The Indian who revived Catholicism in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO DIARY | PK Balachandran
June 5, 2006

In the second half of the 17th century, two important developments took
place in Ceylon as Sri Lanka was then called.  In 1658, the Dutch
replaced the Portuguese as the European military, political and economic
power; and Calvinism or Protestantism, displaced Roman Catholicism as
the religion of the Christians in the island.

Catholicism, which was a force to reckon with during the 150 years of
Catholic Portuguese rule, almost completely disappeared.  The Protestant
Dutch, who saw the Catholics as a Portuguese political fifth column,
persecuted them in such a way that practicing Catholicism was
impossible.  In the areas controlled by the Dutch, those found
practicing Catholicism were fined or flogged.

Their marriages and births would not be registered unless they joined
the Reformed church.

At any rate, they would not get any government posts or favours, though
a few were tolerated for practical reasons.  For decades after the exit
of the Portuguese, the Catholics in the island had no priests to
minister to them, no catechists to teach them, and no churches to
congregate in.  This had resulted in many Catholics lapsing into their
traditional Buddhist or Hindu faiths.

Some joined the Dutch Reformed Church for safety as well as social and
economic advancement.
Some remained Catholics, but they were Catholics only in name, having
adopted pagan customs.

Some did practice Catholicism tenaciously and secretly. But what they
knew of it was precious little.  But Dutch persecution was not the only
reason for this pathetic condition. The way the Portuguese had gone
about converting Ceylonese and the attitude of their priests were also
responsible for the collapse.

Many had converted to Catholicism because it brought liberation or
because they were inspired by outstanding missionaries.  The fishermen
along the Mannar coastline, for example, were ardent Catholics because
they were converted by St Francis Xavier.  Over 600 of them were killed
by a zealous Hindu monarch of Jaffna, and yet they did not give up.

But others were converted by the use of brute state power.  Prof Tikiri
Abeyasinghe in his book Jaffna under the Portuguese (Stamford Lake,
Pannipitya, Sri Lanka, 2005) says the predominant mode of conversion in
Jaffna at least, was by official diktat and show of force.

A Portuguese priest would come to a village with government officials
and "command" the rejection of false gods and the acceptance of one true
God.
"Fear of a fine or corporal punishment with cane and stock would ensure
their (the converts') regular attendance at church on Sundays and on
feast days," Abeyasinghe says.  The priests exacted money from the
members of their parish so harshly, that Jaffna at one stage was getting
de-populated.  According to Father Simon Gregory Perera, an outstanding
historian of the Catholic church in Ceylon, the Portuguese had made the
mistake of treating the Catholic church as an arm of the state.  They
saw the church and the priesthood as representatives of the political
and economic interests of the Kingdom of Portugal.  As a result of these
political and security considerations, as well as racial prejudice, the
priests were Portuguese.  

No Ceylonese was allowed to become a priest. And because of this, the
Catholic priesthood was very small.  "The pastors of Ceylon were in
consequence complete foreigners from the beginning to the end, apt to
misunderstand the people and take little notice of their customs or the
past or of the future," Fr SG Perera writes in his book Life of Blessed
Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Sri Lanka (first published in 1942).

Therefore, when the Dutch came, all that they had to do to break the
back of the Catholic community, was to expel the few Portuguese priests
who were around.

Causes concern in Goa
The condition of the Catholic community in Sri Lanka was causing concern
in Catholic circles Goa, which was the seat of Portuguese and Catholic
power in India and the Far East.  But Goa was helpless. The fear of the
Dutch was deep rooted and pervasive, because the Dutch were outdoing the
Portuguese in ruthlessness.

While Portuguese priests could be easily detected, Indian priests could
infiltrate Ceylon unnoticed.

But according to Fr SG Perera, Indian missionaries could not be sent to
Ceylon because missionary work outside India was the monopoly of the
religious orders, and these orders had closed their doors to Indians.

Enter Joseph Vaz
But there was one person who was determined to go to Ceylon, no matter
what the danger. He was prepared to go on his own, without the aid or
backing of any of the established religious orders.  He was Fr Joseph
Vaz, a young priest belonging to a family of Konkan Brahmin converts of
Sancoale in Goa.  In the words of the Belgian historian R Bowdens, Fr
Joseph Vaz was a "meek brown man from Goa with a cloth about his waist,
begging his way and racked by fever, seeking only the hearers of the
word of Christ."

