----- Forwarded Message ----- From: eric pinto <[email protected]>To:
Eric Pinto <[email protected]>Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2021, 05:43:00 AM
EDTSubject: Fw: A Momentous Anniversary
the 31st of December, 1878 – and marked the arrival of the Italian Jesuits,
who had been entrusted by Pope Pius IX and his successor Pope Leo XIII with the
administration of the Apostolic Vicariate of Mangalore.
The Jesuit mission from Naples arrived at Bombay in time for Christmas and then
proceeded south to Goa on board a Portuguese steamship. A large number of young
Mangaloreans had travelled as far north as Goa to meet the incoming Jesuits and
escort them back to Mangalore by the British-India steamship SS Khandalla– they
landed in Mangalore on December 31st.
There is no doubt that the arrival of the Italian Jesuits in Mangalore on the
31st of December, 1878, was one of the most important events in the history of
Mangalore. The major Catholic institutions with which Mangalore is indelibly
associated – Fr. Muller’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Inter-diocesan Seminary and
Industrial Workshops, the Codialbail Press, and - of course - St. Aloysius
College, all owe their existence to these Jesuit pioneers.
The Cloistered Carmelites and Tertiaries arrived at Mangalore on November 19th–
and were received at Rosario Cathedral by Bishop Mary Ephrem.
In course of time the Carmelite Tertiaries became known as the Apostolic
Carmel. St Ann’s Convent dates back to the year of their arrival in Mangalore,
while St Agnes College, which they founded in 1921, has the distinction of
being the oldest Catholic women’s college in South India, and the oldest
women’s college outside the Presidency capital, Madras.
That was the 8th of November of the year 1845. It is one of the most important
events in the history of Catholic Mangalore. This is not merely because this
date marks the foundation of the Diocese of Mangalore – then known as an
Apostolic Vicariate. The dramatic historical setting involving the rivalry
between the Crown of Portugal and the Papacy in Rome, the sequence of events
leading up to November 1845, and the romantic episode of the first bishop being
escorted on a sailing ship, together make up a story that is truly
unforgettable.
The foundation of the diocese of Mangalore was not a prosaic splitting from its
parent diocese – such as, for example, the creation of Calicut diocese in 1923
by the simple process of carving it out of the diocese of Mangalore and a
peaceful transfer of power. Paul Perini, the Italian Jesuit bishop of
Mangalore, assumed charge of the newly created diocese of Calicut, paving the
way for Mangalore to be administered by its own native clergy.
By contrast, the creation of the Apostolic Vicariate of Mangalore nearly 100
years earlier took the form of a struggle for independence from the
jurisdiction of its parent diocese (Goa), whose loyalties were to the Crown of
Portugal and not to Rome.
The story of the foundation of the Apostolic Vicariate of Mangalore is
intimately associated with the history of Christianity in India. I will now
touch up upon this subject – but I will try to be brief.
Today, the Roman Catholic religion in India and around the world is organized
in a systematic hierarchy, eventually ascending to the Vatican and the Papacy.
But the power and authority of the papacy in India was not really established
till the late 19th century. Despite the fact that Christianity in India has a
history spanning at least five centuries, the country has had little by way of
direct interaction with the papacy until the 19th century. Till then, the
responsibility for the spread of Catholicism in India was in the hands of the
so-calledPadroado, a term that will be explained below.
Padroado is a Portuguese word meaning‘patronage’; the expression arose because,
in the 16th century, the Pope granted the Crown of Portugal a monopoly of the
patronage of the missions in India and the East Indies. In other words, it was
up to the King or Queen of Portugal to select and sponsor bishops and other
ecclesiastics for the Catholic missions in these areas; vice versa,
missionaries in these areas were expected to obtain permission from the Crown
of Portugal, and in practice permission was only granted to Portuguese
subjects. These privileges were justified in the 16th century, when the
Portuguese were the paramount power in the East, but as its power waned, the
Crown of Portugal was no longer able to do justice to the missions that it had
founded. In India, the three oldest bishoprics were Goa (1534), Cochin (1557),
and Mylapore (1606), but the Crown of Portugal was only able to provide support
for Goa. Cochin fell to the Dutch, who destroyed the Portuguese churches in
the mid 17th century – and the Holy See (the papacy) founded a new bishopric at
Verapoly, a little to the north. It was India’s first bishopric of
non-Portuguese origin – and was known as a ‘vicariate’.
