Malabar rites
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Malabar rites is a conventional term for certain customs or practices of the natives of
These rites were controversial among Catholics, with some figures criticizing them as
Background
Francis Xavier, a major force in establishing Catholic missions to India, described his efforts as meeting with intense opposition from "Brahmins and other noble castes inhabiting the interior".[1] By the early seventeenth century, Catholicism was flourishing on the coasts of India, especially the western Malabar coast, but had not spread significantly inland. Gonsalvo Fernandes, a Portuguese Jesuit, obtained permission from the king to live in Madura and minister to the small number of Christians who had moved there from the coast, but after fourteen years of work he had not succeeded in making any new converts.
One obstacle to Fernandes's work was a local antipathy towards the Prangui, or Portuguese. The local Hindus disliked the Prangui for eating beef, drinking alcohol, and violating caste taboos, which Fernandes was known to do. This last especially made the Christianity he preached unacceptable to the higher castes.
Innovations by Roberto de Nobili
Roberto de Nobili, a Jesuit missionary, departed for Southern India in 1604. In 1606, he joined his superior, the Provincial of Malabar, on a visit to Fernandes, where he observed the situation. In conference with his superiors, Archbishop Francisco Ros, and the provincial of Malabar, Nobili planned a fresh approach to Catholic missionary work in Southern India.
Nobili returned to Madura in the dress of a
As Nobili's behavior aroused local curiosity, he gradually began to accept visitors, strictly observing the etiquette of the area in his interactions. Nobili impressed his interlocutors with his fluency in Tamil and his familiarity with Indian literature and poetry. Once he had established a good reception, he began to preach Catholicism, drawing on his knowledge of the Vedas for support in his philosophical arguments. By the end of 1608, several nobles and scholars had converted to Catholicism.
Nobili attempted to distinguish between cultural and religious customs of the area, requiring the new converts to abandon any practices which he believed to be superstitious or idolatrous, but allowing them to continue practices which he believed to be purely secular. In particular, the neophytes retained the dress of their individual castes, and continued to wear the
Nobili taught that Catholicism was one religion for all castes, but that it did not erase the distinctions between them. He instructed his neophytes that their duties of Christian charity extended to those of lower castes, but that visiting such people, interacting with them, or worshiping alongside them in church was supererogatory. He followed the same principle himself, avoiding publicly interacting with the lower castes, although he and his companions secretly ministered to the Paraiyars.
Despite meeting with significant success, Nobili also faced opposition, especially from Hindu religious leaders. His missionary work was frequently obstructed, and he was imprisoned and threatened with death. Nevertheless, by April 1609, his congregation had outgrown his small chapel, and Nobili wrote to his provincial superior asking for a companion to assist in his ministry.
Controversy and criticism
About this time, Fernandes sent a report to the Jesuit superiors in India and Rome. He accused Nobili of pretending to be a native; of allowing converts to continue idolatrous practices; and of causing a
Nobili argued against Fernandes's accusations in assemblies at
"These ceremonies belong to the mode, not to the substance of the practices; the same difficulty may be raised about eating, drinking, marriage, etc., for the heathens mix their ceremonies with all their actions. It suffices to do away with the superstitious ceremonies, as the Christians do."
Nobili also denied having caused a schism, arguing that he had approval from Ros to found separate churches for different castes, and that his neophytes were polite to those of Fernandes. He also protested that separation by caste in the churches was an established practice on the coast, and that even in Europe congregations were often segregated by social standing. Ros continued to support Nobili, arguing in his defense at Goa and Rome. The Archbishop of Goa,
In 1614 and 1615, Bellarmine and the superior general wrote again to Nobili, accepting his arguments and declaring themselves satisfied. On 31 January 1623,
Further developments
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In the year 1638, there were at
Besides the Brahmin saniassy, there was another grade of Hindu ascetics, called pandaram, enjoying less consideration than the Brahmins, but who were allowed to deal publicly with all castes. They were not excluded from relations with the higher castes. On the advice of Nobili, the superiors of the mission with the Archbishop of Cranganore resolved that henceforward there should be two classes of missionaries, the Brahmin and the pandaram. Father Balthasar da Costa was the first, in 1640, who took the name and habit of pandaram, under which he effected a large number of conversions, of others as well as of pariahs. Nobili had then three Jesuit companions.
