The power of intervention in ecclesiastical matters which was exercised by the civil tribunals was always a source of discord in the Philippines. The attitude of the churchmen on this question is well shown by a letter written January 20, 1688, by Fray Alonso Laudín, procurator in Madrid for the Franciscans of the Philippines, in protest against the encroachments of civil government. He wrote that the principal causes of trouble in the Philippines are the disagreements which continually exist between the royal audiencia and the ecclesiastical judges; ... the ministers of the royal audiencia, by virtue of the royal patronage of Your Majesty whom they represent, ... hold ... that the audiencia has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Church and over purely ecclesiastical persons, over spiritual cases and the administration of the Holy Sacrament, ... and spiritual and territorial jurisdiction in regular and secular parishes. [811] Laudín described the helplessness of the ecclesiastical judges and the ineffectiveness of their jurisdiction, circumscribed as it was by that of the civil magistrates. He stated that all the judicial acts of the ecclesiastical ordinaries were rendered null by the magistrates of the audiencia and that the ecclesiastical authorities were reduced to such a condition that they did not know where to turn for relief or remedy, as even the papal decrees were rendered ineffectual by the encroachments of the civil jurisdiction. He stated that "the ecclesiastical judges see in all this a meddling and interference with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which has always been allowed, but they cannot hereafter give fulfillment to the provisions of the audiencia, even at the risk of expulsion from their districts." Laudín was of the opinion that the laws had been misinterpreted by the civil officials and that the king had never intended that the churchmen should be so entirely shorn of their powers. He concluded his appeal with the solicitation that such laws should be made as would determine the questions at issue and bring about harmony between church and state in the Islands. This should be done, he said, "in order that each may be caused to see clearly the duties and jurisdiction which belongs to him and that each may freely make use of his own powers and prerogatives, and thus avoid suits and other disagreements." The laws of the Indies prescribed that the most harmonious relations should prevail between the ecclesiastical and civil magistrates. The audiencia was commanded to aid the prelates and ecclesiastical magistrates in the exercise of their jurisdiction, neither interfering with them nor permitting them to be molested by other civil authorities. [812] These laws, like those of the royal patronage, not only gave to the civil government a commanding position with relation to the church, but they established the magistrates as the supervisors and guardians of the church courts.