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540 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA may know the great good our missionaries do in the forty-two missions run by our Order, and that they feel moved to help them with their prayers and the offering of Christian charity" 101 • The establishment of the International Seraphic College and the magazine Il Massaia certainly contributed towards fanning the missionary spirit among the fri– ars, the members of the Third Order and to some extent among the rank-and file faithful. Pacificus continued his predecessor's policy ofentrusting the responsibility of administering the missions to the Order's provinces. But there are two particu– lar instances in which he in person intervened convincingly in order to protect the missions administered by the Capuchin Order. He, helped by a missionary of the Mission of Agra in India and would-be Bishop of Imola, Paulinus John Tribbioli, wrote a 16-page passionate defence of the mission ofAgra in India by way appealing to Propaganda Fide against the recommendation of the apostolic delegate in India Mgr Ladislao Zaleski, to bifurcate the mission. The appeal, in fact, did attain the intended result and the apostolic delegate's recommendation was shelved 1° 2 • The Capuchin province of Rome which then ran the mission of Eritrea real– ised to its immense surprise that its mission on the Horn ofAfrica was about to slip through its fingers. The Apostolic Prefecture of Eritrea was formally erected on 13 September 1894 following a treaty between the Holy See and the Italian govern– ment, detaching the Italian colonial territory from the Apostolic Vicariate of Ab– yssinia and on 1 October 1894 the Congregation of Propaganda Fide entrusted the prefecture to the administrative care of the Capuchin Province of Rome, with Fr Michael of Carbonara as the apostolic prefect 103 • The entrusting of a mission to a 101 Pacificus ofSeggiano,Acta Ordinis, in Analecta OFMCap 29 (1913) 340. 102 APCapTusc, [Sisto da Pisa], Necrologia deiJrati minori Cappuccini della Provincia tosca– na IV: dal 12febbraio 1904al26giugno 1919, No. 552, 218-219. Pacifico daSeggiano,Relazione e ricorso alla Sacra Congregazione di Propaganda Fide sulla Missione di Agra, Firenze 1910, 12: "L'Ordine dei Minori Cappuccini, per mio mezzo, con i suoi missionari prostrati al bacio della Sacra Porpora, chiede umilmente alle Loro Eminenze di non essere giudicato incapace ed inetto all'evangelizzazione dei pagani e condannato senza prove e senza appello. Si permette per cio, per– che si teme fortemente che Sua Eccellenza il Delegato Apostolico dell'India voglia a tutti i costi bandire i Cappuccini italiani dalla miglior parte di Agra, fondata ed evangelizzata da loro con tan– ti stenti e sudori, e ricoperta di gloriosi monumcnti. Il Delegato, fin dal suo apparire in India, si e mostrato di mal animo verso i Cappuccini e li ha denigrati quanto ha potuto, invencando, falsando ed esagerando, come volendo, si puo veriflcare da documenti esistenti e in questa Curiae in Pro– paganda''. Mgr Zaleski hailed from Poland andwas apostolic delegate ofIndia from 1896 to 1916. 103 G. Rocca, Mons. Geremia Bonomelli e l'invio dei Cappuccini nel vicariato apostolico di Eritrea. Questioni di politica religioso-coloniale (Quaderno 3, settembre 2007), Biassono (MB)