Letter (number unidentified). To the Most Reverend Father, Seville, June 18, 1575

GENERAL JUAN BAUTISTA RÚBEO, ROME

Thanks for letters received. An account of the Sainfs foundations. A defence of the Discalced Carmelites especially Fathers Gradan and Mariano. Behaviour of the Caked Friars.

JESUS!

May the grace of the Holy Spirit ever be with your Reverence!

LAST week I wrote a long letter to your Reverence of which I sent identical copies by two different routes, as I was anxious that you should receiveone of them at all events. Yesterday, June 17, two long-wished-for letters from your Reverence were delivered to me, one dated 0¿tober, the other January/ Although not written as recently as I could have wished, I was exceedingly glad to get them and to know that vour Reverence is in good health. May God preserve it as we constantly ask of Him in these convents of vours. A special prayer is said for you every day in choir, besides which all the sisters are careful to intercede for you, as they know mv affeition for you. Having no other lather, they love you sincerely since you are our only hope in this world, and as they are all very happy, their gratitude to you who established the Reform is unfailing.

I wrote telling your Reverence of the foundation made at Veas, and that another was asked for at Caravaca but that the licence contained a clause which I was unable to accept. Since then, leave has been given me on the same terms as for Veas, consenting to the nuns living under your Paternity's jurisdiction' as please God we shall all be. I also explained my reasons for coming to Seville to make a foundation. God grant that the difficulties with these Discalced Fathers may be smoothed away, and that they may cause you no annoyance. May He give me the joy of witnessing such a happy termination !

I must tell your Reverence that I took great pains to ascertain that Veas was not in Andalusia,

' As already explained, St. Teresa, being away at Veas making a foundation, did not receive Rubeo's letter until the following summer.

which I had no intention of entering as I do not agree well with the Andalusians, and it is the fad: that Veas is not in that province but only dependent on it, which I discovered a month after making the foundation. As I and the nuns were already in the house I thought it better not to abandon it. That was one of my motives for coming here, but the chief reason was, as I wrote to your Reverence, that I might clear up matters respeiling the Discalced Fathers. Although these religious justify their actions and I am convinced that they are really loyal sons of your Reverence and anxious not to pain you, yet I cannot exempt them from all blame. They already recognize that they ought to have afted differently so as not to displease you.

I have argued the matter warmly, especially with Father Mariano who is extremely hot tempered, but Gracian is like an angel and, had it depended on him, would have behaved very differently. He came to Seville by order of Father Baltasar, who was at that time Prior of Pastrana. I assure your Reverence that if you knew Gracian you would be proud to count him among your sons, to whose number I am convinced that he, and even Mariano, belong.

This Mariano is a man of virtuous and penitential life whose abilities are recognized by all. Your Reverence may rest assured that he has been instigated solely by zeal for God and the Order, although I repeat that his zeal has been immoderate and indiscreet. As to ambition, I am sure that he has none. But, as your Reverence remarks, the devil has been busy in these matters, and this Father says many things of which he does not seem to understand the consequences, I have often suffered myself on that account, but knowing that he is sincerely good I overlook it. If you heard his excuses you would be satisfied. He told me to-day that he should never feel at peace until he had thrown himself at your feet.

As I have already explained to your Reverence that both fathers asked me to write and offer their apologies for them as they did not dare to do so themselves, I will not say more now than seems necessary, having written on the subjed: before.

Firstly, for love of our Lord, believe me when I assure you that all the Discalced Carmelites together are nothing to me in comparison with anything that, so to say, touches your cloak. This is the truth, and whatever caused you the slightest displeasure would wound me in the apple of the eye. The two Fathers have not seen, nor will they see, this letter, but I have told Mariano that if they are obedient I know you will be merciful. Father Gracian is not here because the Nuncio has summoned him, as I told your Reverence. You may be sure that if they are disobedient I will neither see nor speak to them again, yet I can never show such filial submission as they seem to possess.

Allow me to explain how the case appears to me, and if I speak foolishly, forgive me. As for the excommunication, Father Gracian, who is at court, wrote telling Father Mariano that Father Angel (de Salazar), the Provincial, forbade him to remain in the Priory because he was excommunicated. When the Nuncio heard this, he sent for Father Angel and blamed him severely, declaring that it was an insult to him that these Fathers, who were there by his order, should be treated as excommunicated, and that in future any one who said they were should be punished. Father Gracian at once returned to the Priory and is now preaching at court.

My Father and my Superior, this is not the time for such measures. Father Gracian 's brother is secretary to the King who is much attached to him and who, as I have reason to know, is not adverse to the Reform. The Calced Fathers declare that they cannot understand why your Reverence treats men of so great virtue in such a way ; that they wish to come to an agreement with the contemplatives whose excellence they recognize, but that they are prevented by your having excommunicated them. They say one thing to your Reverence and another in Spain. They go to the Archbishop and complain that they cannot punish any one lest he should at once make a personal appeal to your Reverence. They are strange people! As for me, my Lord, I watch both parties, and our Lord knows that I speak the truth when I declare that I believe the Discalced are, and will in future continue to be, the most obedient to you.

Your Reverence does not witness what is taking place here as I witness it, and I tell you because I know how holy you are and that you protedt the right. On account of our sins, the affairs of the

Order are in such a state in Spain that the friars of Castile seem to me very good in comparison with those of Seville. A most painful event has happened since I came here. The constables found two friars in a house of ill fame in the middle of the day and took them publicly to prison. This was most unfortunate, for. though I am not astonished at human frailty, some respecft should have been paid to the friars' good name. This happened after I wrote to your Reverence: people say that, on the whole, it was right to treat them in this way.