Though of high caste and well-versed in Konkani, Portuguese, Latin, and
later in Tamil and Sinhala, Fr Joseph Vaz led a life of poverty, giving
and ministering to the poorest of the poor, rather than hankering for
power and position even within the church.   In Ceylon, he represented
no power, no institution. But at the end of his 24-year, near solo
mission in the island (he never left it) he had created 70,000
practicing Ceylonese Catholics, from Jaffna to Colombo and from Kandy to
Trincomalee and Batticaloa.  Only the deep South could not be penetrated
as Dutch power was particularly strong there.

As coolie and beggar
It was in 1681 that Fr Joseph Vaz started making his way to Ceylon. 
The process was arduous and seven years long.  First, he had to get the
permission of the Bishop of Cochin in Kerala, under whose jurisdiction
came Ceylon.  Second, he had to be undetected by the Dutch in Kanara and
Tuticorin, through which he had to pass en route to Ceylon.  Kanara, a
region south of Goa, was administered by the Dutch from Colombo, and
Tuticorin was in Dutch hands.  He decided to go in disguise as a coolie
(unskilled labourer) seeking work in Ceylon.

Discarding his robe and shoes, he went about barefoot with only a cloth
around his waist.

He learnt to live on a diet of Conjee (rice gruel) and rice, with little
else to go with it.

While in Tamil Nadu, he learnt Tamil, which stood him in good stead when
he landed in Tamil-speaking Mannar and then went on to work in Jaffna.
The Indian was not needed in Mannar, which was already staunchly
Catholic, but in Jaffna, as the Dutch had been very successful in their
anti-Catholic campaign there.  Out of necessity, as well as to avoid
detection by the Dutch in Jaffna, Fr Joseph Vaz went about disguised as
a beggar.  Begging allowed him to study Jaffna society at close quarters
besides letting him lead the life that Christ would have liked him to
lead, a life of poverty.
Begging enabled him to quietly search for, and identify, Catholic houses
at a time when the Catholics had to hide their faith from the prying
eyes of the Dutch and their agents.  Soon, he discovered Catholics, who
readily accepted him.  Going by the account of Fr SG Perera, the fact
that Fr Joseph Vaz was a Brahmin, was a major factor inducing acceptance
in Jaffna, because in Jaffna, more than in any other part of Ceylon, the
Brahmin was held in the "utmost veneration." And the fact that this
Brahmin was humility itself, added to his appeal.

The Hindus too were attracted to him, as to them he was a venerable
Sanyasi (ascetic).

Later on, throughout Ceylon, he was known as "Maha Swami". But he
detested this.

And unlike the Portuguese priests during Portuguese rule in Jaffna, who
exacted or extorted money for their services, and the Dutch Protestant
ministers who lived a life of luxury, Fr Joseph Vaz neither sought
payments nor lived a luxurious life.  According to Fr SG Perera, his
requirements were so small, that even a beggar would have had no
difficulty in having him as his guest.

Worked only at night
Though accepted in Jaffna, Fr Joseph Vaz had to lie low, move about
undetected and do his religious work only at night throughout his
two-year stay there.

Marriages, confessions, sermons, and baptisms were conducted only
between nightfall and dawn. He moved about only at night.  A heartening
discovery was a whole village of Catholics, 10 miles north of Jaffna,
called Sillai.
This hamlet, which came to be known as "Little Rome" became his 
first base. But even in Sillai, all religious work was done at 
night.

Admission to the services were controlled by the Muppan or the chief of
the village. The Muppan provided escorts when the Father visited other
villages.  
But the Dutch did get wind of his presence and attempted to arrest him.
This forced him to leave Jaffna.  The Dutch asked the Jaffna Catholics
to pay fines if they did not renounce their faith. The Catholics
preferred to pay the fines rather than recant.

Fr Joseph Vaz went to Puttalam via the Wanni. Puttalam had been a
stronghold of the Portuguese and therefore of Catholicism during
Portuguese rule.
But the Catholics here had had no priests for decades because of Dutch
persecution. The Jesuit pastors had been driven way in 1640.  Therefore,
the Goan Father single handedly went about administering the sacraments,
rebuilding churches, appointing catechists and explaining the Christian
doctrine.

