Storia do Mogor 361.3.7

361.3.7

These reverend fathers desire to be masters wherever they are, and to gain their designs make use of falsehood as if it were truth ; they regulate their consciences by their ambitions, and follow no other rule than what suits their interests. We see this in their falsely alleging His Most Christian Majesty's order ; in their having written to France and to Rome that there were thirty thousand Christians where there were only two thousand ; in their having produced a decree two years after it had been pronounced ; in their having disobeyed in formal terms the Sacred Congregation ; in the fact that the authorities they have quoted in the Pastoral are more against them than against us, as you will perceive in the course of time ; in their having recourse to the secular arm to impede the execution of the decrees ; in their spreading the calumny about the Reverend Father Esprit ; in their making us over to your hands [267] with a precise direction to chastise us with all possible rigour. Looking to all the above things, I say, and foreseeing the consequences (for what has been approved at Pondicherry will not remain unpunished at Rome), they have behaved almost identically as did the Scribes and Pharisees who assembled and took counsel to betray Jesus : ' Collegerunt pontífices et pharisaei concilium, ut Jesum dolo tenerent ' (Matt. xxvi. 3, 4, and John xi. 47).