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ESTABLISHMENT OF CAPUCHIN ORDER IN INDIA 231 the means of the orphanage 104 . Meanwhile the question of the valid– ity .of the Profession of some of the students and the demand of the Master for the removal of the Lector from the Study called for urgent attention 105 • The crusader's zeal that animated the Regular Superior in putting order in the Mission, exasperated quite a few, including the Archbishop. Fr Benedict was summarily relieved of the office of Guardian 106 • It was not the likes of him to take such a dismissal lying down. He referred the matter to Rome. He had no doubts that the dismissal was wrongful and that it was untenable before law 107 • Since the new Guardian Fr Lawrence O'Dea had not yet arrived, Fr Benedict was asked to be the Officiating Superior, which he declined. The Lector was then made the Officiating Superior. The growing confliction at Mussoorie necessitated external intervention. An unhappy incident that occurred towards the end of 1888, showed that the situation at Mussoorie was highly volatile. It put the lid on the strung up state of affairs prevailing there. Following an altercation between Br Charles of Allahabad and one of the bigger boys of the Orphanage School, there was an exchange of blows between the two. When Fr Benedict wanted to take disciplinary action against 104 APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Fr Damasus to the General Secretary of Mis– sions, 6 August 1888: "... il trasloco dello Studio filosofico da Mussoorie ad un altro luogo, che a mio parere sarebbe necessario onde evitare che gli studenti siano obligati contemporaneamente allo studio ed all'insegnamento nell'Orfanatrofio di S. Fedele, come hanno fatto fin' ora" . 105 AGCap H 5, II, Fr Damasus to the General Secretary of Missions, 6 August 1888. 106 APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Fr Damasus' Circular No 3, 1 September 1888: "The Most Rev. Fr. General has intimated that in virtue of our office, we are entitled to dispose: 1. Of the pensions of all our subjects; 2. Of the salaries of the chaplains; 3. Of the alms received for the Masses, in a word, of every emolument which they receive for their use, and of which they must render us an account. Moreover, that in power of Provincial, it belongs to us to receive novices to the habit and profession, nominate Masters and Lectors, transfer friars from one station to another, give Obedience to clerics to ordinations and to do everything else which by common right pertains to the provincial. We hereby notify that finding it expedient for the wellbeing of the Religious Family of Mussoorie, we have constituted ourselves provisionally the Guardian or local Superior, from this date". 107 Cf. APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, Incarto I, Fr Benedict to Fr Louis, Mussoo– rie 1 January 1889.