Storia do Mogor 361.1
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 361.1
- Language
- English
361.1.1
'Reverend Father, 'I have not given permission to your Reverence, not even in thought, much less in words. All I said to you was that you could publish the decrees on your own authority, as you could publish any other sort of order in your church, just as you thought fit, without my leave and without anyone hindering you; I did not, however, issue the Pastoral to hinder the decrees of the Sacred Congregation, but to suppress the boldness with which the Reverend Father Fra Esprit declared in his church on All Saints' Day [November 1, 1706] that the reverend Jesuit fathers of the society were not the parochial priests of the Malabāris, the whole of whom were his parishioners, thereby encroaching on our jurisdiction, and acting against what I had ordered in virtue of the jurisdiction possessed by me as bishop, and conferred on me by the Sacred Canons and the decrees of the Sacred Council of Trent, in regard to the erecting and dividing parishes by following what I might think best for the welfare of my flock. The demand, as it is not founded on truth, falls of itself to the ground . . .,' et cetera.
361.1.2
Gentlemen, having already replied at length to this letter of the Lord Bishop in the previous letter which I did myself the honour of writing to you, I will say no more than merely pray you to observe if any permission could be given more authentic than the one above recorded. Yet his Lordship has written to your Council, and also said in his Pastoral, that we have published the decrees without his permission, and makes use of this assertion to take away our mission to the Malabāris, and to fulminate his anathemas against the Reverend Father Esprit. To speak the truth, gentlemen, do not all these things cry aloud for vengeance in the presence of God ? The French themselves, who know the innocent and irreproachable life of the said Reverend Father Fra Esprit, flee from him as if he were a wild beast. Should they not rather blush with shame, and at least spare us the fatigues, the afflictions, the sadness, to which we are daily subjected by them ? Yet it is thus that they act against a poor friar, who suffers persecution in the cause of justice — a humble man, if ever there has been one in this world. To see the Reverend Father Esprit declared excommunicated by a Portuguese bishop, whose nation is at this time warring and contesting with France, does not afflict us, knowing most thoroughly that they hate to the very death the French nation.
361.1.3
To see attached to the doors of the reverend Jesuit fathers a declaration against the Reverend Father Esprit, wherein he is pronounced accursed, and doubly accursed of God Omnipotent, of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and of all the other saints in the quire celestial, in spite of its cutting us to the quick, does not surprise us, because we have known the reverend Jesuit fathers for many a day, and we are aware by full evidence that they are our sworn enemies. But to see French gentlemen allow the reverend Capuchin fathers, who for over thirty years have had charge of their consciences, to be tyrannized over, outraged, and persecuted, without lifting a finger to help them ; that, seeing what we suffer — seeing, finally, their own pastor excommunicated, and knowing his innocence, they leave him exposed to the fury of his enemies, and take no steps to find out what sin he has committed — alas ! gentlemen, this is the thing which pierces us to the heart, which so pains us, that if God did not uphold us by His grace we should have succumbed inevitably under so great a burden. What boots it to live under the flag of France, in a city having a supreme Council, in the midst of men who know quite well that our Invincible Monarch has taken us under his singular protection and safeguard ; who know perfectly the orders they have received from his Majesty and the Royal Company to succour and protect us as often as necessary ;
361.1.4
who recently discovered the false devices through which we were damaged by the reverend Jesuit fathers; who have seen the oppressive way in which Monsignor has behaved to us several times; who know sufficiently well that we have not done a single thing unworthy of our ministry? In the teeth of all this, can you leave us in abandonment — nay, throw the blame upon us Capuchins? Not to resent these things we should need to be more than human, and not mere men.
