The Jesuits established Mandaue in 1600 as a mission after they had acquired lands in the area for the Colegio de San Ildefonso. They exchanged Mandaue for the Parian in Cebu and assigned a lay brother as administrator of the Mandaue estate. The mission did not seem to have a priest permanently assigned to it, because it is not around 1724, the Jesuit catalogues specify that a Jesuit was posted at Mandaue and that his responsibility extended to Talibon and Inabanga in Bohol. Thus, for more than a century, Mandaue may have been served by Jesuits of the Colegio who took turns in attending to the spiritual needs of the people. Although the Jesuits did build a church in Mandaue in honor of the Fatherhood and protection of St. Joseph, a 1789 report describes the church as sufficiently deteriorated.