[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Travellers (1500–1858)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel) › [Storia do Mogor](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci) › [Storia do Mogor (Irvine)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine) › 366.1 # Storia do Mogor 366.1 Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 366.1 - **Language:** English ### [366.1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.1) Until the Reverend Father Fra Spirito submits himself to the Declaration wherein he was declared to have incurred excommunication, he cannot be heard in law. San Thomé, December 29, 1706. The Bishop of Meliapur. Receiving a reply which adjusted itself so well to his request, the Reverend Father Michel Ange said: 'My Lord, I do not claim that you should give audience to the Reverend Father Esprit, nor that you release him from the excommunication, because he has already appealed to his Holiness, and to him alone does he mean to have recourse. I am only asking you to give me the record of the Reverend Father Esprit's case, and to attest the papers which I have in my hands. " Well, then," said his Lordship, " I have no other reply to give you than what I have given." " Very well," replied the Reverend Father Michel Ange, " although your reply be irrelevant to my demand, it will still serve as a proof in the Roman courts that I have asked you for the record of the Reverend Father Esprit's case, and have also prayed you to attest my papers. What say you, gentlemen, of all this that you have heard up to this point ? Does it not look to you a very fine way of behaving ? O God ! who has ever heard such things ? ### [366.1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.2) What person can there ever be who, reading a manifesto thus full of injustice, contradictions, and cruelty to the Capuchin fathers, will not conceive a holy hatred for the bishop and a few regulars who, in order not to have to succumb in a wretchedly bad affair, heap iniquity upon iniquity. If this matter had fallen into the hands of the reverend Jacobin fathers (that is, the Dominicans), or even of the reverend Cordelier fathers (that is, the Franciscans), and it had been vigorously worked, you would then have known how little would be enough to completely destroy the reverend Jesuit fathers. I leave to the reader's consideration, if he will read attentively all that I have written, whether I exaggerate, and I beg him at the same time to reflect whether or not Monsignor has done the exact contrary of what he has reduced to writing in his Declaration, having declared the Reverend Father Esprit of Tours excommunicated before his having done any act contrary to the Pastoral, and condemned him without having cited him to appear. The bishop has used against him (Esprit) nothing but harsh measures, and has drawn up no record. The same can be said almost exactly of the Pastoral published by his Lordship in favour of the reverend Jesuit fathers. Because, just as the Jesuits could not have obtained the Pastoral otherwise than by calumniating the Reverend Father Esprit, equally his Lordship only gave it at a time when he believed the calumny to be true. ### [366.1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.3) For he could not have imagined that religious were capable of committing such an impious act in the execution of their designs. Even if it were not by reason of the calumny that his Lordship sent out the said Pastoral, I assert that there is no less contradiction in that document than in the Declaration, since the Bull of Clement X. and the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation, both of them issued to the Vicars Apostolic of the Indies, which are quoted by his Lordship to prove that he had power to do all he has done, are quoted out of place. In making use of them for the commission \[295\] of an injustice, he not only makes an abusive use of sacred things, but dishonours equally the court of Rome and the Sacred Congregation, who have never asserted that their authority could be invoked unless in things which were true and not false. It is in regard to a falsity, however, that the Lord Bishop and the reverend Jesuit fathers make use of these authorities. This I will demonstrate to you so plainly that there will be left no one who could have a doubt, even the very slightest. I begin with the Bull of Clement X., of which these are the precise words, which I have taken from the Pastoral of his Lordship; its opening words are 'Decet Romanum Pontificem' \[It behoves the Pope of Rome\]. The words which follow are these: ### [366.1.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.4) 'Cum autem prae multitudine neophytorum in una Provincia aut Civitate, vel praenimia earum amplitudine, unus aut alter qui eis praesunt missionarii non sufficiunt, si aliqui suppetunt sacerdotes Seculares aut Religiosi licet alterius ordinis, quorum tamen subsidium nec illi quaerant, nec oblatum recipiant, tunc habito duntaxat respectu ad Christianorum necessitatem, possint ac debeant Vicarii Apostolici praedicti operarios multiplicare, Parochias dividere, aliaque eiusmodi facere iuxta praescripta a Sacris Canonibus et Concilii Tridentini decretis. 