On 2 Sep 2013 "J. Colaco < jc>" <[email protected]> wrote:
Having lived and studied in Poona, I can say that I KNOW about Poona. I can safely state that I did NOT know about "caste" among the Poona Goan Catholics. I agree absolutely with Marshall. I am sure that Marshall will agree with me that our school St. Vincents remains the best. We did not even bother about the religion of our classmates. All that IMHO started when the SS and BJP used religion to push their political agenda; similar to the MGP Of course, I cannot comment about the 16th century. I was not around at that time. jc My Questions to jc: 1. Have you ever lived in Velim, Goa? 2. Have you attended the Velim church on a feast day? Did you observe the short procession on 3rd December (Feast of St. Francis Xavier) and/or the long procession on 8th December (Feast of Immaculate Conception), the Santos Passos on Palm Sunday and Good Friday? Did you notice that there are two Confrarias in the parish with the vestments (opa-mursa) in red-and-white (subaltern) and all-red (major)? 3. Did you know that only a chardo is eligible to be a member of the major confraria and only a non-chardo (sudir, kunbi, mhar) can become a member of the subaltern confraria? 4. Do you know that for the last few years the parish priests have been trying to demolish this caste barrier between the confrarias, but the Carambolim zonkars (your clan) are opposing the move? 5. Do you know that a couple of years ago, during St. Francis Xavier Novena, after the preacher tried to explain to the congregation the incompatibility of castes with Catholicism and advocated the opening of membership of both the confrarias to all the parishioners, a Carambolim zonkar rushed to assault the priest? 6. In spite of all this, would you still refuse to admit that casteism is practised in the Catholic church itself, at least in Velim? 7. Would you still say that you have not seen any casteism in the village of Velim? Sebastian Borges
