“The missionaries also shall be held bound, not only to acquaint them with the aforesaid prohibition, but also to insist on its entire execution, and to expel from the Church all who disobey, until they repent from the heart, and by public marks of penitence expiate the scandal they have caused.”
In like manner, the legate expressly prohibits the heathen ablutions and superstitious bathings, at set times, and with certain ceremonies, to all, and more especially to the preachers of the gospel, whatever pretence they allege, were it even to pass themselves off as Saniassi, who were distinguished by their manifold and multiplied washings—‘ut existementur Sanias seu Brachmanes, præ ceteris dediti hujusmodi ablutionibus.’
“We, in like manner, prohibit that the ashes of cow-dung, a false and impious heathen penance instituted by Rudren, should be blessed and applied to the foreheads of those who have received the sacred unction of Chrism; we also proscribe all the signs of a red and white colour, of which the Indians are very superstitious, from being used for painting their face, breast, and other parts of the body. We command that the sacred practice of the Church, and the pious usage of blessing the ashes, and of putting them upon the head of the faithful, with the sign of the cross, in order to recall their own unworthiness, be religiously observed, at the time and after the manner prescribed by the Church, on Ash-Wednesday, and at no other time.
“And, lest from those things which have been expressly prohibited in this decree, any one may infer or believe that we tacitly approve of or permit other usages which were wont to be practised in these missions, we absolutely reject this false interpretation, and we explicitly declare the contrary to be our intention. We will, also, for just causes known to us, that the present decree should have full force, and should be considered as published, after it has been delivered up by our Chancellor to Father Guy Tachard, Vice-provincial of the French Fathers of the Society of Jesus in India; and we command him, by virtue of holy obedience, to transmit four similar copies to the Father-provincial of the province of Malabar, to the Superiors of the Mission at Madura and Mysore, and of the Carnatic, who after two months, and all the other missionaries after three months, from the day in which this decree shall be notified to Father Tachard, shall be bound to consider it as having been made public, and notified to every one.
“Given at Pondicherry, this day, 23d June 1704.”
Nothing can more effectually prove the culpability of the Jesuits, and their sacrilegious crime, in encouraging such abominable idolatry, than this decree, emanating from so high a Roman Catholic authority, and from a man who reproaches himself for being too lenient towards the fathers. This document is a terrible and overwhelming proof against the order’s orthodoxy, and M. Crétineau himself can find no fault with it. His only complaint is, that the different historians who have quoted the prelate’s decree, have omitted to speak of the preamble, in which the patriarch declares that he had been assisted in the investigation by two of the Jesuits, from which fact he (M. Crétineau) seems anxious that we should infer that the Jesuits themselves have condemned these practices. This, besides being contradictory to what M. Crétineau has just said, is by no means true in the sense in which he wishes us to receive it. According to Father Norbert’s version,[104] it seems that the patriarch arrived at the truth of the whole matter by making use of a little Jesuitical cunning. He called two of the fathers to a private conference, received them with great kindness and urbanity, praised their zeal, pitied them in their difficult position, and so overcame them, that they frankly confessed every thing to him. Now, their confession was written down by two secretaries, who were concealed in a closet for the purpose. The superior, to whom the Jesuits related what had taken place, was indignant and alarmed at their wonderful ingenuousness, and sent them back to the prelate to retract what they had said.[105] But it was too late. The legate, to give more weight to the decree, begins somewhat maliciously by saying, that he had been helped in his investigation by Fathers Venant Bouchet and Charles Bartolde, “learned and zealous men, who had resided long in the country, were perfectly acquainted with its manners, language, and religion, and that from their lips he had got a right understanding regarding the real state of matters, which rendered the vine and branches feeble and barren, from adhering, as they did, rather to the vanities of the heathen than to the real vine, Christ Jesus.”
What makes us believe in the veracity of Father Norbert in this case is, that the Jesuits never submitted to the decree, that they still continued to persist in their old practices, and that neither Father Bouchet nor Bartolde was punished or dismissed, one or other of which would most certainly have taken place had they deliberately and openly denounced these diabolical practices. On the contrary, Father Bouchet was one of the two Jesuits who were sent to Rome to get the decree abrogated.
The Jesuits, however, did their utmost to parry the blow. Faithful to an essential rule of Jesuitical cunning, they at first feigned to submit, only entreating the patriarch to suspend for a time the censures attached to the non-execution of the decree, which the good prelate granted for three years, hoping that they would obey, and abolish these abominations gradually. But they were far from intending to do such a thing. On the contrary, they, as we have already said, immediately despatched two Jesuits to Rome, for the purpose of getting the patriarch’s decree abrogated by the Holy See. Father Tachard, the vice-provincial of the India missions, thought that it would perhaps make a great impression in Rome if, to the opinion of the legate De Tournon they could oppose the opinion, not only of all the Jesuits residing in India, but also of the other priests along the Malabar coast. With this end in view, he sent many emissaries round with a sort of circular containing a number of questions, to which he solicited answers, and these, as might be imagined, were all found to be according to his wishes. This strange circular is to be found in the eighth and tenth pages of the third volume of the Mémoires Historiques. Did not subsequent facts and the whole conduct of the Jesuits render it credible, we should have hesitated to insert it as an historical truth, so strange does the document appear to us. Here it is:—
“I. Is the frequent use of ashes (burnt cow’s dung) necessary for the Christians of these missions? They answered in the affirmative.
“II. As the Pariahs are looked upon in a civil light as so despicable that it is almost impossible to describe how far the prejudice is carried against them, ought they to assemble in the same place, or in the same church, with other Christians of a higher caste? They answered in the negative.