'Datum Romae apud Sanctam Mariam sub annulo Piscatoris die 23 Decembris milesimi sexcentesimi septuagesimi tertii, Pontificatus nostri anno quarto.' \[But when, on account of the multitude of neophytes in one Province or town, or because the size of the town or district is excessive, the one or two presiding missionaries are found insufficient for the work, and other priests are available, whether secular or religious, no matter of what order, even should the missionaries in charge neither ask for additional help from outside, nor accept it when offered, yet it is the duty of the aforesaid Vicars Apostolic, and they are empowered, regarding only necessities of the Christians, to multiply the number of labourers, to divide the parishes, and to do anything of the kind which the case demands, according to the directions prescribed by the Sacred Canons and by the decrees of the Council of Trent. ### [366.1.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.5) Given at St. Mary's at Rome under the ring of the fisherman on the 23rd day of December, 1673, in the fourth year of our Pontificate.\] Gentlemen, nothing more terrifies poor people, who cannot judge except by appearances, than hearing some great Papal Bull in Latin cited, as to which they understand and can conceive nothing. These names of 'Bull' and of 'Clement X.' have I know not what of awful about them which carries terror into the heart. Since it is impossible to pay too much respect and show too much submission to what the Holy See has ordered, the ignorant fear to take any action which might, in however small a degree, wound so sacred a tribunal. Would to God that the reverend Jesuit fathers who have concocted this Pastoral were of the same mind \[as the lowly\], and did not employ for the benefit of their insatiable ambition what is most holy and most sacred in the Christian religion. ### [366.1.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.6) Gentlemen, mark well what says the Bull, and then see whether the reverend Jesuit fathers who have quoted it in their Pastoral make use of it appropriately or not. Here is the passage in French: 'Quand dans une ville ou dans une province, il y a une si grande multitude de Chrestiens ou que leur etendue est si considerable que les missionaires qui en ont le soin ne puisse\[nt\] pas y suffire, s'il y a d'autres Prestres Seculiers ou Religieux d'un autre Ordre qui puisse\[nt\] les ayder a faire leur\[s\] functions, si ils ne cherchent pas leurs secours ou qu'ils le refusent quand on leur offre, alors les Vicaires Apostoliques voyant que c'est une necessite peuvent et doivent mesmes multiplier les ouvrie\[r\]s, diviser les Paroisses,' et cetera. ### [366.1.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.7) Now I ask you, gentlemen, since you live in Pondicherry, if there are in it more than one thousand four hundred Christians, including the French gentlemen, the topasses (persons of mixed blood), and the Malabãris (Tamils); I do not believe there can be more, and I look on it as rather an exaggeration than an underestimate. Again I ask you, and entreat you for the love of God to tell me, if in the whole territory of Pondicherry and its dependencies there is more than an area four leagues in circumference. Excepting Ariancupam, where there may be some forty Malabari Christians and as many Frenchmen, and where one of our fathers is stationed to minister to them, is there any other place where \[297\] a single Christian could be found ? Gentlemen, you are incapable of asserting the contrary, for I am persuaded your consciences are much more timid than those of the reverend Jesuit fathers. ### [366.1.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1.8) Lastly, I ask you once more, and beg of you to tell me this, too, gentlemen : During the time when the Capuchin fathers were the pastors of the French gentlemen, the topasses and the Malabāris, has any man been known to die without receiving the sacraments ? Have not, throughout that period, the functions of zealous missionaries been fulfilled ? When the Lord Bishop judged it well to send us any priest or friar to aid us in the mission, have we refused to receive him ? This no one can affirm, much less prove. If, then, there are four of us Capuchin friars, all in priest's orders, without referring to the catechists, and the Reverend Father Esprit, who has been sacrificed to their (the Jesuits') passion, stationed at a place where at the outside there are only one thousand four hundred Christians, why do they quote a Bull which puts them in the wrong and justifies us ? --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.366.1) · Pramāṇa