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RJCHARD GRAY 409 idea on the grounds that Broet was a foreigner, and, even worse, a Frenchman 9 • It was not until 30 July 1553 that John informed Ignatius that he had decided to send a Jesuit as patriarch to Ethiopia, but then he went on to demonstrate the extent of his patronage. When the mission eventually sailed from Lisbon on 1 April 1554, it contained the largest group of Jesuits until then to sail for any mission. The Icing spent the colossal sum of 100,000 cruzados on its expenses, a sum equivalent to about one-fifteenth of the total regular papal annual reve– nue10. Ignatius had a keen sense not only of the strategic importance of this en– deavour but also of its difficult nature. He dictated pages of detailed instruc– tions concerning the mission's approach to its task, demonstrating a good deal of sympathetic understanding of the people of Ethiopia and of their culture. Yet despite these preparations and high hopes, the Jesuits failed to bring the Ethiopian Church into communion with Rome. Indeed their efforts ended in creating fresh barriers between the two Churches. Many factors contributed to this failure, and it would be incorrect to attribute too great a responsibility to Portuguese pride and imperialist ambitions; but the close interdependence be– tween the mission and the Padroado was certainly by no means a minor factor 11 . Yet if in Ethiopia the Iberian Jesuits failed to develop a firm understand– ing and union with these African Christians, elsewhere the exploits of Jesuit missionaries, notably those ·of Francis Xavier and his successors in Asia, were beginning to create an awareness in Rome of the potential ecclesiastical signifi– cance of the lands and peoples beyond Europe. Very gradually, the dangers in– herent in leaving to royal Iberian patronage the development of the Church overseas were becoming apparent to the papacy. This burgeoning awareness was to prove of immense significance when eventually the appeals of a second Christian kingdom in Africa became known to the papacy. The initial proposal to create a curial congregation in Rome to be con– cerned with the governance of overseas missions was made to Pius V in May 1568 by Francis Borgia, the third General of the Jesuits. Determined to carry 9 F. Rodrigues, Histotia da Companhia de Jesus na Assistencia de Portuga4 I/2, Porto 1931, 572. 10 Rodrigues, Historia, III, 581. K. R. Stow, Taxation, Community and State, Stuttgart 1982, 16, for papal revenue estimate. 11 M. W Aregay and G. Beshah, The question of the union of the Churches in Luso-Ethiopian relations, 1500-1632, Lisbon 1964.