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 SAINT THOMAS

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SAINT THOMAS

who was transferred in 1628 to the See of Cochin. His successor was Luiz Paulo Paulo de Estrella, O.S.F., appointed in 1534:, who died at Saint Thomas on 9 January, 1637. During the next fifty-six years the see continued vacant; for, though no less than nine personages were selected by the Crown for the honour, they either declined it, or were promoted, or died before their election w;is confirmed by the Holy See. So in the interval the diocese was governed by administrators selected chiefly from the various re- ligious orders and appointed by the archbishojjs or vicars capitular tteile vacante of (Joa. But it was only natural that the members of the religious orders as also secular priests of other nations should have de- sired to share in the work of preaching the Gospel to the heathen; hence in 1622 Gregory XV created the Sacred Congregation de propaganda fide to distribute infidel regions among the religious orders and mission- arj' societies of other nationalities as assistants to the local ordinaries, where there were any, and to super- vise their operations. But occasionally the Congre- gation was misled — a thing that was easy enough when geographical knowledge was neither as correct nor as extensive as at the present time — and this oc- casioned trouble.

The foundations of the British Indian Empire of the present day were laid, so to say, by Sir Francis Day in the sandy delta of a tiny river, some throe and a half miles north of Saint Thomas, with the beginnings of Fort St. George. The British invited the Portu- guese of pure and mixed descent to settle in the new township; and as the Portuguese were Catholics, they were ministered to by the clergy from Saint Thomas. In 1642, the Congregation of Propaganda sent out two French Capuchins to establish a mission in Burma. But, when they, landing at Surat and travelling over- land, reached Fort St. George, the British persuaded them not to go further, since they judged it prudent to have clergj^men differing in nationality from, and independent of, the Portuguese ordinary' at Saint Thomas to minister to the Catholics in their settle- ment. According^, R. P. Ephraim, one of the two, WTote to the Sacred Congregation de propaganda fide representing that there was a prospect of reaping a larger har\-est at Fort St. George and the fast rising native town of Madras that was beside it, than in Burma; and in the name of Urban VIII a prefecture Apostolic was establislied within three and a half miles of the cathedral of Saint Thomas. It is perhaps need- less to say that ever after there were continual bick- erings between the local ordinaries and the French Capuchins, the former insisting on the Capuchins ac- knowledging their jurisdiction, a claim which the lat- ter, relying on their papal Brief, refused to recognize.

Both the Portuguese and the British had obtained their charters for their respective forts of Saint Thomas and St. George from the local Hindu chiefs. But the Mohammedans were now extending their power southwards; and before laying siege to Fort St. G(?*jrge they, with the help of the Dutch who bom- barded the place from the sea, took Saint Thomas and began the work of demolishing its walls in Janu- ary, 1697. The Mohammedan governors then settled on the wast(! land, separating Saint Thomas from Mylapur, which was st^Kjn covered with the residences of Mohammedan settlers. In the unchanging lOast these three townships still exist: as a Eurojjean quarter, as a Mohammedan quarter and as a Brah- min quarter — while the casual observer fails to see where Saint Thomas ends and Mylapur begins and U8t!8 the names as convertible terms. However, hav- ing reduced Saint Thomas and deprivefl it of ils bat- tlements, the Mohammedans did not further trouble the resident Portugue.se, who regarded the place as still a Portuguese j)OHsession and managed its affairs with an elected council of which the ordinary of the place, for the time being, was the president.

Dom Caspar Alfonso Alvares, S. J., was the fourth Bishop of Saint Thomas. His presentation was con- firmed by the Holy See in 1691, and he was conse- crated at Goa in 1693. In the meantime the Capu- chins of the French Prefecture Apostolic of Fort St. George spread apace and took charge of the French settlement of Pondicherry. Not to offend the French, Dom Gaspar allowed them to minister to the Europeans and their descendants, b\it in order to as- sert his right, placed the Indian Christians in Pondi- cherry under the care of m(>mbers of his own Society from France. This led to a number of complaints be- ing addressed to Rome about the interference of the Bishoji of Saint Thomas of Mylapur with the work of the missionaries Apostolic, with the result, however, that Clement XI, by his letters "Gaudium in Do- mino" of 1704, issued an injunction restraining the missionaries from invading the rights of the diocesan. But the Congregation de propaganda fiiie seems to have followed an altogether different course. In 1706 it issued a Decree in support of its own mission- aries, which reversed what the bishop had ordained. Under these circumstances the bishop again appealed to the pope, who, by the Brief "Non sine gravi" of 1711, annulled the Decree of the Congregation and reaffirmed the right of the diocesan to make what ar- rangements he chose at Pondicherrj^, which was situ- ated within the limits of his diocese. Presently Car- dinal de Tournon, who was on his way to China as legate of the Holy See, having touched at Pondi- cherry, hearing of the doings of the Capuchins, placed the French Prefecture Apostolic of Madras, the name by which Fort St. George and its surroundings were coming to be better known, under interdict. The Capuchins must have submitted forthwith and the interdict thereupon been removed, as there appears no record of its removal.

In the meantime Dom Gaspar had died (1708). Owing to his advancing years, he had been given a coadjutor with the right of succession, Dom Francisco Laynes, S.J., of the Madura mission, in the Diocese of Cochin. Dom Laynes was consecrated at Lisbon on 19 March, 1708, as Bishop of Sozopolis in partibus. He came out to India the same year, but did not take possession of his see till 1710. Though Bishop Laynes was Portuguese, the Portuguese Augustinians of Ban- del defied his authority as their diocesan. He there- fore placed Bandel under interdict on 14 July, 1714; on the submission of the Augustinians the interdict was removed (8 October, 1714). Bishop Laynes died at Chandernagore (Bengal) in 1715, and was suc- ceeded by Manoel Sanclies Golao, who was appointed in 1717 and reached India in 1719. It was Dom Manoel who welcomed the Italian Barnabites as in- valuable co-operators in the work of preaching the Gospel in Burma, though he had regularly served mis- sion stations there. These friendly relations with the Italian Barnabites were always maintained, as they recognized the authority of the diocesans. Bishop Golao was succeeded by Jose'* Penheiro, S.J., who was consecrated in 1726. lie sanctioned the arrangement whereby I'rciich .Jesuits were to have sjiiritual charge of Cliaiidcriiagorc, in Bengal. During his time the Barnal)itc mission in Burma was created a vicariate Apostolic. Bishoj) Pinheiro died on 15 March, 1744, and was succeeded by Antonio da Incarnacao, O.S.A., who was consecrated at Goa in 1747.

It was about this time (1746) that the French marched on Madras and, making Saint Thomas their head-quarters, attacked and took Fort St. George, which they held and improved till August, 1749, when they restored it to Admiral Boscawen under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Saint Thomas had been nominally a Portuguese possession from 1697, with- out the semblance of a military force to resist its occu- pation by a foreign power, as the French did when operating against Madras. To obviate a recurrence