PADROADO, PATRONATO. — The complex of rights and obligations, formally granted and imposed by the pontiffs from the middle of the fifteenth century upon the crowns of Portugal and Spain in order to promote more effective apostolic work in the newly discovered lands, constituted a particular form of protectorate over the missions. It is called by the Portuguese term padroado when Portugal is concerned, and patronato when Spain is meant.
From the juridical point of view, padroado and patronato may be described as a quasi-contract involving obligations, based on a privilege. The clause “rebus sic stantibus” therefore applies to them, as it does to any other contract. At that time, both were the only effective means of initiating and developing missionary work in the vast regions of Africa and the East and West Indies. They are bound to their age and must be judged according to the standards of that period.
I. PADROADO
The beginnings of the padroado coincide with the history of the chivalric Order of the “Militia Christi.” On 2 May 1312, by the bull Ad providam, the possessions of the suppressed Order of the Templars were assigned to the Order of the Holy Hospital (the Order of St. John). To avoid the subjection of the Templars’ vast possessions to a foreign Grand Master, King Diniz founded a distinctly Portuguese chivalric order: the “Militia Christi.” By the bull Ad ea ex quibus cultus of 15 March 1319, John XXII assigned to this Order both the possessions and the members of the suppressed Order of the Templars in Portugal. The purpose of the Order was the struggle against the Moors. At the beginning of the 15th century, King João had his son Henrique (or the Navigator) entrusted with the perpetual administration of the office of Grand Master of the “Militia Christi,” in order to facilitate his conquest of Mauretania. In 1415 the city of Ceuta was taken. The infante Henrique had been its driving force and, with the knights and revenues of the “Militia Christi,” had played a highly effective part in the undertaking. On 4 April 1418, Martin V, by the bull Romanus Pontifex, established the diocese of Ceuta. The bull does not yet mention any right of padroado belonging to the crown of Portugal or to the “Militia Christi.” Of great importance, however, is the bull of Nicholas V, Dum diversus, of 18 June 1452. Since Alfonso V had undertaken the exploration and conquest of Africa for the increase of divine glory, and since it was his intention to bring the enemies of the Christian name to the faith of Christ, he obtained for himself and his successors the right of conquest over pagan and Muslim lands, whereby the territories would become the property of the king. In the bull Romanus Pontifex of 8 January 1455, Nicholas V once again confirmed to the Portuguese crown the right of discovery, conquest, and commerce in Africa and southern and eastern Asia, more or less acknowledged by the maritime powers of the Catholic West. After Henrique had conquered Guinea with the revenues of the “Militia Christi,” Calixtus III, by the bull Inter coetera of 13 March 1456, conferred upon the Order ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the lands conquered and to be conquered from Cape Nao and Cape Bojador through all Guinea and to the southern coast of India. By the bull Dum Fidei constantiam of 7 June 1514, Leo X subjected to the jurisdiction of the “Militia Christi” the conquests of the preceding two years and those to be made in the future. Moreover, the king received for himself and his successors the right of patronage over the churches and benefices then existing or to be erected in the future in the said countries. Five days later, on 12 June 1514, by the bull Pro excellenti praemimentia, Leo X suppressed the vicariate of Thomar of the “Militia Christi,” to which all the Portuguese colonies had hitherto been subject in spiritualibus, and established Funchal, the capital of the island of Madeira, as an episcopal see. The territory of the diocese comprised all the lands conquered from southern Mauretania to India proper, as well as China and Brazil in the west. The king received the right of patronage over the episcopal see, while the “Militia Christi” retained the right of presentation to the four dignities and the twelve beneficiaries of the Cathedral. Thus the king became patron, although the endowment of the diocese came not from the royal treasury but from that of the “Militia Christi,” that is, from ecclesiastical possessions. On 3 November 1514, by the bull Praecelsae devotionis, Leo X reconfirmed all the privileges granted by Nicholas V and Sixtus IV; indeed, he extended them in order to defend the Portuguese colonies in Asia beyond India against Spanish claims. On 3 November 1534, Paul III, by the bull Anguem reputamus, established the diocese of Goa, suffragan to Funchal. The boundaries assigned were the Cape of Good Hope to the west and China to the east. In this bull the rights and obligations of the Patron were established as follows, and were subsequently applied in the establishment of all the other dioceses of the padroado: 1) the king has the right of presentation to all benefices; 2) the king is obliged to build and maintain all churches, convents, and oratories insofar as they are necessary for the ministry of souls; 3) the king maintains all those employed in worship, from the bishop to the sacristan; 4) the king bears all expenses of worship; 5) the king provides a sufficient number of priests for divine service and the ministry of souls (missionary monopoly).It is strange that neither in this document nor in any later ones is there ever mention of propagatio fidei inter infideles, perhaps because the Portuguese conquests at the outset had a purely religious character, arising from the struggle against the Muslims. The propagation of the faith was regarded as a natural obligation of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and of the crown.
