BCCCAP00000000000000000001717

202 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA As the pleas for reinforcements appeared to fall on deaf ears, Mgr Jacopi tried to weather the crisis by sending to Europe candidates from India. In this way he got two friars to revitalise the cadre of his missionaries 20 • In 1878 he sent two more postulants to Europe 2 1. The General Superiors too strove to circumvent the adverse circumstances at home by establishing in Smyrna in 1881 an international Novitiate exclusively for the Missions. Smyrna was a haven away from the agita– ted waters of Europe and enjoyed the additional advantage of being situated in the heart of a mission territory. 3. Establishment of Capuchin Novitiate in India The foundation of the Order in India, a top priority for the Gen– eral Superiors, was, to say the least, not all plain sailing. Though the story cannot be chronicled in detail for dearth of elaborate documenta– tion, the available sources go to reveal a scene that was far from being all smooth and quiet. Today this is like doing a complex jigsaw, interlocking the extant pieces spread out in different archives in order to create an intelligible and coherent remake of the events and delineate the way they unfolded 22 • 2 ° Cf. APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Mgr Jacopi to Fr General, Mussoorie June 1886: he had sent six students, of whom the following five persevered: Frs Michael, Dominic, Felix, Stephen of Agra and Lawrence McCarthy of Agra. Of these Frs Stephen and Lawrence returned to Agra on 16 April 1881. It was Fr Julius of Alatri (Prov. Rome) who had accompanied them to Belgium where they made their novitiate. They had their studies at the Collegio S. Fedele Sette Sale, Rome. 21 The two were James Rogers of Delhi and Angelo O'Dowd of Templemore; they professed on 13 March 1884 and joined the Province of Rome; after ordination they returned to India, reaching Agra on 25 January 1887. Fr James died in Agra on 25 March 1894 and Fr Angelo returned to Rome: Cf. APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Statistica Patrum ac Fratrum Ordinis S.F. Capuccinorum. Genesius of Serravezza (Prov. Tuscany) who had taken them to Rome had also to personally press for getting the authorisation for starting the Novitiate. 22 Fortunately Fr Louis, a leading protagonist of this enterprise, had a private col– lection of correspondence, now preserved in the Capuchin Archives of Florence. A close scrutiny of this collection yields innumerable bits of information that go far in the reconstruction of the events. APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Incarto I, the General Secre– tary for Missions to Fr Louis, Rome 5 April 1886, lamented that in Rome they were fully in the dark as regards the Novitiate in India, even though five long years had elapsed since its presumed inauguration. The General Archives had unfortunately no pa– pers concerning it: "Qui tuttora s'ignora cio che si riferisce a cotesto noviziato, la sua