/>
occupying it were made, the Pope, to assure the Christianization of

the inhabitants, gave to the monks of all orders who wished to go the

privilege, pertaining till then to the secular clergy exclusively, of

administering parishes and collecting tithes without subjection to the

authority of the bishops.



The Dominicans and the Franciscans availed themselves of this

privilege at once. There was rivalry for power and influence between

these two orders from the time of their first installation, and they

carried their quarrels with them to America, where their differences

of opinion regarding the enslaving and treatment of the Indians

embittered them still more. The Dominicans secured a footing in Santo

Domingo and in Puerto Rico almost to the exclusion of their rivals,

notwithstanding the king's recommendation to Ceron in 1511 to build a

monastery for Franciscans, whose doctrines he considered "salutary."




the city.]



Puerto Rico was scantily provided with priests till the year 1518,

when the treasurer, Haro, wrote to Cardinal Cisneros: "There are no

priests in the granges as has been commanded; only one in Caparra, and

one in San German. The island is badly served. Send us a goodly number

of priests or permission to pay them out of the produce of the

tithes."



The "goodly number of priests" was duly provided. Immediately after

the transfer of the capital to its present site in 1521, the

Dominicans began the construction of a convent, which was nearly

completed in 1529, when there were 25 friars in it. They had acquired

great influence over Bishop Manso, and obtained many privileges and

immunities from him. Bishop Bastidas, Manso's successor, was less

favorably disposed toward them, and demanded payment of tithes of the

produce of their agricultural establishments. He reported to the king

in 1548: "There is a Dominican monastery here large enough for a city

of 2,000 inhabitants, and there are many friars in it. They

possess farms, cattle, negroes, Indians, and are building horse-power

sugar-mills; meanwhile, I know that they are asking your Majesty for

alms to finish their church ... It were better to oblige them to sell

their estates and live in poverty as prescribed by the rules of their

order."



The Franciscans came to Puerto Rico in 1534, but founded no convent

till 1585, when one of their order, Nicolas Ramos, was appointed to

the see of San Juan. Then they established themselves in "la Aguada,"

and named the settlement San Francisco de Asis. Two years later it was

destroyed by the Caribs, and five of the brothers martyrized. No

attempt at reconstruction of the convent was made. The order abandoned

the island and did not return till 1642, when they obtained the Pope's

license to establish themselves in the capital. Like the Dominicans,

they soon acquired considerable wealth.



The privilege of administering parishes and collecting tithes, which

was the principal source of monastic revenues, was canceled by royal

schedule June 13, 1757. The monks continued in the full enjoyment of

their property till 1835, when all the property of the regular clergy

throughout the Peninsula and the colonies was expropriated by the

Government. In this island the convents were appropriated only after

long and tedious judicial proceedings, in which the Government

demonstrated that the transfer was necessary for the public good. Then

the convents were used - that of the Dominicans as Audiencia hall, that

of the Franciscans as artillery barracks. The intendancy took charge

of the administration of the estate of the two communities, the

mortmain was canceled, and the transfer duly legalized. A promised

indemnity to the two brotherhoods was never paid, but in 1897 a sum of

5,000 pesos annually was added to the insular budget, to be paid to

the clergy as compensation for the expropriated estate of the

Dominicans in San German. Succeeding political events prevented the

payment of this also. The last representatives in this island of the

two dispossessed orders died in San Juan about the year 1865.



Bishop Monserrate made an effort to reestablish the order of

Franciscans in 1875-'76. Only three brothers came to the island and

they, not liking the aspect of affairs, went to South America.



* * * * *



The first head of the secular clergy in Puerto Rico was nominated in

1511. The Catholic princes besought Pope Julius II to make it a

bishopric, and recommended as its first prelate Alonzo Manso, canon of

Salamanca, doctor in theology, a man held in high esteem at court. His

Holiness granted the request, and designated the whole of the island

as the diocese, with the principal settlement in it as the see.



The subsequent conquests on the mainland kept adding vast territories

to this diocese till, toward the end of the eighteenth century, it

included the whole region extending from the upper Orinoco to the

Amazon, and from Guiana to the plains of Bogota. Manso's successors

repeatedly represented to the king the absolute impossibility of

attending to the spiritual wants of "the lambs that were continually

added to the flock." They requested that the see might be transferred

to the mainland or that the diocese might be divided in two or more.

This was done in 1791, when the diocese of Guiana was created, and

Puerto Rico with the island of Vieyques remained as the original one.