After the comforting decision of Rome, Nobili hastened to extend his preaching beyond the town of Madura, and the Gospel spread by degrees over the whole interior of South India. In 1646, exhausted by forty-two years of toiling and suffering, he was constrained to retire, first to
The superiors of the mission, writing to the General of the Society, about the middle and during the second half of the seventeenth century, record an annual average of five thousand conversions, the number never being less than three thousand a year even when the missioners' work was most hindered by persecution. At the end of the seventeenth century, the total number of Christians in the mission, founded by Nobili and still named Madura mission, though embracing, besides Madura, Mysore, Marava, Tanjore, Gingi, etc., is described as exceeding 150,000. Yet the number of the missionaries never went beyond seven, assisted however by many native
The Madura mission belonged to the Portuguese assistance of the Society of Jesus, but it was supplied with men from all provinces of the Order. Thus, for example,
The Decree of Tournon
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This second phase, which was much more eventful and noisy than the first, originated in
Less than eight months after his arrival in India, he considered himself justified in issuing a decree of vital import to the whole of the Christians of India. It consisted of sixteen articles concerning practices in use or supposed to be in use among the neophytes of Madura and the Karnatic; the legate condemned and prohibited these practices as defiling the purity of the faith and religion, and forbade the missionaries, on pain of heavy censures, to permit them any more. Though dated 23 June 1704, the decree was notified to the superiors of the Jesuits only on 8 July, three days before the departure of Tournon from Pondicherry. During the short time left, the missionaries endeavoured to make him understand on what imperfect information his degree rested, and that nothing less than the ruin of the mission was likely to follow from its execution. They succeeded in persuading him to take off orally the threat of censures appended, and to suspend provisionally the prescription commanding the missionaries to give spiritual assistance to the sick pariahs, not only in the churches, but in their dwellings.
Examination of the Malabar Rites at Rome
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Tournon's decree, interpreted by prejudice and ignorance as representing, in the wrong practices if condemned, the real state of the India missions, affords to this day a much-used weapon against the Jesuits. At Rome it was received with reserve. Clement XI, who perhaps overrated the prudence of his zealous legate, ordered, in the Congregation of the Holy Office, on 7 January 1706, a provisional confirmation of the decree to be sent to him, adding that it should be executed "until the Holy See might provide otherwise, after having heard those who might have something to object". And meanwhile, by an
Many hard prescriptions of Tournon were mitigated by the regulation of 1734. As to the first article, condemning the omission of the use of saliva and breathing on the candidates for baptism, the missionaries, and the bishops of India with them, are rebuked for not having consulted the Holy See previously to that omission; yet, they are allowed to continue for ten years omitting these ceremonies, to which the Hindus felt so strangely loath. Other prohibitions or precepts of the legate are softened by the additions of a Quantum fieri potest, or even replaced by mere counsels or advices. In the sixth article, the taly, "with the image of the idol
The most difficult point retained was the twelfth article, commanding the missionaries to administer the sacraments to the sick pariahs in their dwellings, publicly. Though submitting dutifully to all precepts of the Vicar of Christ, the Jesuits in Madura could not but feel distressed, at experiencing how the last especially, made their apostolate difficult and even impossible amidst the upper classes of Hindus. At their request, Benedict XIV consented to try a new solution of the knotty problem, by forming a band of missionaries who should attend only to the care of the pariahs. This scheme became formal law through the Constitution "Omnium sollicitudinum", published 12 September 1744. Except this point, the document confirmed again the whole regulation enacted by Clement XII in 1734. The arrangement sanctioned by Benedict XIV benefited greatly the lower classes of Hindu neophytes; whether it worked also to the advantage of the mission at large, is another question, about which the reports are less comforting. Be that as it may, after the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773), the distinction between Brahmin and pariah missionaries became extinct with the Jesuit missionaries. Henceforth conversions in the higher castes were fewer and fewer, and nowadays the Christian Hindus, for the most part, belong to the lower and lowest classes. The Jesuit missionaries, when re-entering Madura in the 1838, did not come with the dress of the Brahmin saniassy, like the founders of the mission; yet they pursued a design which Nobili had also in view, though he could not carry it out, as they opened their college of Negapatam, now at Trichinopoly. A wide breach has already been made into the wall of Brahminic reserve by that institution, where hundreds of Brahmins send their sons to be taught by the Catholic missionaries. Within recent years, about fifty of these young men have embraced the faith of their teachers, at the cost of rejection from their caste and even from their family; such examples are not lost on their countrymen, either of high or low caste.
Beatification issues
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The process for the beatification of Father
Notes
- ^ Monumenta Xaveriana, I, 54
- ^ New Advent website, Malabar Rites
- ^ Google Books, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by Andrew Louth
- ^ Brief of Beatification of John de Britto, 18 May 1852
Sources
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Malabar Rites". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.