were sick. However, the "good examples" were not strong enough when they were contrasted with the "bad examples", and the Portuguese betrayed their belief in their cultural superiority and their assumptions that "Hindus, Muslims, barbarians and pagans did not possess virtues and goodness", states Mendonça. Racial epithets such as negros and cachorros (dogs) were commonly used against the natives by the Portuguese. In the later decades of the 250-year period of the Goa Inquisition, the Portuguese Catholic clergy discriminated against the Indian Catholic clergy because its members were the children of previously converted Catholic parents. The Goan Catholics were referred to as "black priests" and they were also stereotyped as being "ill-natured and ill-behaved by their very nature, lascivious, drunkards, etc. and, based on these stereotypes, they were considered most unworthy to receive the charge of the churches" in Goa. Friars who did not want to lose their careers and promotions alleged that unlike proper Europeans, those who grew up as native Catholics hated "white skinned" people because they were suffering from the "diabolic vice of pride". These racist accusations were used as grounds to keep the parishes and the institution of the clergy in Goa under the monopoly of the Portuguese Catholics rather than allow native Goan Catholics to rise in their ecclesiastical careers based on their merits. Suppression of Konkani In stark contrast to the Portuguese priests' earlier intense study of the Konkani language and its cultivation as a communication medium in their quest for converts during the previous century, under the Inquisition, xenophobic measures were adopted to isolate new converts from the non-Catholic populations. The use of Konkani was suppressed, while the colony suffered from repeated Maratha attempts to invade Goa in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. These events posed a serious threat to Portugal's control of Goa, and they also posed a serious threat to its maintenance of its trade in India. Due to the Maratha threat, Portuguese authorities decided to initiate a positive programme to suppress Konkani in Goa. The use of Portuguese was enforced, and Konkani became a language of marginal peoples. Urged by the Franciscans, the Portuguese viceroy forbade the use of Konkani on 27 June 1684 and he also decreed that within three years, the local people would generally speak the Portuguese tongue. They would be required to use it in all of their contacts and they would also be