Storia do Mogor 357.2

357.2

You know, gentlemen, that until about eight or nine years ago the Capuchin fathers were pastors of the Malabar people in Pondicherry. Without the Malabãris making any complaint of us, or our doing the very slightest thing possible to which an objection could be made, we were deprived of that mission on the false allegation of an order from the king [of France]. The falsehood is made clear by the letters we have received from His Most Christian Majesty. Although there was every reason for us to complain about such an injustice as the above, have we ever declined to obey the Lord Bishop of San Thome, when his Eminence made over the charge of that cure to the reverend Jesuit fathers? No! In what, then, have we been disobedient, that we are treated thus basely ? Finding, then, that we could not obtain justice from the Lord Bishop of San Thome in things appertaining to this mission, we appealed from him to the Holy See and the Sacred Congregation. The latter, moved to compassion at the injustice done to us, has declared in formal terms that its intention, and that of his Holiness, was that the Capuchin fathers should be admitted to the possession of their former cure. With the object of preventing the reverend Jesuit fathers from alleging ignorance [210], it has sent out decrees, in which it declares that such was its final decision.