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ESTABLISHMENT OF CAPUCHIN ORDER IN INDIA 201 cool, and there was the danger of offending against charity 17 • All these fa– ctors came into play in the establishment of the Capuchin Order in India. The main reason for turning the attention to recruiting vocations locally was the inability of the mother Provinces to sustain their Mis– sions with enough hands on account of the paucity of vocations in Europe. Yet, the idea of enlisting vocations from among their own converts did not cross their minds, despite the avowed policy of the Propaganda 18 • The need of going native too could have hardly- com– manded the priority of these missionaries 19 • Initially they looked only to the communities of European origin in India for selecting their po– tential confreres. The latter-day policy of recruiting candidates from the established Catholic communities of South India and the St Thomas Christians in Kerala to be missionaries in the North, too has not been helpful to bringing up an indigenous clergy. 17 APCapBologna, Classe III, Serie-B, B-2, n.7: the General Secretary of Missions to Mgr Pesci, Rome 26 February 1886: "Ma le Provincie sono esauste e alcuni Provinciali si scagliono contro ii P. Gen[erale], quando manda l'obbedienza a qualcheduno per le Missioni: altri gli si raccomandano, che non Ii privi di che e necessario per l'insegnamento dei chierici. D' altra parte i Superiori delle rispettive Missioni offendono ii P. Gen. con lettere poco rispettose, perche non manda Ioro missionari. Ecc. R.ma, e molto dolorosa la condizione di chi ora deve governare in Roma..." AGCap H 4, II, Fr General to Apostolic Vicars in India, Rome 14 January 1887: since May 1885 Mgr Pesci had written to · Rome 13 letters "molto allarmanti"; he and Mgr Tosi were threatening to resign if they were not sent more men. 18 From 1845 onwards the Propaganda authorities had been accentuating the need to form an indigenous clerical cadre in India: cf. AGCap H 4, I, Propaganda to Fr General, Rome 26 July 1887. 19 AGCap H 4, II, Apostolic Delegate Ajuti's Report, Agra 19 March 1891: "Tro– va, che ii sistema usato fin qu1 per l'evangelizzazione de' nativi, e £also perche i Missiona– ri volevano che i neofiti vivessero all'Europeani." The answers supplied from Allahabad in 1911 to a query from the Propaganda, are very revealing: "Nella nostra Missione non abbiamo nessun Sacerdote puramente indigeno; quelli che vi sono, sono semi-Indigeni, cioe, Goanesi" Cf. AGCap H 6, II. AGCap H 6, III, Fr Raphael of Leghorn to Fr General, Jhansi 1 May 1890: "Riguardo a fare qui Ciera indigeno, alcuni Missionari non ci hanno affatto speranza, e senza tale speranza non si affaticheranno per produrre vocazioni". But there was also bold thinking in the right direction, AGCap 4, II, Agliar– di's Relazione, Bombay 3 April 1885: "Pero, come Mons. Pesci mi fece osservare, bisogne– rebbe che nel Seminario i chierici indigeni durante la loro educazione non si scostassero specialmente nel vitto dai costumi indiani, ma vivessero come i Brahmini di alta casta onde potessero conservare anche dopa la Ioro ordinazione tutto quello che puo influire a render Ii accetti ai loro connazionali".