Shifts to Kandy
In 1691, Fr Joseph Vaz decided to shift his base to Kandy in the centre
of the island. Kandy was safer than the Dutch-dominated maritime
provinces, because it was under a Buddhist King.  And its central
location enabled him to reach all parts of the island more easily.    
But Kandy was out of bounds to foreigners. And existing foreigners were
not allowed to leave the Kingdom.  The King and the nobles were afraid
that foreigners would undermine their independence.
Though the ban did not apply to Indians, Fr Joseph Vaz could be arrested
because he was a Catholic missionary, and therefore a possible
Portuguese agent.

He slipped into Kandy incognito, as a poor labourer. But Nanclars de la
Neroll, an unscrupulous French adventurer with high contacts, told King
Wimaladharma Suriya that he was a Portuguese spy. Fr Joseph Vaz was
promptly imprisoned.  But Wimladharma Suriya soon realized that he had
made a big mistake.  Though a staunch Buddhist, who had taken steps to
arrange for the proper ordination of Buddhist monks with Burmese help,
he became an ardent admirer of the Indian missionary.  He relaxed the
conditions of imprisonment. He allowed Catholics to visit the prisoner
and later allowed him to move around in Kandy town.

But soon Fr Joseph Vaz became bolder, slipping out of Kandy frequently
to minister unto Catholics in various parts of the island. 
He asked Catholics not to participate in "pagan" rituals including
supplying flowers to Buddhist temples if their land was owned by a
temple.
But this infuriated the Buddhist monks.  The monks complained to the
King, but the King said that it was not right to expect Catholics to
contribute to their temples.

Drought and smallpox helped evangelisation
A severe drought and an epidemic of smallpox brought out Fr Joseph Vaz's
latent spiritual powers, and his dedication to the poor and the sick.
When all "pagan" rituals failed, Fr Joseph Vaz publicly prayed for rain
and it poured.

And when the entire population of Kandy, including the King, fled when
smallpox hit it with rare virulence in 1697, Fr Joseph Vaz stayed back,
tended the afflicted, and buried the dead, going from house to house.
The people of Kandy were amazed that a "Brahmin" should shed his caste
prejudices and do what he was doing unflinchingly.  The King was so
impressed and thankful to the Father that he gave him full freedom to
indulge in evangelisation and go wherever he pleased.

Till the drought, there was no evangelisation in Kandy. But following
the drought and the smallpox epidemic, evangelisation began in a major
way.    
Understandably, this set off alarm bells among the Buddhist clergy as
Kandy was the only surviving independent Ceylonese and Buddhist Kingdom.
It was the location of the holiest Buddhist temple in the island, the
Dalada Maligawa, or the Temple of the Buddha's tooth.  The monks and
nobles pleaded with the King to ban evangelisation and expel the
Catholic priests.
A church was burnt by an irate mob. The King had to ask Fr Joseph
Carvalho, who was in-charge at that time, to quit Kandy.  But soon, the
King's Muslim physician, with the odd Hindu name Gopala Mudaliyar,
interceded, and made the King reinstate Fr Vaz and Fr Carvalho. The
burnt church was re-built in 1699.  But with all the freedom, Fr Joseph
Vaz and his four new companions from Goa, continued to live a very
simple life, wearing nothing but a sarong.

He travelled incessantly, but on foot and barefooted. He would live in a
shack, sleeping on the ground on a mat, without a pillow.  His meal was
a plate of rice, with meat on occasion, only when offered by a devotee.
He wore his cassock and shoes only when he visited the King in the
palace.
At night he would read Sinhala and Tamil books to brush up his knowledge
of these languages. 

He and his follower, fellow Goan Brahmin, Fr Jacome Goncalvez,
contributed to Catholic literature in Sinhala and Tamil.
Beatification

The process of the canonization of Fr Joseph Vaz began soon after his
death in 1711. But he has not been made a Saint yet, though to the
Catholics of Sri Lanka he is a Saint.  But in 1995, he did become the
Blessed Fr Joseph Vaz when Pope John Paul II beatified him and
acknowledged that he was the second founder of the Church in Sri Lanka.
The Pope hailed Fr Joseph Vaz for instilling deep religious meaning into
the lives of his followers in the true spirit of Christianity, Buddhism
and Hinduism.
(PK Balachandran is Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times in Sri
Lanka)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7752_1713353,004100180006.htm

~(^^)~

Avelino

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