Storia do Mogor 362.3.8

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.