With thanks to Michael Lobo of Mangalore.
Rosario Cathedral, Mangalore, was known as the Churchof “Nossa Senhora de Rosario” for centuries after its foundation by thePortuguese in the late 16th century. So too the parish church at Coondapur, whichis of almost equal vintage. In the year 1837 a church dedicated to “Nossa Senhorade Rosario” was also built at Kallianpur. This building of this church was a milestone in the history ofMangalore, as it was the first church to be administered directly from Rome. This statement may seem surprising, but prior to the1830s the Mangalore Mission was in the hands of the Portuguese Padroado, a term that will be explained below. Padroado is aPortuguese word meaning ‘patronage’; the expression arose because, in the 16thcentury, the Pope granted the Crown of Portugal a monopoly of the patronage ofthe missions in India and the East Indies. In other words, it was up to the King or Queen of Portugal to select andsponsor bishops and other ecclesiastics for the Catholic missions in theseareas; vice versa, missionaries in these areas were expected to obtainpermission from the Crown of Portugal, and in practice permission was onlygranted to Portuguese subjects. Theseprivileges were justified in the 16th century, when the Portuguesewere the paramount power in the East, but as its power waned, the Crown ofPortugal was no longer able to do justice to the missions that it hadfounded. In India, the three oldestbishoprics were Goa (1534), Cochin (1557), and Mylapore (1606), but the Crownof Portugal was only able to provide support for Goa. Cochin fell to the Dutch, who destroyed thePortuguese churches in the mid 17th century – and the Holy See (thepapacy) founded a new bishopric at Verapoly, a little to the north. It was India’s firstdiocese of non-Portuguese origin. The PropagandaFide (Propagation of the Faith) was the Papal Department concerned withmission activity. Dissatisfied with the Padroado, it begansending its own missionaries to India – notably Carmelites, Capuchins, and Jesuits. The 1830s sawthe foundation of three new dioceses: Madras (1832), Calcutta (1834), and Ceylon(1836). The diocese of Madras replacedthe older diocese of Mylapore that had fallen into disuse. By the late 19th century, theArchdiocese of Goa was the last stronghold of the Padroado. The 19th century history of Christianity in South Kanara wasdominated by the so-called Padroado-Propaganda schism,with some parishes remaining faithful to the Archbishop of Goa and otherspreferring direct administration from the papacy at Rome. The church of “Nossa Senhora de Rosario”, Kallianpur,was the first to be administered directly from Rome, but not all the Catholicsof the Kallianpur area joined the new parish. At least half remained with the older church dedicated to “Nossa Senhorade Milagres” (Our Lady of Miracles). The schism finally ended in the 1880s, the entire diocesecoming under the jurisdiction of the papacy. yearsago, and replaced by a brand new structure in keeping with the times. The memorial slabs that marked the finalresting places of the leading members of Rebello and Fernandes families arealso ‘history’.