Indeed, at the beginning of the development of the padroado, Nicholas V, in the bull Romanus Pontifex of 8 January 1455, had declared that the conquests of the Portuguese king had as their purpose “animarum salutem, fidei augmentum et illius hostium depressionem, de ipsiusque fidei et Reipublicae Universalis Ecclesiae re agi” and, moreover, “eisque (to the infidels and Muslims) incognitum sacratissimum Christi nomen praedicare et facere praedicari.”
On the question of the territorial extent of the padroado, opinions diverge. A. Jann would apparently limit the right of patronage to the regions actually under Portuguese rule. Against this must be cited the Declaratio Gregorii XIII vivae vocis oraculo of 11 October 1577 (J. Dindinger, Bibl. Missionum, XV, p. 560, n. 1931), according to which the expression “East Indies” is to be understood as referring not only to the conquests and discoveries south and east of Mauretania, but also to the regions of commercial interest to the Portuguese. The decisive proof against Jann’s assertion is the fact that, on 10 April 1600, nearly 70 years after the foundation of Propaganda, Alexander VIII established the padroado dioceses of Beijing and Nanjing in a territory that had never been under Portuguese rule. Mons. Fornari (later a cardinal), in 1837, in a memorial written for the S. Congregation de Propaganda Fide on the padroado (Arch. Prop. Scritture rif. nelle Congr. Generali, 1837 [953], ff. 321–402), limits the padroado to the actual Portuguese possessions.
It must be said that this view has no foundation whatsoever in the papal bulls. Historically, it is established that the popes granted the kings of Portugal the padroado over all the lands from southern Mauretania to China and Japan, the latter being erected into a padroado diocese in 1588 (Funai). The same applied in the other hemisphere to Brazil. When Paul IV, on 4 February 1588, by the bull Pro excellenti praemimentia, established the dioceses of Cochin and Malacca, suffragan to Goa, the delimitation of the dioceses was left to the king. Paul IV further declared that in perpetuo any alteration in the right of padroado, without the consent of the king, would be invalid and contrary to law, even if made by the Holy See. With this, the development of the padroado may be regarded as complete, since the same principles were followed in the establishment of the padroado dioceses of later times.
Portugal, even at the height of its power, was never able to fulfill its padroado obligations fully. As early as 1582, complaints were being heard about the lack of priests in Portuguese India. Portugal, departing from the missionary monopoly, admitted outsiders who were not politically suspect, though requiring them to pass through Lisbon. By Clement VIII’s constitution Onerosa of 12 December 1600, the Lisbon–Goa route was also prescribed canonically for missionaries traveling to southern and eastern Asia. Eight years later, Paul V abrogated this requirement for the mendicant Orders; in 1633, Urban VIII granted the same freedom to all religious, and Clement X finally extended the permission to the secular clergy and the laity in 1673.
