Once a persons retires on attaining the age of superannuation ( 75 year ) which the Archbishop of Goa and Daman has completed in June 2002, he ought to have relinquished his post and above all Vatican Council should have relieved him on appointing a well in advance chosen successor. The belief by Catholics that the Auxiliary Bishop would succeed him automatically was incorrect.
During the erstwhile Portuguese era, in keeping with the policy, that the religion of the King is that of its subjects the Archbishop was invited for every Government function. This privilege ought to have been dispensed with as the Constitution of India does not provide for such privileges to religious heads notwithstanding its secular structure. But even the the right-wing Hindu fundamentalist political coalition that usurped power from a duly elected Government on 24th October 2000; saw a beaming Archbishop with the new Chief Minister front-paged on a Roman script Konkani widely circulted magazine, as if sanctifying the morally unjust, though technically and legally constituted coalition government; This exposed the gullibility of the Archbishop to political expediency; The ruination of the St Francis de Assisi Chapel and the now partly damaged Church of Our lady of Springs "Nossa Senhora da Brotas" at Anjediva, (still a part of Canacona Taluka ) which the Defence Authorities failed to safeguard in terms of the Agreement executed with the Government of Goa before handing over the Island to the Naval Sea Bird Project the biggest Naval Base in Asia, exposed a weak Archdiocese who could not take up cudgels with the State and Central Government despite a public outcry; Closer home in Margao city one can see how the "Santas Almas" Chapel on the Old Station Road has been encroached by all and sundry and a helpless Fabrica mangaing the affairs of this Chapel had through the faithful been fighting an almost unsuccessful battle to clear of the illegal encroachments; There are vast lands which belong to the Archdiocese but there are reports in the Press that large tracts of land in Tiswadi (Ilhas) has been usurped or have exchanged hands and the Archdiocese has not been able to protect the assets. For too long the Churches in Goa have been used by successive Governments to solicit tourists but without working out the economics of maintainence of the spruced and lit up 4 centuries old Churches; For too long Catholic priests have been wooed by unscrupulous financial Institutions to motivate Catholics to deposit their life savings; unfortunately these "blessed" institutions were mere fly-by-night operators fleecing the gullible Catholic Goans mostly non resident Goans with the "blessings" of the Archdiocese. For too long the Archdiocese was influenced by rightwing forces to force the Catholic community succumb to a non standardised, sanskritised Konkani which has led to the mushrooming of non Government run English schools which charge exhorbitant fees affordable by the rich while those economically underprivileged have to perforce send their wards to Konkani medium schools and tuitions. This unsuspect acceptance of the Archdiocese of the cunning designs of the majority few provides self employment to those conversant with the non standardised sanskritised Denagiri script Konkani; For too long the Archdiocese dabbled in politics without understanding the intricacies of caste based politics as prevalent in the country therby coercing from Church pulpits to the Catholic community not to vote for technically & politically legal defectors who belong to the Catholic community; They overlooked those similarly contesting from majority community; For too long the Archdiocese has kept the Catholics as prisoners of their own conscience; that the Church in Goa, has not kept up with the changing times until a collective of views were collated during the Synod; is evident by the fact that various Groups that do not enjoy the patronage of the Roman Catholic Church have sprung up in Goa in almost every nook and corner; The visits to Our Lady of Velankani, Tamil Nadu and now Pota in Kerala are the manifestation of the failure of the Archdiocese to provide spiritual solace and an answer to the social problems affecting the Catholics; For too long the Archdiocese has been preaching that Christianity does not believe in social engineering on caste basis; yet the inner circle of the Archdiocese are those from the upper-castes; the feasts are still celebrated caste based; the burials are caste based; the annual transfers are also caste based and marriages have caste-based sanctity; Thus the Church notwithstanding the fact that the present incumbent is lowly placed in the vertical caste heirarchy of the Indian social stratification the top advisories constitute the upper echelons in the caste heirarchy; For too long the Archdiocese could not impose its moral leadership to the Catholic community who have through the audio and visual media become victims of materialistic aspirations and are commercialy exploited; Whatever be the Catholic festival the Catholics have become gullible to economic forces. There is an overkill in almost every field lending the majority community to allege and not without justification that our Catholic community gullible attitude has led to the world wide belief that Catholics in Goa are adherents to the "wine women and song" life style; this has provdide a good handle to the rightwing forces to impose de-culturisation of Catholics to pre-1510 era of "Akhand Bharat" >From the widely accepted teaching of religious tolerance and secularism as enshrined in the Constitution of India the Catholic Church has now shifted to preaching " Christianity as the only religion" and "Jesus Christ the only Saviour of all mankind" A strong and decisive Good Shepherd is therefore the need of the hour in a communally surcharged atmosphere owing to polarisation of the citizens on religious lines and fomenting communal passions. The Vatican should note all these points listed before appointing the new incumbent. godfrey j i gonsalves borda - margao - goa INDIA ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Promos: Win TVs, Bikes, DVD players & more! Go to http://in.promos.yahoo.com ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################