361.1.5
Who has ever beheld so many excommunications, so many interdicts, so many suspensions, against the poor Capuchin fathers? The Reverend Father Michel Ange of Bourges, Superior at Madras, after twenty years and more of service in these regions, where he has gained the love of all the people by an exemplary life, suspended from divine duties! Father René of Angoulesme, after being in the mission fifteen years, and without the commission of anything for which he could be reproved, also suspended like the first-named! The Reverend Father Eusebius of Bourges, after twelve years in India, where he had reaped a great harvest, suspended, interdicted, and excommunicated! The Reverend Father Esprit of Tours, Superior of Pondicherry, after twenty-five years of mission work, in which he has sweated blood and water, declared accursed, doubly accursed of God Omnipotent, of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul [255], and of all the other saints in the quire celestial! Should you desire to know the reason why the first three were so treated, it was because they did not appear at Pondicherry, owing to the English gentlemen having retained them by force at Madras; and the last one, for having published decrees of the Sacred Congregation, and having cited his opposing party before the courts at Rome. Gentlemen, I ask you, can any other crimes than the above be laid to our charge? I trow not. If you have anything to reproach us with of which we are ignorant, kindly oblige us by stating it;
361.1.6
even publish it clearly in the face of heaven and of earth: we give you free license. But if you know us innocent, then have for us the same consideration that you have for the reverend Jesuit fathers, and when they take our business in hand, do not pay more deference to Portuguese or Savoyard prelates than to those of France. For, to sum up, it is a barbarous thing that Father Laurent of Angoulesme, Vice-Provincial in India, for having published in our church a provisional order about our cure issued by the Lord Bishop in his favour, should find himself forthwith summoned to appear before your Council and called upon to state by what authority he had acted ; while the reverend Jesuit fathers, who have published in their church an excommunication launched against the Reverend Father Esprit by the self-same bishop, have not been cited, like Father Laurent of Angoulesme, to file any answer. Nay, on the contrary, it would seem that they have received your plaudits, while we are derided. It is a cruel measure that a patriarch from Savoy, and a bishop from Portugal — the latter country at this moment at war with France — should discharge their weapons at us poor Capuchin fathers ;
361.1.7
but when a bishop of France [256] — that is, Monsignor of Tiripoli — tries to justify us and prove us not guilty, it should become necessary for a captain and a whole company to be put in motion before allowing a passage to a humble Capuchin father on his way to see his Holiness and report to him his whole conduct, to be followed by chastisement in case of his meriting it. Gentlemen, if we were invoking your aid in an unjust cause, it would be open to you to deny it to us ; but since we ask you only reasonable things, listen at least to our arguments, and, after having heard and thoroughly considered them, if we are guilty, punish us ; but if we are innocent, for God's sake do us justice. Here, then, are the great crimes we have committed; examine into them well, I implore you. Observe the want of justice that has been shown to us, the calumnies against us in the letter written by Monsignor to your Council, in which his Lordship begs you to proceed against us with all possible severity. The same is the case with the petition that the Reverend Father Tachard presented to Monsieur de Flacourt, judge at Pondicherry, in the hope of hindering the decrees. Having beheld, I say, conduct in direct opposition to the maxims of the Gospels, and so little agreeing with the ordinances of the Supreme Pontiff, we have cited the reverend Jesuit fathers to Rome for using violence to us and refusing to do us justice. This is the great crime we have committed, gentlemen.
361.1.8
I know no other whatever, although his Lordship, in his Declaration, may allege [257] that he acted in consequence of our having published certain decrees — that it was not until we had done so that he sent a Pastoral to the reverend Jesuit fathers as our punishment. But we have not taken any step, not even the slightest, since the issue of the said Pastoral, beyond the citation to Rome of the Reverend Father Tachard. Even if we were to be punished for having published the decrees and summoned the reverend Jesuit fathers, who has ever before heard of a case where a friar was anathematized and excommunicated for reasons of that sort ? I cannot believe that since the world became a world up to this very day there ever happened a case of this sort, for the thing appears an impossibility. In fact, if such a thing were likely to happen, it would be much better for the Sacred Congregation to issue no decrees ; and if it is allowable to excommunicate a friar when he summons his opposite party to Rome, the only thing left for the Lord Bishop of San Thome to do is to remove all the missionaries who are dependent upon him and replace them by Jesuit fathers.