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Doc. 20 - 9 August 1837

Letter from Jean-Baptiste-François Pompallier to Claude du Campe de Rosamel.

Partial translation by Virginia Spencer

From the copy in Servant’s handwriting, except for the title “copy of the letter…” which is in Pompallier’s handwriting. APM OOc 418.1.

[7] A third obstacle one may meet with on the largest islands is the non-Catholic ministers from a whole crowd of sects who make every effort and use every possible method to paralyse the work of the real and legitimate missionaries. This third obstacle would be pretty weak if their opposition consisted only in resisting the latter with reasoning and promises: the Catholic missionaries would never fear a spiritual combat against the doctrine of the true religion. The simple fact of their mission and the result of their work compared to those of the non-Catholic ministers relieves these peoples from all discussion; they don’t need second sight to see which side has the mark of divinity.

[8] Moreover, the natives see the self-sacrifice of the Catholic missionaries’, who have left their own lands for them, without any commercial or political aims, nor to find happiness in the present life; they also see the unity of doctrine in those who teach and in the new converts who model their belief on them; they are their own witness to the real change that comes about in those who abandon their corrupt and violent moral ways to practise the virtues of purity and gentleness; lastly, peace and the union of heart and spirit reigns in them, where once discord, division and cannibalism took their cruel toll; those are some of the successes achieved by the Catholic missionaries.

[9] But what can the natives see in the sects that have separated from the Church? Ministers who come to them with wives and children, carrying on profitable businesses, achieving no, or hardly any, real change in the peoples, often, indeed, selling them bibles for them to use, each of them in accordance with his own principles, to become enlightened and form his own beliefs. Hence no unity of doctrine, neither in those who teach nor in those who listen; souls find no mark of divinity in that; they long for a better spiritual nourishment, which is not the letter of the sacred texts but the true meaning those writings entail; and this exists only in the Catholic Church, where, with the authority of the holy books, one finds an authority which speaks, which explains them [the sacred texts] infallibly, upholds their authenticity and preserves their integrity. How it consoles me here to discover that there are savages who are themselves capable, simple as they are, of reflections of this kind and who flock to express their desire for Catholic missionaries to teach them, as they say, the true word.

[10] Thus far, Monsieur, I thought to interest Your Excellency with an account of matters that hardly relate to questions of religion, but I beg you, before finishing, to turn your attention to a question of justice.

[11] Most of the non-Catholic ministers came from nations whose civil and religious liberty is troubled. They themselves declare that the peoples of the archipelagos of Oceania where they have settled have, nonetheless, kept their full national independence. This being the case, how is it that in the Sandwich Islands, where French missionaries whose work is happily successful have been banned from the region at the instigation of the former and that their eager new converts have been and still are oppressed, both as to their property and to their liberty? How is it that Catholic travellers, especially ecclesiastics, find it so difficult to set foot on that island on the way to somewhere else? How is it that recently in Otaïti some French priests, who have been there just a little while, were offended in the very house of the American Consul, who had given them refuge? The peoples of this island had been openly anxious and very pleased to have Catholic missionaries. But alas! Their wish remains completely unsatisfied. The ministers of sects win over some of the native chiefs by denigrating France in their eyes and by stirring up fearfulness of the country they came from, extorting by all sorts of machinations, orders that follow the Catholic missionaries and completely prevent them entering the country. Isn’t that a self-contradiction, isn’t it an injustice? I am sure the countries to which the ministers of the other sects belong would be far from approving their conduct.

[12] Nevertheless, Mr Minister, it would not please God if by this exposé I intended to subject the persons of the above-mentioned ministers to the wrath of civilised nations. Far from it! I put the matter in the hands of the Lord, who will be the judge of all men and of their own judgments. All I wish for the mission in the west of Oceania, with which I am charged, is that the Catholic missionaries should be free to teach and the peoples free to listen. What is there to fear in Catholic morality if it is well understood and practised! Is there anything more suitable to establish order, peace and happiness among the peoples when even in their own country one would find a mixture of different religions? Does not the doctrine we preach resist all kinds of evil and does it not command or recommend all kinds of good? Thus experience shows that true Catholics are always, in no matter what country, subjects of conscience, honour and devotion to the public good.

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