The missionary labors of de Nobili, de Britto, Beschi and others in Madura, a dependency of the ecclesiastical province of Malabar, had been so successful that they evoked considerable literary fury, both inside and outside the Church, chiefly with regard to the liceity of certain rites or customs which the natives had been allowed to retain after baptism. In 1623 Gregory XV had decided that they could be permitted provisionally, and the practice was, therefore, continued by Beschi, Bouchet and others who had extended their apostolic work into Pondicherry and the Carnatic. But about the year 1700 the question was again mooted, in consequence of the transfer of the Pondicherry territory to the exclusive care of the Jesuits. The Capuchins who were affected by the arrangement appealed to Rome, adding also a protest against the Rites. The first part of the charge was not admitted, but the latter was handed over for examination to de Tournon, who was titular Patriarch of Antioch.
As soon as he arrived at Pondicherry, without going into the interior of the country, he took the testimony of the Capuchins, questioned the Jesuits only cursorily, and also a few natives through interpreters. He then condemned the Rites and forbade the missionaries under heavy penalties to allow them. His decree was made known to the Jesuit superior only three days before he left the place, and hence there was no possibility of enlightening him. The Pope then ordered de Tournon's verdict to be carried out, qualifying it, however, by adding "in so far as the Divine glory and the salvation of souls would permit." The missionaries protested without avail, and the question was discussed by two successive pontiffs. Finally, Innocent XIII insisted on de Tournon's decree being obeyed in all its details, but it is doubtful if the document ever reached the missions. Benedict XIII reopened the question later, and ruled upon each article of de Tournon's decision, and a Brief was issued to that effect in 1734.
Into this question the Jansenists of France injected themselves so vigorously that even the bibliography for and against the Rites is bewildering in its extent. One contribution consists of eight volumes in French and seven in Italian. In his history of Jansenism in "The Catholic Encyclopedia" Dr. Forget of the University of Louvain says: "The sectaries [in the middle of the eighteenth century] began to detach themselves from the primitive heresy, but they retained unabated the spirit of insubordination and schism, the spirit of opposition to Rome, and above all a mortal hatred of the Jesuits. They had vowed the ruin of that order, which they always found blocking their way, and in order to attain their end they successively induced Catholic princes and ministers in Portugal, France, Spain, Naples, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Duchy of Parma, and elsewhere to join hands with the worst leaders of impiety and philosophism." Besides the Jansenists, "every Protestant writer of distinction with two or three exceptions," says Marshall (Christian Missions, I, 226), "has ascribed the success of the mission of Madura and its wonderful results to a guilty connivance with pagan superstition. La Croze, Geddes, Hough and other writers of their class in a long succession luxuriate in language of which we need not offer a specimen, and direct against de Nobili and his successors charges of forgery, imposture, superstition, idolatry, and various other crimes."
"There is one name," continues the same writer, "which invariably occurs in the writings referred to; one witness whom they all quote and to whom the whole history is to be traced. That witness is Father Norbert, ex-Capuchin and ex-missionary of India." In a work published by this person in 1744, all the fables which have since been repeated as grave historical facts are found. He is quoted, apparently without suspicion, by Dr. Grant in his "Bampton Lectures," yet a very little inquiry and even a reference to so common a book, as the "Biographie universelle" would have revealed to him the real character of the witness by whose help he has not feared to defame some of the most heroic and evangelical men who ever devoted their lives to the service of God, and the salvation of their fellow creatures.
"Norbert," says Marshall, "was one of those ordinary missionaries who had utterly failed to convert the Hindoo by the usual methods, and who was as incapable of imitating the terrible austerities by which the Jesuits prepared their success, as he was of rejoicing in triumphs of which he had no share. Stung with mortal jealousy and yielding to the suggestions of a malice which amounted almost to frenzy, he attacked the Jesuits with fury even from the pulpit. The civil power was forced to interfere, and Dupleix, the Governor of Pondicherry, though he had been his friend, put him on board ship and sent him to America. There he spent two years less occupied in the work of the missions than in planning schemes to revenge himself on the Jesuits. The publication of the mendacious work in which he treated the Society of Jesus as a band of malefactors was prohibited by the authorities; but he quitted Rome and printed it secretly.
"Condemned by his Order, though he affected to vindicate it from the injuries of the Jesuits, he fled to Holland and thence to England, in both of which countries he found congenial spirits. In the latter, he established first a candle and afterwards a carpet factory, under the patronage of the Duke of Cumberland. Thence he wandered into Germany, and subsequently, having obtained his secularization and put off the religious habit which he had defiled, he went to Portugal. Here remorse seems to have overtaken him and he was permitted by an excess of charity to assume once more the habit of a Capuchin, which he a second time laid aside. Finally, after having attempted to deceive the Sovereign Pontiff, he died in a wretched condition in an obscure village of France." The "Biographie universelle" gives some more details which are useful as a matter of history. After Benedict XIV had forbidden Norbert to print his book, he brought it out either at Lucca or Avignon; in England he assumed his old name of Peter Parisot; when he landed in Germany he was known as Curel, and when in France his pen-name was Abbé Platel. According to the "Biographie," "Norbert was dull and heavy, without talent or style and would have been incapable of writing a single page if he were not actuated by hate. All of his works have passed into oblivion."
Americans have not been troubled to any extent by such publications, except, perhaps in one instance, when a certain R. W. Thompson, who had been Secretary of the Navy, though he lived 1000 miles from the sea, warned his fellow-countrymen in 1894 that the one danger for the Constitution of the United States was the teaching of the Jesuits. Even the Church is in peril, because "their system of moral theology is irreconcilable with the Roman Catholic religion." "I refrain from discussing it," he says, "because that has been sufficiently done by Pascal and Paul Bert." No one was excessively alarmed by the "Footprints of the Jesuits."