In the seventeenth century Portuguese colonial power collapsed, and Portugal found itself utterly unable to fulfill the great financial obligations arising from the padroado. Following the union with the crown of Spain (1580–1640), Portugal was dragged into the conflicts between Spain, Holland, and England. The papal bulls concerning the Dutch
and later the Protestant English had no force. Portugal retained only small portions of its Asian and Oceanic colonies. Meanwhile Rome once again became a dynamic religious center, and the Holy See decided to take missionary work into its own hands. In 1622 the Holy Congregation of Propaganda was founded; it created the institution of the apostolic vicars, who were subject to no diocesan bishop but depended directly on the Apostolic See. They were bishops in partibus infidelium, against whom the padroado could make no claims. The Holy See took care to appoint these apostolic vicars in territories where the padroado exercised no effective dominion. In 1637 Propaganda sent Matteo de Castro (v.), without the prior permission of the patron king, appointing him apostolic vicar of Bidjapore, the territory of a Muslim prince independent of Portugal. In the other missions of East Asia outside India, Alexander VIII, by the brief Super cathedra of 9 September 1659, erected the apostolic vicariates of Tonkin, Cochinchina, and Nanjing, entrusting them to the first members of the Seminary of the Foreign Missions of Paris and assigning them various provinces of China.
The attitude of the Holy See was different when, for the salvation of souls, it was compelled to send apostolic vicars into territory that had already been under Portugal’s effective dominion but had subsequently passed under Dutch or English rule. The briefs appointing the apostolic vicars of Malabar (1700 and 1724) show that they were merely auxiliary bishops, having jurisdiction only in places where the bishop of the padroado was prevented from exercising his rights. Consequently, in those territories the apostolic vicar had no rights alongside the diocesan bishop, nor was a territory assigned to him unconditionally (1700: Arch. Vat. Secret. Brevium, vol. 2024, f. 27; 1724: Arch. Prop. Acta S. Congr. de Prop. Fide, 1724 [94], f. 299). This was still Propaganda’s opinion on 20 February 1832, when the question of the jurisdiction of the apostolic vicar of the Great Mogul over the district of Bombay was decided (Arch. Prop., Acta S. Congr. de Prop. Fide, 1832 [195], f. 70).
In contrast, in the brief of erection of the apostolic vicariate of Calcutta, Latissimi terrarum tracta, of 18 April 1834, the Holy See for the first time no longer took account of the claims of the padroado in India, formerly Portuguese, and appointed an apostolic vicar who governed his territory in the name of the Holy See, having been entrusted with it unconditionally. From the appointment of the first apostolic vicar (1637) onward, Portugal continually protested against this “interference” by Rome in its rights, based on the earlier documents. After losing the financial means to fulfill the obligations of the padroado, Portugal, from the eighteenth century onward, also lost under the Masonic regime the religious spirit that had formerly animated the institution of the padroado. The padroado thus became an instrument of power for maintaining political influence in the spheres of interest and the colonies of earlier times. For its part, the Holy See always preserved the inalienable right to take into its own hands the government of the Churches wherever the salvation of souls required II. When, exercising this right, the Holy See erected in India, formerly Portuguese, five independent apostolic vicariates with their own jurisdiction between 1832 and 1836, the opposition of the Portuguese government was such that Rome, by the brief Multa praeclare of 24 April 1838, administratively and provisionally suppressed the dioceses of the padroado in India, with the exception of Goa. This resulted in the so-called Goan schism, which Rome sought to bring to an end through the Concordat of 21 February 1857 by suspending the implementation of the brief Multa praeclare. In practice, however, nothing changed, because Portugal was unable to replace the apostolic vicariates with dioceses of the padroado, owing to a lack of financial means. In the Concordat of 7 August 1886, the rights and obligations of the padroado were defined anew. Outside the Portuguese possessions, Portugal retained the right of patronage over the dioceses of Damão, Cochin, and Meliapor. For the dioceses of Bombay, Mangalore, Quilon, and Trichinopoly, Portugal retained the right to choose one of the three candidates pro-
posed by the ecclesiastical provinces. In addition, Portuguese Christians in the other dioceses of India were free to submit to the jurisdiction of a diocese of the padroado.
