THE PORTUGUESE SCHISM IN INDIA.

Historia do Scisma Portuguez na India pelo Visconde Teodoro de Bussieres. Traduzida do Francez. Lisboa: 1854.

Ir is possible that our readers may be glad to obtain some information on the subject of the schism at Goa, which has, for the last few years, excited so much interest in the Roman Church. The history which stands at the head of our remarks, though written by an Ultramontane, contains, on the whole, a candid account of the dispute and the Portuguese version, which lies before us, is an improvement on the original French, as having some errors corrected by one who evidently had access to the best sources of information. We well remember the interest which the Vicomte Bussières' work excited, when it first reached Lisbon; and we agree with the remark made to us by one of the most eminent ecclesiastics in that city, after having perused it: "It is unanswerable."

To begin from the beginning. Every one knows that the Portuguese, after having discovered the islands of Madeira and of the Açores, the kingdoms of Guinea and Congo, and other parts of the western coast of Africa, doubled in 1497 the Cape of Good Hope, under the guidance of the immortal Vasco da Gama, and planted their standard successively in the Maldives, Ceylon, Sumatra, Goa, and Malacca. Bulls of Martin V., Eugenius IV., Nicholas V., Calixtus III., Sixtus IV., and Alexander VI., pretended to confer on the Portuguese crown the temporal dominion over all the countries conquered, or thereafter to be conquered, from the infidels in the East. Leo X., in 1516, further endowed the monarchs of Portugal with the celebrated Right of Patronage: that is to say, that, on condition of their founding and endowing such Dioceses as the Holy See might consent to establish, the King of Portugal should nominate the Bishop of the Diocese. Goa was the first Bishopric constituted. Paul III., in 1534, having apparently no very clear geographical notions, assigned, as the limits of that Diocese, China on the one side, and the Cape of Good Hope on the other; and to improve the difficulty, made Goa itself suffragan to the then archiepiscopal see of Funchal in Madeira.

It is well known that the moral condition of the civil metropolis of India was, for many years, frightful: that the Franciscans, far from converting its surrounding heathen, could not even contain their own flocks within the nominal profession of Christianity; that justice was openly and unblushingly sold in the public tribunals; that polygamy was not unknown; that assassinations were spoken of as every-day matters; and that Communion and Confession were-to use the words of an eye-wit

ness-almost entirely abolished. By the apostolic labours of S. Francis Xavier and his devoted companions, a great change for the better was effected, and in 1557, Goa was elevated to the archiepiscopal dignity, and the Sees of Cochin and Malacca were constituted its suffragans. The Right of Patronage was still reserved to the Crown of Portugal under the same conditions as before. In 1575, the see of Macao was founded, when a new clause was added to the beforenamed conditions; namely, that the King of Portugal should at once nominate a bishop on the vacancy of the see. The same condition was observed at the erection of the Bishopric of Funay, in Japan, (1588) of Angomala, (1600) of Meliapor, (1606) and of Pekin and Nankin (1690), all of which were made suffragans of Goa. Political reasons had previously induced the king of Portugal to request, and Clement VIII. to allow, that no missionaries should be allowed to enter India except by the way of Lisbon and Goa. As Portugal declined from one of the first to one of the last of European states, its zeal for the propagation of the faith proportionably diminished; the clergy of Goa, rolling in wealth, exhibited as determined an opposition to all real earnestness, as ever did the socalled High Churchmen of the last century to the early teaching of Wesley and his companions. Paul V., finding that Christianity was likely to become extinct, revoked the bull of his predecessor; and allowed the missionaries to enter India which way they best could. Hence a prodigious outcry on the part of the clergy, who stigmatized the new missionaries by the title of propagandists and saints, and exhibited the utmost zeal in paralyzing their endeavours for the conversion of the heathen, or the reformation of the Christians. Innocent XII., (1691-1700) finding that other means were ineffectual, separated vast portions from the already existing Dioceses, which he erected in Vicariates Apostolic, in spite of the vigorous remonstrances of D. Pedro II., then King of Portugal, that the Right of Patronage was thus infringed.