The bishop came to San Juan in 1513, and at once began to dispose all

that was necessary to give splendor and good government to the first

episcopal seat in America. Unfortunately, he arrived at a time when

dissension, strife, and immorality were rampant; and when it became

known that he was authorized to collect his tithes in specie, the

opposition of the quarrelsome and insubordinate inhabitants became so

violent that the prelate could not exercise his functions, and was

forced to return to the Peninsula in 1515. He came back in 1519,

invested with the powers of a Provincial Inquisitor, which he

exercised till 1539, when he died and was buried in the cathedral,

where a monument with an alabaster effigy marked his tomb till 1625,

when it was destroyed by the Hollanders.



Rodrigo Bastidas, a native of Santo Domingo, was Manso's successor. He

was appointed Bishop of Coro in Venezuela in 1532, but solicited and

obtained the see of Puerto Rico in 1542. He was a man of great

capacity, virtuous and benevolent. He advised the suppression of the

Inquisition, asked the Government for facilities to educate the youth

and advance the agricultural interests of his diocese, and commenced

the construction of the cathedral. He died in Santo Domingo in 1561,

very old and very rich.



Friar Diego de Salamanca, of the order of Augustines, succeeded

Bastidas. He continued the construction of the cathedral, but soon

returned to the metropolis, leaving the diocese to the care of the

Vicar-General, Santa Olaya, till 1585, when the Franciscan friar

Nicolas Bamos was appointed to the see. He was the last Bishop of

Puerto Rico who united the functions of inquisitor with those of the

episcopate, and a zealous burner of heretics. After him the see

remained vacant for fourteen years; since then, to the end of the

eighteenth century there were 39 consecrated prelates, 9 of whom

renounced, or for some other reason did not take possession. The most

distinguished among the remaining 30 were: Bernardo Balbuena, poet and

author, 1623-'27; Friar Manuel Gimenez Perez, pious, active, and

philanthropist, 1770-'84; and Juan Alejo Arismendi, who, according to

the Latin inscription on his tomb, was an amiable, religious, upright,

zealous, compassionate, learned, decorous, active, leading,

benevolent, paternal man. Of the rest little more is known than their

names and the dates of their assumption of office and demise.



* * * * *



The year 1842 was, for the secular clergy, one of anxiety for the

safety of their long and assiduously accumulated wealth. The members

to the number of 17 individuals, including the bishop, drew annual

stipends from the insular treasury to the amount of 36,888 pesos,

besides which they possessed and still possess a capital of over one

and a half millions of pesos, represented by: 1. Vacant chaplaincies.

2. Investments under the head Ecclesiastical Chapter. 3. Idem for

account of the Carmelite Sisterhood. 4. Legacies to saints for the

purpose of celebrating masses and processions in all the parishes of

the island. 5. Pious donations. 6. Fraternities and religious

associations for the worship of some special saint. 7. Revenues from

an institution known by the name of Third Orders. 8. Capital invested

by the founders of the Hospital of the Conception, the income of which

is mostly consumed by the nuns of that order. And 9. The

ecclesiastical revenues of different kinds in San German.



All this was put in jeopardy by the following decree:



"Dona Isabel II, by the grace of God and the Constitution of the

Spanish Monarchy, Queen of Spain, and during her minority Baldomero

Espartero, Duke of 'la Victoria' and Morella, Regent of the kingdom,

to all who these presents may see and understand, makes known that the

Cortes have decreed, and we have sanctioned, as follows:



"ARTICLE I. All properties of the secular clergy of whatever class;

rights or shares of whatever origin or denomination they may be, or

for whatever application or purpose they may have been given, bought,

or acquired, are national properties.



"ART. II. The properties, rights, and shares corresponding in any

manner to ecclesiastical unions or fraternities, are also national

properties.



"ART. III. All estates, rights, and shares of the cathedral,

collegiate and parochial clergy and ecclesiastical unions and

fraternities referred to in the preceding articles, are hereby

declared for sale."



* * * * *

The 15 articles that follow specify the properties

in detail, the manner of sale, the disposition of the

products, administration of rents, etc.



The law was not carried into effect. Espartero, very popular at first,

by adopting the principles of the progressist party, forfeited the

support of the conservatives - that is, of the clerical party, and the

man is not born yet who can successfully introduce into Spain a

radical reform of the nature of the one he sanctioned with his

signature September 2, 1841. From that moment his overthrow was

certain. Narvaez headed the revolution against him, his own officers

and men abandoned him, and on July 30, 1843, he wrote his farewell

manifesto to the nation on board a British ship of war.