Cedric Lobo
Before detractors make the grave accusation that Xavier is responsible for the wrongs of the Indian Inquisition, which is historically inaccurate, one must first understand what the Inquisition was. It was a tribunal set up to primarily investigate cases of heresy among neo converts and New Christians. It is equally important to understand his intentions and motives behind this request. Furthermore, one must also consider the complexities of historical events.
His detractors cite a few lines of the letter written in 1546 to King John III dated 16 May 1546 as evidence for their claim. These read as, "The second necessity that India needs for them to be good Christians who live there is that your majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to Jewish law, and according to the Mohammadian sect without any fear of God or shame of the world and since there are many who are spread all over the fortresses, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition and many preachers". Firstly, the Inquisition in Goa was established in 1560, i.e. eight years after Xavier's death and fourteen years after his letter to the king. Furthermore, no evidence exists that King John III acted upon Xavier's request. The Inquisition in Goa began later under the rule of King Sebastian of Portugal, who succeeded John III. Thus, it is a must to understand Xavier deeper and gain some insights to understand his intentions through his letters.
During Xavier's brief five-month stay in Goa in 1542, he writes in his letter about the ignorance of the European Catholics in their faith and criticizes the Portuguese soldiers for their immoral behavior. In a letter dated March 24, 1544, addressed to his friend and fellow priest Fr Francis Mancias, he mentions that three nobles from the court of Travancore approached him with a complaint that the Portuguese had arrested a slave and taken him away in chains. He pleaded with Mancias to investigate the matter, uncover the truth, and secure the slave’s release if the claims proved valid. In his letter dated September 5, 1544, to Francis Mancias, he inquired about the well-being of the locals on the fishery coast of Kerala and asked whether they were experiencing any difficulties caused by the Portuguese stationed in the area.
In another letter dated January 26, 1549, he condemned the Portuguese Fidalgos, captains, and officers for oppressing the new converts to satisfy their lust for power, wealth, and pleasure instead of supporting them. Similarly, Xavier wrote multiple letters often showing his disproval of the moral conduct of the Portuguese men in this part of the East. In Goa he rather chose to live in a hospital and cared for the lepers, before continuing his missionary work elsewhere.
A plain reading of his letter written in 1546, shows that Xavier never requested the Inquisition tribunal for the local population or natives. Instead, his request was rather to explicitly investigate the "new Christians" of Jewish origin who had migrated to India from the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the Portuguese men who followed Islamic practices and led scandalous lives. His goal was to keep these baptized Christians within their faith.
Xavier wrote hundreds of letters to his superiors in Rome, kings, and his companions during his lifetime. However, his adversaries often focus on a mere four lines from one of his letters.
His request to the king was motivated by the unholy lives of some new converts and the Portuguese settlers, who engaged in practices like sodomy, bigamy, polygamy, and keeping concubines, which contradicted Christian teachings and to curtail its influence. At no point in his letters does he support the torture or mistreatment of converts, contrary to the false and malicious claims made by some. Bradley Blankemeyer (DPhil. History, University of Oxford), a religious and cultural historian of early modern Europe in his research of the Jesuit archival sources has demonstrated that the religious in Spain and Portugal had different views on the usefulness and the extent of rigor that the inquisition should exercise and not all were in agreement of this with the crown.
For Xavier, through his writings the spiritual needs of the victims were paramount; his intention was purely for the conversion of souls rather than punishing them. Thwarted by the jealousy, covetousness, and carelessness of those who should have helped and encouraged him, neither their opposition nor the difficulties of every sort which he encountered could make him slacken his labours for souls. (‘In Thee, O Lord, have I put my hope. Let me never be confounded’). Those guilty were rather to be assigned penance and subsequently absolved of their offenses.
What his critics conveniently overlook is that prior to his 1546 letter to the King, he had written a letter dated April 7, 1545, in which he instructed Fr. Mancias to request one of his brethren in the kingdom to write to Henry "to ensure that the inquisition tries those who persecute people who convert to our holy law and faith".
In light of the malicious misinformation campaigns driven by right-wing groups for their own agendas, it is essential to distinguish between fact and fiction. These distorted narratives hinder meaningful, credible, and intellectual discussions, often serving as vehicles for political propaganda rather than fostering genuine understanding.
‘Given this, the recent historians on the Goa Inquisition have struggled to communicate the new research and facts from the opening and study of the archival sources, its complexities of its history, how it worked, who was tried and for what reasons because political propaganda is always the loudest in every discussion about it. Historians find it difficult to discuss any data that does not fit this propaganda’, says Dale Menezes, PHD researcher in South Asian history at Georgetown University, in the preface of the book ‘The Trial of Catarina de Orta’.
So also, Goan researcher Alan Machado who has spent a considerable amount of time to analyze archival material and data through his publication ‘Goa’s Inquisition: Facts, Fiction and Factoids’ has this to say about the Goa Inquisition, ‘Writing the history of the Inquisition involves a balancing act and an unbiased evaluation of the primary archival data, not selective repetitions of earlier histories compiled largely from secondary sources’. The wrongs of certain men cannot be borne or be held accounted by others.