... et infra sit—­insuper mandamus vobis in virtute sanctae obedientiae (sicut etiam pollicemini) et non dubitamus pro vestra maxima devotione et regia magnanimitate vos esse facturos, ad terras firmas et insulis praedictas, viros probos.... [11]

And Adrian VI, in his Omnimodo, as follows:  Dum tamen sint tales sufficientiae ... and of the right of the royal patronage. [12]

And since it is now his Majesty’s will that the fitness and approval of the said religious in regard to curas must be to the satisfaction of the bishops, which he says to be thus advisable for the discharge of his royal conscience and that of the said bishops, it is clear that we are bound to fulfil it as a command of the holy apostolic see.

The above is in respect to the mandates of his Holiness.  Coming to that which is ordered in this regard by the decrees of his Majesty, it appears that his Majesty having despatched his royal decree on the sixth of December, 1585, that if there were any capable clergy they should be preferred, in the benefices and missions of the Indians to the religious who held them, and who should have held them, by virtue of another royal decree of May twenty-five, of five hundred and eighty-five, his Majesty gave notice to the Order of St. Francis, of Nueva Espana, that he had ordered the suspension for the time being of the execution of this decree; and that the said missions be held, as hitherto, by the orders and religious; that there be no innovation in the manner of presentation and appointment; that the bishops in their own persons (these are the words of the royal decree), without committing it to any others, shall visit the churches of the missions, where the said religious may be, and in the missions inspect the most holy sacrament, the baptismal font, the building of the said churches, and the service of divine worship; and that they also visit the religious who should reside in the said missions, and correct them in matters concerning curas.