Storia do Mogor 357.6

357.6

Upon the reverend Jesuit fathers finding they could not openly oppose the decrees, do you know what they have done ? We should never utter it were not our reputation, and, above all, that of our order, involved, and did they not calumniate us unjustly, as they are doing. They have persuaded the Lord Bishop of San Thome to say that we have published the decrees without any permission from him — a most extraordinary statement to be made by an honourable man, but still more so when made by a priest and a prince of the Church. Gentlemen, we have not a permission in writing given to us by His Most Illustrious Lordship for the publication of the decrees. We had not thought it well to demand that from a bishop, whose words ought to be more than sufficient for acting upon in security. Wherefore are we thus made dupes of, that Monsignor should declare in his Pastoral that we have published the decrees without his license ? I leave it to the thoughts of all honourable men to decide what sort of act this is ; we beseech God, however, not to exact vengeance for it, but to inspire my Lord Bishop with a desire to testify the truth.