By degrees the Portuguese were driven from one of their eastern possessions after another, till only the island of Goa and the adjacent strip of land, with one or two other forts, remained to them. The English supplanted them in India; the Dutch took their place in the Spice Islands, and to a certain extent in Japan; and still the Portuguese monarchs claimed the same. rights as when they were the only sovereigns who exercised European influence in Asia. Goa still prided itself on being the Rome of the East; though to what a state of corruption its clergy had arrived, may partly be learnt from a bull of Alexander VII. in 1658. Here we learn, that the Portuguese ecclesiastics obliged the poor to build their churches without receiving any pay; prohibited all converted natives from embracing the religious life; forbade the native clergy to administer any sacrament whatever, even in cases of the most extreme necessity; refused to administer the Holy Communion to the poor even on their death-beds, unless

they could pay for it; never preached in any of the native tongues; and-which unless it were stated on such authority, would seem almost incredible-permitted heathen priests to offer their sacrifices in Christian churches. All that was done in the way of missions, was accomplished by the Jesuits; and though this wonderful order, after a seventy years' struggle, was driven out of Japan, where the only recorded instance in ecclesiastical history— a church was fairly destroyed by persecution; the extent of its labours in India, Siam, and Cochin China may be partly learnt from the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses écrites par des Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jésus.

Before, however, we proceed to the full development of the Schism, it may be as well to allege a reason or two which have escaped the Ultramontane zeal of our author, for the indisposition, on the part of the King of Portugal, to accept the Pope's arrangement of the territories of the East, even though the Right of Patronage may have become a mere form, so far as the monarch was concerned, and little better than a sinecure with respect to the duties of the prelate.

There was reason enough why the Portuguese court should entertain considerable suspicion and dislike to all the proceedings of the See of Rome with respect to the nomination of Bishops. Up to the end of the sixteenth century, Portugal had perhaps been the most Ultramontane country in Europe; its last monarch before the Castilian usurpation, D. Sebastian, had even wished to assume the title of "most obedient." But on the accession of the House of Bragança in 1640, Urban VIII., fearful of offending the Crown of Spain, refused bulls for the institution of all the prelates nominated by the King of Portugal within his own dominions; thus acting in a manner entirely at variance with the system pursued by his predecessors, who always treated an usurper, if de facto possessed of the regal power, as the rightful monarch: knowing that CHRIST's kingdom is not of this world, and ought not to be mixed up with the change of dynasties. His successor continued the same system; and the consequence was, that all the Bishops in Portugal died out, with the exception of one, a coadjutor in partibus. On this the question was referred to the university of Coimbra, whether the papal bulls were absolutely essential for the legal institution of a Bishop; the answer was in the negative, and was accompanied by a request that his Majesty would not suffer the Portuguese Church to remain longer without the supervision of diocesan prelates, but would invite the services of some foreign Bishops, and fill up the vacant sees. The same question was then referred to the principal French universities, and was answered in the same manner. On this, the Court of Lisbon proceeded to carry out the recommendation; then the papal government prudently gave way, and issued the bulls which would otherwise have been dispensed with.

In the same way Rome had always shown the greatest desire to seize all means, fair or unfair, to curb the power of the Archbishop of Goa. In the year 1718, the Indo-Portuguese clergy of Bombay (it will be remembered that Bombay, originally one of the chief Portuguese colonies in India, had come into the possession of the English as part of the dowry of Catherine of Bragança) were expelled by the English government. The reason does not appear; but when we remember the horribly depraved character of our own eastern officials at that period, the cause of this expulsion is at least as likely as not to have been honourable to the clergy. The Council then passed a resolution that the Archbishop of Goa had no jurisdiction in Bombay, and that the nearest Vicar Apostolic should be requested to assume that of which the other was deprived. The Vicar was only too glad to act on the suggestion; the Roman See consented to the arrangement; and this curious piece of papal Erastianism-by no means, however, unparalleled, as any one who knows the history of the present Roman Church in Russia will be well aware-gave the greatest offence at Lisbon.

