Storia do Mogor 362.3
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 362.3
- Language
- English
362.3.1
'Yes,' replied Monsignor. 'As the reverend Jesuit fathers were then making every effort to withdraw the said cure from us, did not your Lordship say to me repeatedly that I was to resist them firmly, and that you would never consent to such a piece of injustice ?' 'That is true,' replied Monsignor. 'Then the reverend Jesuit fathers falsely alleged an order of his Majesty (Louis XIV.), as we afterwards ascertained; and upon the solicitation of the late Chevalier Martin, did not your Lordship issue an executive order about the cure in favour of the reverend Jesuit fathers ?' 'Again that is quite true,' [826] replied Monsignor; 'but I did not know that the order of the prince was falsely alleged.'
362.3.2
'Of that I am quite persuaded,' said Father Michel Ange; 'nevertheless, as your Lordship, when you discovered the falsity of the reverend Jesuit fathers' allegation, did not restore us to our ancient mission, we had recourse in appeal to the King of France for the temporalities, and to his Holiness, together with the Sacred Congregation, in regard to the spiritual charge. Thus his Holiness and the aforesaid Sacred Congregation, upon perusal of our appeal, cited to appear before them the Very Reverend Father the Procurator-General of the Society of Jesus and the Very Reverend Father the Procurator of the Capuchins. After listening to the arguments on both sides, decrees were issued in favour of the Capuchin fathers, which they directed to be presented to your Lordship : "Dentur decreta episcopo Meliapurensis." This we did, my Lord; yet after you had approved them and recognised them as genuine, when we promulgated them in our church with your special permission, your Lordship issued a second Pastoral in favour of the reverend Jesuit fathers, who are the very persons against whom the decrees were issued. This is to act directly in the teeth of the Sacred Congregation's decrees. You have also excommunicated the Reverend Father Esprit. Can such a thing be done, my Lord, I ask you ? and is it permissible for a bishop to meddle with a case, and attempt to decide it after judgment has been given by the Sacred Congregation ?'
362.3.3
' You did not appeal to the Holy See or to the Sacred Congregation about this cure ?' said the Lord Bishop. ' We have not appealed !' replied Father Michel Ange. ' Why is it, then, that the Sacred Congregation has sent these decrees, if it is not in connection with our appeal ? If your Lordship is in doubt, here is the petition of the Reverend Father Francois Marie of Tours, laid by him in person before the Sacred Congregation.' [Father Francois Marie's petition of March 26, 1703, is omitted, as it has been already given in full on fol. 218, Part V.] ' If after that your Lordship still doubts whether we have appealed to the Sacred Congregation, I produce the protest of the reverend Capuchin fathers against the acts of the reverend Jesuit fathers. This protest was notified to them in legal form and in the presence of witnesses. Its terms are as follows :
362.3.4
" The Capuchin fathers of the province of Touraine, who for thirty-five years or thereabouts have been in possession of the cure of Pondicherry, as well in regard to the French gentlemen as to the natives of the country styled Malabãrls, having been informed that the reverend Jesuit fathers, at the request of Monsieur the General Martin, and to their (the Capuchins') prejudice, have obtained from the Lord Bishop of San Thome an executive order (provision) in regard to the cure of the said Malabãrls at Pondicherry, the said Capuchin fathers, with reference to the order granted them by the said prelate in regard to the cure of the said Pondicherry, dated July 12, 1699, protest by this present document against the said executive order issued by my Lord of San Thome, and appeal therefrom to the Holy See and to the Sacred Congregation, to whom is confided all matters touching the business of bishops and regular clergy with regard to the spiritual question, and as regards the temporalities to the Most Christian king, under whose protection and safeguard they have the honour to dwell," et cetera.
362.3.5
'Have you any doubts left, my Lord, that we did appeal on this matter to the Holy See and to the Sacred Congregation? Do you still doubt whether the decrees of the aforesaid Sacred Congregation were addressed to your Lordship for the object of replacing the Capuchins in possession of their ancient cure [83a] of the Malabārīs? If you have no doubts under either head, why, then, insert in your Pastoral that the Sacred Congregation sends you certain decrees accompanied by no farther orders. Must I play the schoolmaster to a bishop? Are not the orders by themselves sufficient to justify their execution? Must they write: "We order you to put into execution to the very letter what is recorded in the said decree"? I am in astonishment that your Lordship allows the Capuchins to be at Pondicherry and Madras, for it is not said in the orders you undertook to obey: "We direct the Lord Bishop of San Thomé to allow Capuchins to work in his diocese."
362.3.6
'But I am assuming what cannot be—I mean that it should be requisite to have an order from Rome before putting into execution Bulls and Decrees received from Rome. Whence is it, then, that your Lordship has declared the Reverend Father Esprit to be excommunicated, while you have not carried out the order of the Sacred Congregation? I cannot see what reason there can be for doing the one and not the other. For, after all, if the decrees of the Sacred Congregation themselves are not enough to secure their execution, but require a separate order from the same Sacred Congregation for that purpose, it follows of necessity that when a priest or religious infringes on the jurisdiction of a bishop (a thing Father Esprit has never done), there must come a second order from Rome declaring him excommunicated. The reason is obvious. In the Bull "In Cœna Domini" it is provided that those who act contrary to the jurisdiction of bishops shall be held excommunicated; but it is also laid down in the decrees of the Sacred Congregation, which have been produced before your Lordship, that no person may on any pretext or show of authority whatsoever remove a cure from the religious of one Order and give it to those of another without previous reference to the aforesaid Sacred Congregation, the penalty for disobedience being "sub poena privationis officii, privilegii, et facultatis, ipso facto incurrenda, et cetera."'
362.3.7
'Furthermore, my Lord, do me the favour of clearing up a doubt I entertain — that is, if a person who interferes in a bishop's jurisdiction is to be excommunicated, why is not the same penalty incurred by those who interfere in the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation? It is a point, Monsignor, that I am very desirous of having settled.' Upon hearing such just reasoning, and such a very embarrassing question, the bishop said he declined to argue. The Reverend Father Michel Ange saw that nothing would serve to convince the Lord Bishop of the injustice that his Lordship had committed in regard to us, and that no impression could be made on his mind by reasoning. He therefore, for the last time, begged Monsignor to restore Father Esprit to his previous status. We would then await a fresh decision from Rome; while, should his Lordship fear that we might hereafter stir again in the matter, he (Michel Ange) would bring all the papers we possessed and burn them in the bishop's presence.
362.3.8
It seems to me, gentlemen, that it is impossible to speak fairer, and that the Capuchins have gone far beyond what they could be called upon to do. Everybody knows, both at Pondicherry and at Madras, that we gave no occasion for treating us in such an unworthy manner. If any scandal has arisen, it has been caused by the reverend Jesuit fathers, whose only object is to make themselves redoubtable. The fault is not that of the poor Capuchin fathers, who would glory in their humiliation so long as religion did not thereby suffer. However, the Lord Bishop was not mollified by Father Michel Ange's proposal. What he would have liked, for the contentment of the reverend Jesuit fathers and the humiliation of the Capuchins, was that Father Esprit should bare his back to be scourged by one of the bishop's priests until he was flayed. This was what they did some two years ago to the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, some of the sufferers being over eighty years of age. Then all of them were excommunicated, somewhat in the style practised with the said Father Esprit. Such conduct was not only lamentable and dishonourable to religion, but quite sufficient to turn the best cause in the world into the worst.