Moved by their zeal, successive popes granted wide-ranging favors and authorities to the kings, who claimed they were given irrevocable powers to establish and patronize churches and bishoprics in lands opened to Portuguese trade in South Asia.
[1] As the Portuguese power waned during the 17th and 18th centuries, in the face of the Dutch wars against Spain and Portugal, and the growth of the English empire, was followed by a decline in the supply of missionaries.
Seeking to provide for them and their spiritual needs, the Holy See began, through the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, to send out missionaries independent of Portugal, and appointed vicars apostolic over several districts.
After the revolution of 1834 in Portugal, the expulsion or abolition of the religious orders, and the severing of diplomatic relations with the Vatican came the famous brief Multa praeclare on 24 April 1838 reducing the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Goa to actual Portuguese territory.
This brief was, however, rejected by the Goan party as spurious since they contended that even the Holy See could not rightly legislate in this manner without the consent of the king of Portugal, as was declared in the original bulls of foundation.
A final settlement was not arrived at until 1886, when a concordat was drawn up, and a bull (Humanae Salutatis Auctor, 1 September 1886) issued, by which the respective jurisdictions were clarified and agreed to.