in founding convents was afforded them, the poorer of such establishments receiving presents from the king of chalice and paten, wine and oil,[1] while the sick among them were supplied with medicines.
Papal concessions to members of the regular orders in New Spain were on a scale still more liberal. The peculiar position of these missionaries required that they should be endowed with prerogatives which had hitherto belonged solely to the church. Hence the pope conceded to them rights and powers which the regulars in Europe could never obtain. The secular clergy were too few in number to perform the rites of the church throughout the length and breadth of the land, and bulls were issued granting to friars the privilege of exercising, in the towns where they established themselves, all the duties of a parish priest. They could hear confessions, and give absolution and dispensations; could administer the sacraments and celebrate marriages; could preach, teach, and confirm.[2]
Such concessions appeared desirable at first, but when the church became more fully established, and bishoprics were erected in widely distant provinces, a collision was the inevitable result. To the humble isolated convents of the first missionaries year by year others of costly structure were added, and custodias created. These in turn had developed extensive provincias, and broad lands and much treasure had been acquired by the orders.[3] Monastic simplicity gave way to luxury, assumption of authority, and abuses.
- ↑ Recop. de Ind., i. 17-21. Monasteries established on royal encomiendas were built at the king's expense. Id., i. 18. Consult also Id., i. 114, 122-3. In 1674 the queen regent ordered that the amount to be expended for purchase of wine and oil should not exceed 40,000 pesos a year. Montemayor, Sumarios, 4. It was ordered in 1561 that convents should be at least six leagues apart; nor could they be founded where there was a parish priest. This law was passed in 1559, Recop. de Ind., i. 95, when a considerable number was already established. In 1595 friars were protected by papal bull against interference by the ordinaries, or judges of ecclesiatical causes. Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 312.
- ↑ Id., 184-92, 218-22; Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, 473-4.
- ↑ Convents, in many of which an inadequate number of friars resided, so multiplied during the sixteenth century that in 1611 Paul V. issued a
