My dear friends, A friend of mine asked me the question which follows with regard to the total disregard all the elite Goans of Catholic persuasion have to the injustices that have been meted out to the Gawdas. He wrote to me:
"What I’d love to see most of all is the reaction of the two priests to the allegations made by Joao Fernandes in his book. I guess the reporters in Goa are not interested in following this up, eh!" I'd like to tell this friend who sadly must remain anonymous the history of the essay of Adv. John Fernandes translated from Chapter I of Goencho Mull Avaz. The piece was first offered to the Herald of Goa quite a long time ago which is the natural place for the piece to appear. In spite of reminders as well as personal approaches to an employee who is known to mer I was told that the essay would not be published. No reason was given except my contact said that a prominent employee automatically blocks such reports to protect the Catholic Church.. As far as I reckon - although the issue being debated was contentious, the debate was a civilized and dignified one and should not have had any objection coming by anyone. Sadly the Herald which is obviously the natural channel for the publication of the essay proved that it did not have the guts to cover the story. I don't thiink the current editor Ishaan Joshi who is an outsider would have taken this decision without consulting insiders like Devika Sequeira, Pamela D'Mello and Mervyn Mesquta. I think that it is sad that Devika, Pamela and Mervyn who represent various upper-class if not necessarily upper-caste strands of opinion among Catholic Goans on the Herald chose to kill the story thereby silencing a voice which represented those lower than theirs. After this the essay was sent to the Navhind Times where not only the essay but also a rejoinder by Fr Victor and a reply to that by Adv John were published the following week. However this paper is nowadays not so much read among the Catholics who were the ones who needed to be sensitized to the issue. Obviously, given that the NT does not cater too much to Catholics they had no problem publishing the story. As to whether reporters are interested in following this up, I'd like to tell my good friend, (a courageous and honest reporter himself in his own time) that our journalists have very little courage worth writing home about. They prefer to do PR work for whomever they are contracted to. Incidentally I've heard Fr C D'Silva is in America raising funds for the Pota-style retreat complex called Cruz dos Milagros in Old Goa. And Fr Luis is ths sort who I am told only fights when he has a frenzied mob behind him otherwise he is the sort who believes that discretion is the better part of valor. So on no accounts are we going to get reports from them. Regards Augusto -- Augusto Pinto 40, Novo Portugal Moira, Bardez Goa, India E pinto...@gmail.com P 0832-2470336 M 9881126350