Storia do Mogor 338.17.2

338.17.2

For years past many friars and priests have claimed, as they still claim, the charge of the Church in Madras, wishing to expel from it the French Capuchins. Among these assailants the principal is His Lordship the Bishop, Dom Gaspar Affonço. He made considerable efforts to exclude them after the departure of the Lord Patriarch for Manila, which took place on July 11 of the afore-cited year [1704]. He sent an excommunication against the said fathers at the time when the said Dominican father excommunicated the brothers of the confraternity in Madras. Thence arose great confusion in many thousand souls deprived of sacraments for a period of twelve months. The said friars, finding themselves always persecuted and unjustly injured, made violent [194] efforts several times to abandon the mission and return to Europe, and live there in their own convents. But the governor and the rest of the council of the said town of Madras would never consent to give them their dismissal. The English said the Capuchins were the founders of the Church, that they were of benefit to the Catholic population among their subjects, and if they quitted their post consent would never be given to admit the fathers of any other order. Such were the instructions they had received from Europe. If they went away the church would be demolished, and warehouses built upon the site (as I have myself heard the governor say many times). If this happened the congregation would be destroyed.