1775–1838

The years no Jesuit came

For sixty-three years no Jesuit served this parish. It was not abandoned. Priests came from Goa under the Bishop of Cochin, and the roll of them runs without a gap: Deva Varadhanar, Ignatius, John Louis Cardoza and their successors. The feast was kept, the children were baptised, the dead were buried. And the village did more than hold on. From about 1780 it became “the sole centre of the inland mission”, with four divisional centres set under it, Sendamangalam, Andipatti, Kamanayakkanpatti and the village itself, served by priests from Cochin who “did their best to keep up the foundations already existing” until they made over the whole charge, in 1837, to the first new Jesuits at Palamcottah. Through all of it, the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened here happened in the middle of that time.

DocumentedThis moment rests on 5 sources.
Caldwell 1881p. 243
MISSIONS. 243 there ; in addition to which it is to be remembered that the Dutch, Chapter X. to whom Manapar belonged, were always more or less inclined to range themselves on the side opposed to that espoused by the English, and therefore likely to be willing to take under their protection a friend of Chanda Saheb's, who had fled to them from the Mahrattas. The Dutch were Protestants, it is true, but they had learned by that time to be tolerant. It has been supposed by sonic that the Manapar where Beschi died was the Manapar, properly Manaparai, near Trichinopoly. For this idea however there is no foundation. The people of Manaparai themselves, including the Roman Catholic Missionary of the place, admit that Beschi died at Manapar in Tinnevelly. Beschi did not long survive his arrival in Manapar. He resided His death. there, his native biographer says, in the niatha of the Society of Jesus, occupying his time in expounding his works and giving instruction in divine things. The exact date of his death is unknown, but it is certain it was in 1746. Thus peacefully ended the career of the most learned, if not the most renowned, of the great Jesuit missionaries of former times. He is said to have been buried in the chancel of the church at Beschi'a Manapar, but the oldest of the churches is now completely buried &'rave in the sand. There must be at least fifteen feet of sand over it, and the people say that no tomb-stone was erected to mark the place where Beschi's remains lay, and that in the same chancel other missionaries also were buried. Some again say that when the second church was erected two sets of bones were taken from the chancel of the older church and interred in the chancel of the later one, but without any record to show whose bones they were. One may safely say, I think, that Beschi was not much appreciated by the fishery people at Manapar.- If he had cared to acquire the reputation of a worker of miracles, doubtless his tomb would have been carefully preserved. Period after Beschi, Some years after Beschi's death troubles began to gather round the Missions of the Jesuits all over the world. In 1755 the support of the missionaries from Europe ceased. In 1760 the Jesuits at Groa were deported to Lisbon by Pombal's orders. The Jesuits that remained in Tinnevelly at Vadakankulam, Talai, Manapar, Virapandiyanpattanam, &c, died one by one, and their places were supplied by native priests from Goa. In 1773 the Society of Jesus was formally suppressed by the then Pope, Clement XIV. In 1814 the Society was restored by Pope Pius VII, and in 1838 two Jesuit Missionaries, Fathers Martin and Duranquet, arrived in Palamcotta to recommence their ancient mission in Tinnevelly,
243

A Political and General History of the District of TinnevellyMadras: Government Press, 1881

Published before 1930. In the public domain, and reproduced here in full.

Caldwell 1881 · p. 243

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The printed page 243 of A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevelly, photographed from the book

What this source establishes

The sixty-three-year Jesuit absence and the succession from Goa. This exact sentence appears in Stuart's Manual TWO YEARS EARLIER — Caldwell and Stuart are one witness, and Stuart has priority.