# 38355
Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina, Basilio, 1728-1788
El Arzobispo de Manila á los parrocos de su obediencia. Con permiso de los Superiores.
$5,000.00 AUD
Manila : En la Imprenta del Seminario Eclesiastico por P. Ignacio Ad-Vincula, 1775. Quarto (275 x 190 mm), contemporary limp vellum; title leaf, pp 128; printed on rice paper; small restoration to top corners of some leaves, else very good; [BOUND WITH] Carta pastoral, enseña las obligaciones del christiano en orden a dios, a su rey, y senor natural, a la república, a la patria, y a si mismo. La da a luz, dividida en cinco doctrinas, y la dirige a todos sus muy amados hijos. Manila : En la imprenta del Seminario Eclesiastico, por Pedro Ignacio Ad-Vincula, 1775. Title leaf, pp 240; printed on rice paper; very good throughout; housed in an ornately gilt morocco clamshell box.
Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina was the fifteenth Archbishop of Manila, an office he held from 1766 to 1787. Santa Justa quickly attempted to enforce his right of episcopal visitation in all parishes of his see, a right that had been granted in the papal bull of Benedict XIV. Initially only the Dominican parishes were willing to comply. Members of the other religious orders sent letters of complaint to Madrid concerning what they perceived to be interference by the Archbishop in the affairs of their parishes; Santa Justa retaliated with his own counter-complaints. With the arrival of the new governor, Simón de Anda y Salazar, Santa Justa received the backing he required to fill all vacant parishes with native secular priests, a task made easier by the withdrawal of the Augustinians and Jesuits from the parishes and the exile of the Jesuits from the Philippines altogether in 1768.
‘By the time of [these two works], the Archbishop’s honeymoon with his secular priests was ending, and he gives vent to his frustrations’ (Jose).
According to Retana, the second work displays the author’s vast knowledge of native customs, particularly with regard to religious practices.
Both works were printed on the press which had formerly belonged to the Jesuits – the fourth printing press in the Philippines. The press was requisitioned by Santa Justa for his private use following the Jesuits’ expulsion, and re-named, thus making it the fifth printing press in the Islands.
Jose, Impreso, 759 and 758; Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca Filipina, 2522 and 2523; Retana I, 350 and 349