Storia do Mogor 366.3.1

366.3.1

Father Fra Esprit, according to Monsignor, has said that the reverend Jesuit fathers are not the legitimate pastors of the Malabar Christians at Pondicherry, therefore it is necessary to declare him excommunicated. Behold the mighty crime he committed, which drew upon him a declaration that he was accursed, and doubly accursed under the maledictions [303] of God Omnipotent, of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and of all the other saints in the quire celestial, et cetera. But, let alone the fact that he never said anything of the sort after the publication of the Pastoral issued by the Lord Bishop of San Thomé, let us suppose that he had said it but without following it by any overt act — I mean by that, performing any function arising out of the cure — he cannot incur any excommunication, as I have already demonstrated in two places. For if, in this country, excommunication is so cheap that a friar can be excommunicated for having said that the reverend Jesuit fathers, having robbed us of our poor mission, and having declined to obey the orders from Rome, were not the legitimate pastors of the Malabãrls in Pondicherry, there is nothing left for them but to excommunicate me too, and hang the order on the doors of their church, because I have said the same thing many times, and I repeat it once more, that they are not, and never have been, the legitimate pastors of the Malabãrl Christians at Pondicherry.