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From: "Nasci Caldeira" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Goanet]Re (goanet) At Home, in Rome Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 20:04:53 +1000
Hi Fred and everyone,
Fr Rufus is not of Goan origin; he is and has been a great priest, and a world renowned leader in the Catholic Charismatic movement.
He hails from Bombay; he belongs to the Bombay Christians who are Christians since the time that the group of seven islands that now comprises Bombay was governed by "The East India Company'. These Christians of Bombay origin are always referred to as "East Indian Christians' because of this history.
Earlier than that Nasci, much earlier!
Portuguese had possession of the cluster of islands that comprise the Bombay/Mumbai of our
times, of which Bombay is just one constituent; other important ones being Bassein and Salssete.
Very soon after the Portuguese made Goa the capital of their eastern empire, in 1510, they realized the necessity of strategiacally vantage locations along the coast that would offert shelter to their fleet during monsoons and selected Diu Damao, Bombay, Calicut and a few others for the purpose.
It was a century later that the East India Company felt the same and in 1613 obtained permission from Emperor Jehangir to establish a factory in Surat., and later on rented Bombay from the Portuguese, for the sum of 12 Engish pounds annually, for the same purpose.
The asset proved so valuable in dealing with the Marathas that when negotiating the dowry that D. Catarina de Braganza would bring Charles I of England, when she married him June 23 1661, the Brittish diplomats cannily managed to include Bombay (also Tangier).
The E. I. Co effectively transferedy its headquarters from Surat to Bombay in 1672.
So, Catholicism had quite flourished in Bombay and environs for over 150 years before the incipience of the brittish traders. A visit to St Mary's and a couple of other churches in Bandra will bear out this contention. The marble slabs covering the graves, in the naves as well as adjoining cemeteries manifest ample record.
However, the dowry-settlement, had guarantteed D. Catarina freedom of religion and this proviso extended to those that comprised her train. Included was bombay and its Catholics.
Alfred de Tavares, Stockholm, 2004-06-15
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