Some of the Calced Fathers have been to see me. I like them, especially the Prior who is a very good man. He came to ask me to show him the formal authorization for my foundations, and wanted to take a copy, which I was unwilling to permit. I asked him not to go to law about the matter since he saw I had full authority to make foundations, as, in the Latin letter your Reverence sent me after the establishment of the Visitors, you authorized me to found in all parts — at least that is the interpretation put upon it by theologians, as you specify neither house, nor province, nor particular locality, but merely say: in all parts.' Your letter even commands me to make foundations which has made me do more than I was fit for, as I am old and worn out. As for the strain I underwent at the Incarnation, it matters nothing; I have never had good health nor wished to have it, but I do indeed feel a deep longing to escape from this earthly exile. However, God grants me greater graces every day: may He be praised for all things!

I have already spoken to Father Mariano about Calced Fathers having been received by the Discalced. He tells me that this Father Peñuela' obtained the habit by a trick: that he went to Pastrana and declared that Vargas, Visitor of that province, had given it to him, but it was discovered that he had clothed himself. The Discalced have been taking steps for some time to dismiss him; the other is no longer with them.

The priories were founded by a mandate of the Visitor Vargas, by virtue of his apostolic authority, because people here think that the best way of reforming religious houses is to establish Discalced priories. Therefore, when the Nuncio told Father Antonio de Jesus to make his visitation, he granted him licence, as reformer, to found priories. '° But he ailed properly by asking permission from your Reverence first, and if Teresa de Jesus had been there, perhaps this would have been attended to with even greater stridiness. Still, there was no question of founding a priory without your leave, or I should have opposed it strongly. Father Pedro Hernandez, Visitor of Castile, a¿ted very prudently on this point, and I owe much to him for his care not to offend your Reverence.

The Visitor of Andalusia, on the contrary, has granted these Fathers so many permissions and powers of which he urged them to make use that, if your Reverence saw what their authorizations were, you would realize that they are not so much to blame. For instance, they maintain that they never wished to admit Father Gaspar" nor to make friends with him, eagerly as he sought for it, and that they at once gave up the house that had been taken from the Order.' Many other fad:s alleged by them in their own defence convince me that they have not been actuated by malice. Remembering their heavy trials and their works of penance, and realizing as I do that they serve God sincerely, I grieve at knowing that they are in disgrace with your Reverence.

The priories were founded by the Father Visitor who sent the friars there with strid: injunilions not to swerve from his orders. The Nuncio gave Father Gracian patents constituting him Reformer and charged him at the same time with the supervision of the Discalced priories. Your Reverence declares that the Visitors are to be obeyed, which, as you are aware, is also declared by the Pope in His Brief which releases them from their oihce, '' so that I do not understand why this should now be contradiéled. Besides this, it is said that we have a decree to the same eífeót in our Constitutions," dire(iling that there should be houses of

" Gaspar Nieto, brother of Baltasar Nieto, had been Provincial of Andalusia and was specified by the General in his patent of August 3, 1574, as being one of those who had always been disobedient and rebellious against him and who was never to be received into their Order by the Discalced. {Found, p. 464).

' San Juan del Puerto. Vargas took it from the Caked in i 572 and gave it to the Discalced: Father Gracian returned it to its original owners next year.

' The brief of August 3, i 574, alluded to in the Letter of May i I as the 'counter-brief.

" St. Teresa refers to the passage in the acts of the General Chapter

Reformed Friars in every province. If this point is to be observed, people do not think so here. In Spain the Discalced Carmehtes are considered saints, whatever their character may be: they certainly lead good lives, are very recollected, and number among them men of high birth who practise prayer. More than twenty of them are following the course of leólures (I do not know the term for it) either of Canon Law or Theology and are extremely talented. Including the priories at Seville, Granada and la Peñuela, I think I have heard that there are more than seventy friars. I do not know what is to become of them, nor what the world will think, as it believes them to be saints — indeed, perhaps we might all have to pay for it very dearly as the King esteems them most highly and the Archbishop says they are the only genuine friars. Though you had every reason in the world for expelling them from the Order, people would not view the action in the same light. As for withdrawing your protection from them, they (the King and the Archbishop)' do not desire it, nor of 1524 on the Reform of the Order, which decrees: Item, quia fundamentum Reformationis est communis vita . . . ordinamus quod in quolibet Provincia constituantur aliqui Conventus pro totaliter Reformatis ; in quibus sint bene reformati fratres . . . Aliqui vero sin t pro i His qui nunc primum inducuntur ad reformationem. . . The difterence between these two categories consists chiefly in their more or less strict observance of poverty. Between 14.51 and 1471, Blessed John Soreth, General of the Order, reformed individual priories with so much rigour that it was thought necessary to limit his zeal by enactments in the General Chapters which were sanctioned by the Holy See.

' Don Christopher de Rojas y Sandoval, son of the Marquis of Denia, was born in 1502. He was first made Bishop of Oviedo in which quality he assisted at the Council of Trent, subsequently Bishop of Cordova, and finally of Seville. There he had difficulties with the Caked Carmelites and it was at his instigation that Philip II asked can your Reverence do so, being the vassal of the Virgin, who would be offended at your abandoning those who strive by the sweat of their brow to increase the Order. Things have come to such a pass that much consideration is needed . . ."