The Propaganda Fide (Propagation of the Faith) was the Papal Department
concerned with mission activity. Dissatisfied with thePadroado, it began
sending its own missionaries to India– notably Carmelites, Capuchins, and
Jesuits. The 1830s saw the foundation of three new vicariates: Madras (1832),
Calcutta (1834), and Ceylon (1836). The Apostolic Vicariate of Madras replaced
the older diocese of Mylapore that had fallen into disuse. By the mid 19th
century, the Archdiocese of Goa was the last stronghold of thePadroado.
Now to return to the story of the foundation of the Apostolic Vicariate of
Mangalore.
Following the return of the captives from Seringapatam in the year 1799, the
Mangalorean Catholics slowly rebuilt their lives. . . and by the year 1840, its
leading members felt that the time was now ripe for Mangalore to be independent
of Goa and be erected into an Apostolic Vicariate in its own right – under the
jurisdiction not of the Portuguese king but of the Church in Rome. Several
leading Mangaloreans of the era took up the cause in earnest, including Fr
Joachim Pio Noronha (the first native Mangalorean priest), Boniface Fernandes
(the first Mangalorean to attain the position of Deputy Collector; one of his
grandsons was the famous Dr L.P. Fernandes), John Joseph Saldanha (a subjudge
in North Kanara; his youngest son was the famous Joseph Saldanha, poet and
editor of the Christian Purana), and Martin Basil Coelho, head of the
illustrious Falnir Coelho family of timber merchants. Some of the
correspondence between John Joseph Saldanha and Martin Basil Coelho with
ecclesiastical authorities in Rome and India has been preserved (not the
originals, unfortunately). And when Bishop Bernardin was appointed to assume
charge at Mangalore in 1845, he was escorted from the older diocese of Verapoly
in a sailing ship, the St Antony, belonging to the Falnir Coelho family (built
from the family’s own timber industry). Six young men formed the bishop’s
escort, headed by Peter Venantius Coelho, eldest son of Martin Basil Coelho.
The others were Ignatius Britto, Lawrence Adrian Coelho, Francis Mascarenhas,
Augustine Tellis and Clement Vas.
I reproducing below a letter written in quaint English by the Carmelite Bishop
Francis Xavier of Verapoly to Martin Basil Coelho, dated 8April 1845:
It comes to prove your efforts and diligence the Roman Catholic
Commission you instituted to this end, not indulging to labours, not to
expenses, not to the particular interest; but have dedicated all to the
maintenance of Religion & Peace as well as to the spiritual and temporal
advantage of your country.
If I have succeeded to establish a seminary, you have produced to me
proper means, and if the future Bishop proper for Canara should find some funds
to obviate with greater easiness the necessities that may occur, these also are
indebted to your zeal and trouble. By a word there is nothing I could do for
the common good, in which you have not had a part, the praises therefore must
be referred to you than to me. You do not need of my incitations to go on with
the same zeal, diligence and activity, upon the firm hope that Almighty God
would crown the good end. Your troubles are devoted to God. Our Lord bless
you. I also, from the bottom of my soul, pray to him.
Bishop Francis Xavier, Vicar Apostolic, Verapoly
8 April 1845
Another point worthy of note is that when the Apostolic Vicariate of Mangalore
was created in 1845, it extended north as far as Karwar (on the border with
Goa) and also incorporated the entire district of the Malabar down to the
border with the Kingdom of Travancore. On the east it extended into the
Western Ghats.
When the Apostolic Vicariate of Mysore was created in the 1850s, the Western
Ghats was transferred from Mangalore to the new vicariate. Its headquarters was
at Bangalore with St Patrick’s as the Cathedral.
And by a decision taken at the Vatican in 1886, the District of North Kanara
was ‘returned’ to Goa, while, ironically, Mangalore was now ‘promoted’ as a
Diocese. So too were 17 other Apostolic Vicariates in India, including Bombay,
Calcutta, and Madras.
i
Michael Lobo