The following, again, is a curious document for those to pride themselves in who taunt the Church of England, however justly, with her Erastianism. "It having been ordered by the Directors of the Honourable East India Company, that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Roman Catholic Churches within this government should be taken from the Archbishop of Goa, and restored to the Carmelite Bishop of the apostolic mission; in consequence the President of the Council has directed that the aforesaid restitution should take place on the 1st of September next; and by these presents commands all the Catholic inhabitants of Bombay, as well as in the different establishments and factories thereon dependent, that they be perfectly obedient to the aforesaid Bishop in spiritual matters, under pain of incurring the displeasure of the government. By order of the Governor in Council, William Page, Secretary. "Castle of Bombay, Aug. 2nd, 1791."

And this document it is which Ultramontanes can now quote with great admiration !

We are not concerned to justify the negligence displayed by Portugal in exercising her Right of Patronage; but only to show that the fault in the present quarrel did not, as our author would have us believe, lie altogether on one side. We will now allow him to tell his own story. After noticing that the number of Roman Catholics in India had diminished during the course of the eighteenth century, from three millions to one million, he thus proceeds:

"The Episcopal Sees to which Portugal had the right of nomination continued vacant; the Bishoprics of Cranganor, Cochin, and Meliapor remained without a prelate for more than half a century. The Crown no longer paid its promised subsidies to the Clergy, nor did it comply

with a single obligation into which it had entered. It had even expressly prohibited the authorities of Goa from sending any supplies to the ecclesiastics established in those districts which did not belong to the Portuguese authority. Gregory XVI. had been Præfect of the Propaganda before his elevation to the chair of S. Peter. He was perfectly acquainted with the situation of affairs in India, and was bitterly afflicted at it; he hesitated, however, to use at once the authority conferred on him by his incontestable rights. In 1832, Cardinal Pedicini, the new Præfect of the Propaganda, presented a demand to the Portuguese ambassador, in which he insisted either that his most faithful Majesty should comply with his obligation with respect to the Bishoprics in India, or else officially and definitively renounce the exercise of its ecclesiastical authority. The Court of Lisbon gave no reply."

This is not exactly true. The Court of Lisbon did reply; D. Miguel,-it was at the end of 1832,-was then tottering on his throne, and he expressed a hope that the arrangement of these affairs might be postponed till the conclusion of the civil war. With the flood of sacrilege introduced by the accession of D. Pedro, the breach between Portugal and Rome became naturally wider than

ever.

"It was then that Gregory XVI. decided on proceeding; he erected with the consent of the English government Vicariates Apostolic in Calcutta, April 10th, and in Madras, April 18th, 1834. This resolution, so just and so necessary to the salvation of souls, irritated to the highest pitch the Goanese clergy, as well as the Portuguese government. They opposed to the order of the Pope, protestations expressed in the most audacious and insolent terms; basing them on the Right of Patronage and the ancient apostolic constitutions. The ecclesiastics of Goa thought it better that souls should perish, than that they should be directed by Turkish Bishops-so they named the Vicars Apostolic."

Here again we have another instance of the lamentable effect produced by the nomination of Vicars, deriving their outlandish titles from places which sometimes do not now exist, and sometimes have never existed at all; a system, the well deserved destruction of which in England gave rise, as every one knows, to the Protestant fury expended on the Papal aggression.

"The Chapter" (the See was vacant) "of Goa prohibited its dependents, under pain of excommunication, to hold any relation with the delegates of the holy See; and, furthermore, applied to the English authorities for the purpose of interesting them against the measures of the Pope. Gregory XVI. paid no attention to this opposition. He expressed his disapproval in his allocution of February 1st, 1836, and established two new Vicariates, that of Ceylon, December 23rd, 1836, and that of Madure, June 3rd, 1837. Complaints and opposition came to an end. The clergy of Goa declared themselves in open revolt."

After passing a high eulogium on the new prelates and their clergy, our author proceeds to speak of the districts which still remained under the ancient régime.