his Holiness.  Consequently, as it does not appear that his prelate and superior, to whom it pertains to receive and answer the said decrees and clauses of the said brief that have been communicated to him, has been notified of them; and as it is not apparent to him from the said reply:  he cannot make any innovation until such time as the will of his superior, with whom those matters must be discussed, is known to him....”

Having received that reply, the archbishop “declared the said father, Fray Alonso de Valdemoro, to have incurred the penalty of greater excommunication and of suspension from his office as minister, which is imposed on him; and that, as such excommunicate, he was deprived of what excommunication deprives one; and in order that he might not allege or pretend ignorance, this declaration, stating that he has incurred the censures imposed, is to be read and communicated to him....”

Having heard the act, Father Valdemoro replied:  “that, in consideration of the replies that he has given, and his protestation against the violence that his Excellency has exercised toward his order, and the lack of summons, [19] which are an intrinsic right in excommunication, he does not consider himself as such excommunicate, until information has been given to his superior, as he has said, and in the meantime he does not consider himself injured....”

After the aforesaid, Father Valdemoro took part in a procession, in which the image of our Lady of Guidance was carried to the city, so that the Lord might be pleased, through her intervention, to bring safely to port the ships that were to anchor that year in Cavite from Acapulco.  The ecclesiastical fiscal was informed of it, and he informed the provisor and vicar-general of it.  At that time the latter was the canon and treasurer, Don Juan Cevicos.  He ordered the father to leave the procession, and by the archbishop’s order he opened an official inquiry, in order to investigate the offense, and to punish it according to law, “as the said father is a parish priest and minister for souls in the said mission of Dilao, and the said offense is dependent on the visit which his said Excellency is making on him as such minister, inasmuch as he is, in that regard, under his Lordship’s jurisdiction and subject to him....”

The investigation ended on June 26 of the said year.  In it the depositions were taken of Licentiate Juan de Arguijo, ecclesiastical fiscal of the archbishop; Don Alonso Garcia de Leon, canon; Licentiate Jeronimo Rodriguez Lujan, presbyter; Miguel Calderon, presbyter; and Alferez Francisco del Castillo, chief constable of the archbishop.  The archbishop ordered that the father minister of Dilao be arrested, “and placed as a prisoner in one of the convents—­that of St. Dominic, or St. Augustine, or the Society of Jesus, or St. Nicolas of the Recollects of this city—­the one which the said father should select.  That convent the archbishop assigns to him as a prison and