HK^^Am ^A
558
Imprisonment for violation of the press laws. Even
a motion in his favour carried by the Reichstag failed
to secure the remission of his sentence. From 1878
to 1884 he was editor of the " Korrespondenz der
Zentrumsbl&tter'\ After his appointment as parish
priest of Hochkirch in 1884, he withdrew from but
still continued his activitv in joi^malism. His prin-
cipal works are: "Geschichte des Kulturkampfs
(1886; 3rd ed., 1902); '^GeschichtslQgen (1884;
17th ed., 1902), in collaboration with Galland and
other friends. Some of his works — e. g., "Louise
Lateau" (2nd ed., 1875) — ^awakened surprise by their
pronounced mystical and prophetic stram. In Lu-
ther's Selbstmord" (1892) he attempted to establish
the untenable theory of Luther's suicide (concerning
this question see Faulus, Luther's Lebensende' ,
1898). BxTTELHEXM, Btograph, Jahrbuch, IV (1900), 258 sq.
Thomas Kennedy,
Makarska. See Spalato, Diocese of.
Makil, Mathew. See Changanacherby, Vicar- iate Apostolic of.
Malabar. — In its narrower application Malabar is the name of a district of British India stretching about 145 miles along the west coast, south of Mangalore, and belonging to the Madras Presidency, bounded on the north by South Canara, on the east by Coorg, Mysore State, the Nilgiris and Coimbatore, and on the south by the Native State of Cochin. Its chief towns are Cannanore, Tellicheri, Calicut (the capital), and Pal- ghat. In its older, wider, and popular significance the Malabar Coast includes, not only the district of Mala- bar, but also the Native States of Cochin and Tra van- core down to Cape Comorin — in fact the whole south- west comer of India as far back as the ghaut line. The ancient form of the name was Afa/e, " where the pep- per grows", whence the name A/criayaZam for the pre- vailing language. Ecclesiastically, British Malabar belongs to the Diocese of Mangalore; the Cochin State comprises the Padroado, Diocese of Cochin, the Arch- diocese of Verapoly, and the three Vicariates Apostolic of Trichur, Changanachery, and Ernaculani; while the Travancore State is covered by the Diocese of Quilon, the divisions being in each case approximate. 'The name Malabar is used in the connexion with the "Syrian Christians of Malabar", chiefly found at the present day in the three vicariates just mentioned. The so-called " Malabar Rites " had nothing to do with Malabar proper, since the scene of the dispute was at Madura, on the opposite side of the peninsula. The term seems to have arisen from the fact that the Madura mission was part of the Malabar Province of the Society of Jesus. (See Malabar Rites; Thomas Christians; and the various dioceses above men- tioned.)
Ernest R. Hull.
Malabar Rites. — ^A conventional term for certain customs or practices of the natives of South India, which the Jesuit missionaries allowed their neophytes to retain after conversion, but which w-ere afterwards prohibited by the Holy See. The missions concerned are not those of the coast of south-western- India, to which the name Malabar properly belongs, but those of inner South India, especially those of the former "kingdoms" of Madura, Mysore and the Kamatic. The question of Malabar Rites originated in the method followed by the Jesuits, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, in evangelizing those coun- tries. The prominent feature of that method was a condescending accommodation to the manners and customs of the people the conversion of whom was to be obtained. But. when bitter enemies asserted, as some still assert, that the Jesuit missionaries, in Ma- dura, Mysore and the Kamatic, either accepted for themselves or permitted to their neophytes such prac-
tices as they knew to be idolatrous or supentitioua,
this accusation must be styled not only unjust, but
absurd. In fact it is tantamount to aiffinnmg that
these men, whose inteUigenoe at least was never ques-
tioned, were so stupid as to jeopardize their own sal-
vation in order to save others, and to endure infinite
hardships in order to establisn among the Hindus a
corrupt and sham Christianity.
The popes, while disapproving of some usages hith- erto considered inofTensive or tolerable by the missioii- aries, never charged them with having adulterated knowingly the purity of religion. On one of them, who had observed the " Malabar Rites " for seventeen years previous to his martyrdom, the Church has conferred the honour of beatiflcation. The process for the beati- fication of Father John de Britto was going on at Rome during the hottest period of the controversy upon the famous " Rites "; and the adversaries of the Jesuits asserted beatification to be impossible, because it would amount to approving the " superstitions and idolatries " maintained by the missioners of Madura. Yet the cause progressed, and Benedict XIV, on 2 July. 1741, declared "that the rites in question had not been used, as among the Gentiles, with rehgious significance, but merely as civil observances, and that therefore they were no obstacle to bringing forward the process " . (Brief of Beatification of John de Britto, 18 May, 1852,) There is no reason to view the " Mala- bar Rites ", as practised generally in the said missions, in any other light. Hence the good faith of the mis- sionaries in tolerating the native customs should not be contested; on the other hand, they, no doubt, erred in carrying this toleration too far. But the bare enumeration of the Decrees by which the question was decided shows how perplexing it was and how difficult the solution.
Father deNobUi's Work. — ^The founder of the missions of the interior of South India, Roberto de Nobili, was bom at Rome, in 1577, of a noblS family from Monte- pulciano, which numbered among many distinguished relatives the celebrated Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine. When nineteen years of age, he entered the Society of Jesus; and, after a few years, the young religious, aiming at the purest ideal of self-sacrifice, requested his superiors to send him to the missions of India. He eraoarked at Lisbon, 1604, and in 1606 was serving his apostolic apprenticeship in South India. Chria- tianity was then flourishing on the coasts of this coun- try. It is well known that St. Francis Xavier baptized inany thousands there, and from the apex of the In- dian triangle the faith spread along both sides, espe- cial! v on the west^ the Malabar coast. But the interior of the vast pemnsula remained almost untouched. The Apostle of the Indies himself recognized the in- superable opposition of the "Brahmins and other noble castes inhabiting the interior " to the preaching of the Gospel (Monumenta Xaveriana, I, 64). Yet his disciples were not sparing of endeavours. A Portu- guese Jesuit, Gonsalvo Fernandes, had resided in ihe city of Madura fully fourteen years, having obtained leave of the king to stay there to watch over the spiritual needs of a few Christians from the coast; and, though a zealous and pious missionary, he had not succeeded, within that long space of time, in making one convert. This painful state of things Nobili wit- nessed in 1606, when together with his superior, the Provincial of Malabar, he paid a visit to Pernandes. At once his keen eye perceived the cause and the remedy.
It was evident that a deep-rooted aversion to the foreign preachers hindered the Hindus of the interior, not only from accepting the Gospel, but even from listening to its message. But whence this aversion? Its object was not exactly the foreigner, but the Prangui. This name, with which the natives of India designated the Portuguese, conveyeil to their minds the idea of an infamous and abject class of men, with
