A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767Cunninghame Graham, R. B. (Robert Bontine)
History
A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767
Cunninghame Graham, R. B. (Robert Bontine)
Jesuits -- Paraguay; Paraguay -- History -- To 1811
The Jesuits, ever ready to take advantage of events like these, called
on the Indians to see in the visitation of the tiger the wrath of
Heaven, and to leave their wicked ways.
The Indians, always as willing to submit as to revolt, submitted, and
the good fathers ‘prirent le parti de faire un coup d’autorité, qui
leur réussit,’ as Charlevoix relates.
They decoyed the chief, his nephew, and son, into another district,
where they seized and shipped them off two hundred leagues to a remote
reduction across the Uruguay. The Spaniards used to say of Ferdinand
VII., when he had committed any great barbarity, ‘He is quite a King’
(‘Es mucho Rey’), and the Indians of the Itatines esteemed the Jesuits
for their ‘coup d’autorité’ in the same manner as the Spaniards their
King.
His usual luck attended Cardenas in his exile in Corrientes. This town
formed part of the diocese of Buenos Ayres, which happened to be vacant
at the time. He therefore took upon himself to act just as he had acted
in Paraguay—appointed officers of justice, held ordinations, and
instituted a campaign against the Jesuits of the town.
Whilst he was thus occupied in his favourite pastime of usurping other
people’s functions, two citations were sent him to appear before the
High Court of Charcas. He disregarded them, and sent a statement of his
case by the hands of his nephew to the Bishop of Tucuman. In the letter
he set forth all his complaints against the Governor of Paraguay,
calling him a violator of the Church, a heretic, and generally applying
to him all those terms in which a thwarted churchman usually exhales
his rage. Mixed up with this was a detailed accusation of the Jesuits,
to whose account he laid all his misfortunes whilst in Paraguay.
Lastly, he called upon the Bishop of Tucuman to summon a provincial
council to condemn the monstrous heresies which he attributed to the
Jesuits, reminding him that the Council of Trent had recommended the
holding of frequent provincial councils, and stating his opinion that,
unless a council were called at once, the Bishop would incur a mortal
sin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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