diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

seeking a more radical evangelical life among a sizable number of Franciscanfriars in the Philippines. This is a positive factor whose importance cannot beoverlooked.The younger generation of Franciscans in the Philippines were aware ofthe urgent need for a profound reform in the legal structure of the Province ofSaint Gregory to allow a better adaptation to the problematic circumstancesin the Islands in which they found themselves. Such a reform had to beeffected in any case by a return to the roots of the Franciscan order and of theprovince itself, reviving the more characteristic values of those first years.In this sense, the young friars could not reconcile the Franciscan vocationexclusively spent in the parochial ministry such as it was then practiced andaccepted. Fray Mariano Pardo was the one who, certainly summing up thesentiments of a considerable number of his brothers, directed the writing of along document titled Points of Reform Suggested by Fray Mariano Pardo tothe Provincial of Saint Gregory, Fray Benito de Madridejos, co-signed byFray Francisco Arriaga. It has no date, but it must certainly have beenwritten'towards the end of 1869. The document contains 49 points, of whichthe more important are the following:33. The superiors of the Franciscan friars in the Philippines are under strict,unavoidable, imprecindible obligation to assign to active missions and to thepagan [areas] exclusively all the friars, and cede little by little, according as theinterests and the subsequent rights allow it, to the bishops the parishes vacant byaccident, voluntary renouncement and any other cause in the towns alreadyaccustomed to the practice of the Catholic religion.34. The supposed interest of the state that is alleged because, as friars are thepastors of the Philippines, the natives will be better vassals, better and moreindustrious citizens, is of a very low category and not worthy of being taken intoaccount against the general interest of the Church which cannot sanctionabsurdities as that of the Franciscan Order of Saint Francis as it is observed in thePhilippines, nor impose bonds that shackle the free exercise of the diocesanfaculties and occasion the commission of many sins by those who enter thereligious life in the belief that it is as it is painted in the novitiate.42. The visitor declares it is his intimate conviction that it is God's will and thatof our holy Father Saint Francis that a residence of our community be erected assoon as possible in Palanan and other points along the 'korai of Nueva Vizcaya,where young then are trained and the older religious continue converting toChristianity the pagans who inhabit that province and other parts of thePhilippine archipelago.45. In that convent in Palanan, a novitiate should be established, and the religiousvows should be granted more extensively to Filipinos than to Europeans . . . .171