Criollos in the law of the Indies: the degeneration charge and the answer to it

Spaniards born in the Americas were said by learned men to degenerate under American skies, and a bishop of Mexico doubted whether they could be ordained at all. The Council of the Indies told him to ordain them. The crown's leading jurist printed the charge, named the friars who pressed it, and answered that no nation exists to which some vice has not been imputed and that criollos may not be weighed all in one balance.