While more than a joint authority with the vicepatron cannot be claimed for the audiencia, and that authority not necessarily coequal, this cédula established beyond question the royal intention of recognizing the audiencia as a support and an aid to the governor. This law applied to all the affairs of government, not pertaining any more extensively to the ecclesiastical than to the administrative sphere, but this cédula, together with what actually happened, may be taken as evidence that the audiencia was meant to have jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs when royal cédulas granting or assuming the exercise of such jurisdiction were addressed to it.
The right of the officials of the civil government to interfere in questions of patronage was seldom seriously questioned by the churchmen, although there were some notable instances in which religious authorities objected to this exercise of power. Bishop Salazar, in his opposition to the plan of Fray Alonso Sánchez at the court of Madrid (1593-1595), expressed his disapproval of the interference of the governor and audiencia in questions of patronage. His opposition is further attested by several of his letters and declarations enunciated previous to that time. [695] He admitted that the civil government, by virtue of the bulls of Alexander VI and Julius II, should act as the defender and champion of the church, but he opposed any further participation in ecclesiastical affairs by the civil power. Salazar's arguments are worth noting because they were advanced during the formative period of the Islands' history. It was during his prelacy that the basis of all future relations of church and state was established. The arguments of Bishop Salazar were repeated with little variation by Archbishop Poblete in his controversy with Governor Salcedo in 1665 and later by Archbishop Pardo in 1686. [696]
In considering this question, the calm and impartial judgment of a scholar is eminently preferable to the passionate arguments of a prelate deeply concerned in the outcome of the dispute. Let us turn from the field of original research to a modern Spanish writer on church history and law. Fray Matias Gómez Zamora, writing from the vantage ground of the modern day, characterizes the acts of the government officials of the earlier era as excessive and unjustified by papal bull or ecclesiastical canon. He even goes a step farther when he declares that "many royal decrees and cédulas were wrongfully issued, without proper basis." He cites examples to prove his contention and among these he points to the foundation of churches and monasteries by civil authorities without the confirmation of the prelate, alleging that such practices were entirely illegal. [697] In like manner, he criticises the cédulas of October 19, 1756, and of June 24, 1762, which bestowed upon the governor jurisdiction as vicepatron, [698] with the right of settling whatever questions might arise. "But," he writes, "it is clear that the viceroys, the audiencias and the governors did not have, nor could they have spiritual jurisdiction over the persons or property of the ecclesiastics, because in no case can power which is delegated be greater than he to whom it is delegated." [699] Thus does this distinguished writer attack the foundation of the entire institution whereby Spain controlled the church in her colonies during a period of three hundred years.