Vivian A. DSouza socorrokar at yahoo.com on Wed Dec 4 23:06:00 PST 2013 wrote:
…I was born, baptised and got married in a foreign country. So I got all my certificates together and went to see our Parish priest… Now, i have a bunch of certificates issed by my Parish priest and dont know what they are useful for. Anybody have any thoughts on this ? COMMENT: 1- They are required in case you file an annulment or divorce; as they should have proof of you being a Baptised Catholic. So that the Courts do not refer you to Sharia Courts. 2- They are also required in case you decide to marry again. Or decide to be a priest and sermonise Goans. 3- They are also required in case the government archives cannot certify you were actually born. 4- The legal implication is that the registry shows you as a legal heir to that family assets in Goa, and anyone can produce it. 5- And finally, they are most important if you decide to retire in Goa, as the certificates are just a stone throw from where they were originally registered. By the way, why do you state that it was “all because of a bottle of cheap whisky !” ? Could it not be that the priest just realised you were not a tight-fisted "foreign returned"? Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão.
