Bishop Monserrate made an effort to reestablish the order of
Franciscans in 1875-'76. Only three brothers came to the island and
they, not liking the aspect of affairs, went to South America.
* * * * *
The first head of the secular clergy in Puerto Rico was nominated in
1511. The Catholic princes besought Pope Julius II to make it a
bishopric, and recommended as its first prelate Alonzo Manso, canon of
Salamanca, doctor in theology, a man held in high esteem at court. His
Holiness granted the request, and designated the whole of the island
as the diocese, with the principal settlement in it as the see.
The subsequent conquests on the mainland kept adding vast territories
to this diocese till, toward the end of the eighteenth century, it
included the whole region extending from the upper Orinoco to the
Amazon, and from Guiana to the plains of Bogota. Manso's successors
repeatedly represented to the king the absolute impossibility of
attending to the spiritual wants of "the lambs that were continually
added to the flock." They requested that the see might be transferred
to the mainland or that the diocese might be divided in two or more.
This was done in 1791, when the diocese of Guiana was created, and
Puerto Rico with the island of Vieyques remained as the original one.
The bishop came to San Juan in 1513, and at once began to dispose all
that was necessary to give splendor and good government to the first
episcopal seat in America.
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