By Roland Francis. Source www.goanvoice.org.uk Daily Newsletter, 8 Sep. 2013.
Growing up as a Goan Catholic in the usual rigid mould that was cast for a boy or girl of that time, a notable part of my childhood and early teens was devoted to religious based activities. There was the Sunday mass which under no circumstances could be missed, the daily rosary, altar service, annual retreat, benedictions, novenas, various feasts and a host of other related events too numerous to be enunciated. Going to a Jesuit school, there was further pain. Anyone who lived in those times will attest to the enormous and stifling influence that religious figures like church and school priests, nuns and brothers could have on one's life through instructions, suggestions and societal pressure on parents. My father was utterly liberal about all this but it was my mother who more than made up for his remissions related to my catholic upbringing. In such an environment, visiting a church other than Catholic on Sunday was tantamount to heresy. That didn't stop me from trying. In a quiet corner of Byculla's main street then called Victoria Gardens Road was a small and architecturally very pleasing Wesleyan Methodist chapel of the Church of South India - the latter being an umbrella organisation of Protestant churches. Probably built when Bombay's ruling class and their Anglo-Indian cohorts were in large numbers in that neighbourhood, I had always wanted to see the inside and attend a service of Catholicism's greatest enemy of the time. Breathe the P word and all hell would break loose on you, so asking permission to do that was out of the question. If anyone espied going to the enemy's place of worship, you were done for, being worse than just your parents seeing you go there. But I did it anyway. It was a different experience. As I let myself in quietly, out of nowhere came a member of the congregation welcoming me and asking if it was my first time. He made me feel welcome and wanted, insignificant non-adult that I was. The service itself was quite different from anything I knew. There was singing and there was the homily. Everybody in the audience participated. Years later this would come to my mind when I read an interesting and well written book called "Catholics Can't Sing" authored by a Catholic musician. Goans of course would have been the exception. In those days in village churches everybody sang in loud voices and with grateful hearts. The Methodist service was absent the rituals and the chapel devoid of statues of saints and other religious symbols except for a large leather-bound open bible that was placed on a small central table and which the pastor used during his homily. It was a serious commentary on a passage of the day explained with simplicity and logic, devoid of fire and brimstone. Nothing about hell, the Methodists didn't believe in it. To a early teen and one that was steeped in the concept of punishment for sin rather than the love of God, that was a pleasant surprise. I thought nothing of that incident and the years flew by until I emigrated to Toronto. I was disappointed at most of the Catholic churches I attended. The priests were old, their zeal missing, their ideas few and their homilies and organizational prowess uninspiring in all but a few parishes in the city. I had been used to dynamic priests in Bombay and missionaries in the Gulf and this was a let-down. There was no personal touch like before and they seemed indifferent to whether you participated in the Church's services or in its community where it seemed like not much was happening anyway, How much of this was lethargy and how much was prevention of being legally liable I don't know. It seems to be changing a little bit now with the necessary importation of foreign priests from India, the Philippines and parts of impoverished Europe. On the other hand Toronto and indeed Canada is dotted all over with various Protestant and non-denominational congregations. There is major presence of the Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Anglican, United Church of Canada, Baptist, Lutheran and other evangelical churches. I have from time to time attended Sunday services in many of these denominations. They are a relief to the Catholic landscape which counts on fifty percent of Christians in Canada. People who go to these non-Catholic churches dress well, are on their best behaviour at service, are friendly to strangers (like in the old Byculla Methodist church) and full of Christian charity in daily life. Everyone takes off their coats in winter and keep them in adequate closets provided. Childcare is arranged for small children and bible classes for the older ones so they do not disturb the service. The pastors prepare well for their sermons which are infinitely more absorbing than those of Catholic priests. They are filled with missionary zeal and they send lay members of their congregation well funded to various parts of the globe to preach and convert heedless of the dangers. Look out Catholicism in Canada and the world, the Pentecostals are here. ======================================