In the agreement between the Holy See and Portugal of 15 April 1928, the dual jurisdiction was abolished, and consequently the aforementioned dioceses no longer exercised any jurisdiction outside their territory. The diocese of Damão was suppressed; for the archdiocese of Bombay, a system was introduced whereby every second archbishop had to be of Portuguese nationality. A new regulatory agreement for the diocese of Meliapor was concluded on 11 April 1929. Further provisions were established by the missionary agreement of 5 April 1941. Nothing was changed in India. Two other dioceses of the padroado remain in Asia: Macao in China and Dilly on the island of Timor (the last remnant of the diocese of the padroado of Malacca). In Africa, Loanda was raised to an archdiocese with the suffragan sees of Nova Lisboa, Silva, Porto, and S. Thomé. In Mozambique, Lourenço Marques became an archdiocese with Beira and Nampula as suffragan sees. Of the ius praesentandi, only the convention remains whereby, before appointing a bishop, the Holy See asks the Portuguese government whether there are any difficulties of a political nature concerning the candidate.
After India achieved independence, Portugal, in the Convention with the Holy See of 18 June 1950, renounced its padroado rights over the dioceses of Cochin, Meliapor, Bombay, Mangalore, Quilon, and Trichinopoly, and the Holy See released Portugal from every financial commitment toward those dioceses (AAS, 42 [1950], pp. 811–14). It should be noted that the Holy See has always protested against the Placet regium, which for centuries was regarded by almost all Portuguese, and by others as well, as an integral part of the padroado.
II. PATRONATO
The American territories discovered by Colombo on 12 October 1492 were regarded as territories of India and therefore, according to the papal bulls, as belonging to the Portuguese crown. The king of Spain, however, claimed for himself every right over the regions already discovered and those yet to be discovered. The question was referred to Pope Alessandro VI. On 4 May 1493 (one month after Colombo’s return to Spain), in the bull Inter caetera, the Pope determined the famous line of demarcation, which passed 100 leagues west of the Azores Islands (shifted in 1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas another 270 leagues farther west), thus dividing the earth into two spheres of interest, one Portuguese in the east and the other Spanish in the west. In the first bull Inter caetera, issued the previous day (3 May 1493), the Pope had generally assigned to Spain Terras inventas et inveniendas versus Occidentem. The reasons given for this donation were: 1) the Spaniards had been the first to sail westward (ius primi occupanti); 2) Fernando and Isabella had promised to convert the inhabitants of the lands discovered and those yet to be discovered (fundamentum morale occupati).On that same day, 4 May 1493, in the bull Eximiae devotionis, Alessandro VI granted the Catholic Monarchs, for the lands of the West Indies, all the rights, privileges, and favors that the Holy See had granted to the king of Portugal for Africa and East India. As an officium oneratum, he imposed upon the king and queen virtute sanctae oboedientiae the obligation to send suitable missionaries, in sufficient numbers, to the West Indies. In the bull Eximiae devotionis of 16 November 1501, he granted the kings of Spain the tithe of the West Indies, with the renewed obligation to promote the propagation of the faith, to build and maintain churches, and to provide them with priests. On 28 July 1508, Julius II, in the bull Universalis Ecclesiae, formally granted the king of Spain the patronage over all churches founded and to be founded in the West Indies. With this, the development of Spanish patronage came to an end. The rights and obligations may be summarized in the following 4 points: 1) the king has the right and the obligation to convert the Indians to the true faith (missionary and mission monopoly). 2) The king guarantees the maintenance of the churches and the sustenance of the missionaries and, as an equivalent, receives the tithes. 3) No church may be built without royal permission. 4) The king has the ius praesentandi for all ecclesiastical offices.
The missionary monopoly was practiced in such a way that only missionaries approved by the king could be sent to the West Indies. Outsiders required permission from the Spanish government, which was much more liberal than the Portuguese government in granting such permission. Thus, on 17 September 1734, the Superior General of the Jesuits was granted permission for one quarter of the Jesuit missionaries to be of German origin. Following the proclamation of the independence of the states of Latin America at the beginning of the 19th century and the loss of the Antilles, Philippines, Caroline and Marianne toward the end of the last century, Spanish patronage died out on its own. Spain deserves credit for the fact that South and Central America (apart from Brazil) are today Catholic countries and that the Philippines is the only Catholic state in Asia.