LETTER FROM THE ECCLESIASTICAL CABILDO TO FELIPE IV

In all the most opulent kingdoms, provinces, and cities of the Catholic monarchy of your Majesty, the most remote, the most separated, and the most distant from the royal presence of its king and sovereign is the metropolitan cathedral church of this archipelago of islands without number.  Consequently, its cabildo is poorer, more needy, and more liable to be forgotten than any other; for in order to set forth its afflictions and poverty, it even has neither feet, whereby it may go to cast itself at the feet of your Majesty, nor hands for the solicitude and works that the demand alone would require.  One effort only we can make easily, and that has been made for many years; that is, to write, petitioning, importuning, urging, and informing your Majesty of the most important things, not to our especial advantage.  And well do we know that your Majesty is not so wealthy that you can be liberal in proportion to your greatness; but only in the points most necessary and important to the Divine service and worship, and to your Majesty’s honor and glory, at whose expense it flourishes throughout Christendom—­especially in this city, fortified post, and empire of almost all the nations discovered and known; for in that it equals Roma, and the cities of most commerce in the whole world.  That is the reason that has always moved us to urge and petition your Majesty, representing the following points. [In the margin:  “July 30, 1625. [98] Reply to the cabildo, encouraging them; and tell them that what they say in their letter will receive care and attention, without particularizing the paragraphs or the things that they say.”]

One of the things which this cathedral has considered, and considers, intolerable, is that it always has to be governed by friars.  That is a matter that has in itself many grave inconveniences, that would take long to relate in a letter which demands brevity.  We wish only for your Majesty to understand and to be assured that the seculars can be better governed than any other clergy; and that they live with greater quietness and peace, not only in their souls and spiritual government, but in what concerns the temporal.  Not only do the seculars recognize this, but the religious themselves; for the secular is always in the midst of affairs, while the friar must necessarily incline himself to his order and to those with whom he has been reared.  It would be worse if such a person had not been, in his order, of much learning and of known virtues, but rather the contrary.  Your Majesty will consider the estimation that all will have for such a man who knew him before.  When this is so, it does not result to edification, which is your Majesty’s intent, but to depreciation of and contempt for the episcopal dignity, which requires the highest perfection.  God our Lord would be greatly pleased if the honors, dignities, and prelacies