John, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article on Dom Jose Alvernaz. Your recounting of details, your fluency of language and your use of words in their particular contexts, recalls the days when graduates of the Bombay University and other leading Indian Universities were facile both with the word and the pen, not only in their own particular disciplines which in your case was Engineering, but also with the wider body of human knowledge.
That puts paid to the current argument that specialists in their field need not have command of the language in which they write as long as they are masters of the disciplines in which they have studied and practised. That is plain baloney. The education of yore was far more general and far more inspiring of further proficiency as compared to current training which rests mainly on the foundation and pillars of technical skills. The inspiration that education in that age brought about, resulted in an expansion of the mind rather than today's sole reliance on the mountain of available data that continuously bounds and gallops mostly on the strength and ingenuity of computer wizardry. While I detect a sort of awe and reverence in your writing of the life and times of Dom Jose Alvernaz, I myself do not hold such personalities in similar awe. They were created by a colonial system that embraced even religious life while deliberately ignoring the greatness of many Goan priests to whom their Portuguese counterparts may not have been able to hold a candle. But such was the result of those colonial times. All we can do is is attempt to correct it. But even those in present ecclesiastical power like Ivan Dias in the Vatican do nothing to glorify his heritage in the form of recognizing long unrecognized priests like Pe Jose Vaz and Pe Agnelo. There is a precedent for him. Our previous Polish Pope did not miss any occasion to raise almost unknown Polish clerical stars to the firmament of the worldwide Catholic Church. But that is typically Goan. Those of us who can speak Konkani feel inferior to converse in it on the side, in the company of say someone who is speaking Dutch or even Gujarati on the side. The foregoing is not meant to trivialize your article. I have the utmost respect for your writing and thought and make a wish that you write more on any other subject that inspires you. The water of writings such as yours are far more slaking of thirst than the usual soda pop one generally gets on Goanet. And I include myself in the soda pop category. With regards, Roland. On 3/24/07, john menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
21 March 2007 Dom José Vieira Alvernaz
