The Troubled Days of Francis Garcia S.J.: Archbishop of Cranganore (1641-1659)

It is exageration to say that the subject that is going to be studied, viz the history of the St. Thomas Christians of Malabar under Archbishop Francis Garcia SJ, is one of the most controverted points of the history of the Church in India. Writers who perhaps felt that they had at all costs to defend the honour of their religious families or of their churches, have tended to take sides rather than make an objective judgement on the rather complicated events of the period. Hence one does not need to be surprised if the judgement of these historians on the government of Archbishop Garcia is very divergent. For Antonio Franco, a Portuguese Jesuit writer of the first decades of the 18 century, Garcia was nothing less than a saintly prelate who administered his diocese perfectly. According to him the Apostolic Commissaries worked in such a way as to deprive the Jesuits of their mission and to make themselves masters of it. On the other hand Fr. Vincent Mary of the St. Catherine O.C.D. repeatedly affirms that the Christians of St. Thomas did not want ho hear of Garcia and that they were in no way disposed to return to his obedience and to that of the Jesuits.