The above mentioned story carries many false statements.
Firstly, there are still ( thank God) about 10,000 Goans in Pakistan about
9,700 of them in Karachi alone.
Also, Goans were never helped by the church to migrate to the West. However,
the Protestant churches did help in sending large amounts of Punjabi Christians
to the west under the Special Agricultural Workers ( US SAW Visas program ) of
the mid-70's. Many were also sent to train at church run seminaries never to
return.
Bishop John Joseph of Faisalabad shot himself in the head outside the a
Courthouse in broad-day light in front of hundreds of people on May 6, 1998.
(See Daily Dawn, Karachi of May 7, 1998.)
Later it transpired that he did so to cover up massive financial wrong doings
and avoid being defrocked by the Vatican. Still he did considerable financial
damage to the diocese of Faisalabad and left it broke. His close lady associate
also managed to take away the parish-owned land cruiser.
It is also wrong to say that there are no Punjabi bishops..currently there are
two Punjabi Bishops...Sebastian Shah of Lahore and Rufin Anthony of
Rawalpindi-Islamabad.
The Goan clergy do not meddle in politics...and it was a government decision to
revert to the Joint Electorate system which was the norm from the creation of
Pakistan until the dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq imposed the Separate Electorate
System under pressure of the mullahs. In the Separate Electorate system
minorities can only vote for a minority candidate which were only 10 out of
237 National Assembly members.
The vast majority of minorities of Pakistan left cut of from the main stream
and held many protest demonstrations etc to restore the Joint Electorate System
under which one can vote for any candidate irrespective of religion and it was
re-instated by Gen. Musharraf.
regards,
John
