Frederick Noronha
With its gilt-edged pages, this large-sized coffee-table book looks at ‘The Archdiocese of Goa and its Governors’. In the coffee-table format, the 236-page book printed on superior paper is all-colour and priced at Rs 2,000.
Even before one reaches the main section of the book, the end-papers (or end-sheets) draw your attention with images of the large hall in the archbishop’s palace, at Altinho in Panaji, which contains images of past archbishops of Goa. Anyone who visited the place would have perhaps wondered who these men were, and what their history was.
Now, you have the answers. Or some.
This book comes with ten info-packed chapters and appendices. The first four are a mix of Christian and Portuguese history in Goa and wider India. Chapter 5 looks at church administration (1498-1533), with the next focusing on those who ‘governed the Church’ before the bishops came also. This refers to the Vicar General of those early times, all Portuguese, and there are brief pen sketches here. Some also held other posts, such as apostolic commissary and a ‘ring bishop’.
(If one understood it right, the expression ‘ring bishop’ is not a formal term in Catholic canon law. Rather, it is a historical or colloquial label used in some early-modern Iberian contexts for a bishop who held episcopal orders and insignia, including the ring, but did not govern a diocese of his own.)
Chapter 7 is a short one, comprising a table of names. Chapter 8 talks about the roots of the Diocese of Goa. At one time, it spread from the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost tip of Africa) and continued “all the way to the farthest reaches of Asia”. The Philippines was excluded though, being under the Spanish ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for reasons that colonial history tells us. This was in the 1530s. Way back then.
Chapter 9 takes us to the “Goan Dispensation”, when the decolonisation process also brought new and local leadership to the helm in our region. This starts with the Margao-born FX da Piedade Rebelo. Interestingly, Rebelo accompanied Patriarch Alvernaz to the inaugural session of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, a moment of change in the Church, in September 1962. Alvernaz “did not return to Goa”, and the archdiocese was then looked after by Vicar General Rebelo, later the auxiliary bishop.
In his time, there was great political change underway in Goa. So was the case within the Church, as a whole. Vatican II, as it was called, shifted over the Mass from Latin to vernacular languages (in Goa, Konkani). In Rebelo’s tenure, three colleges were set up–Xavier’s at Mapusa, Carmel’s at Nuvem, and Nirmala Institute of Education in Panaji. Also, old parish schools were upgraded to high schools.
This book gives a peek into the prelates of modern times–Archbishop Raul N. Gonsalves, and Cardinal Ferrão (72), the highest ranking Goan ever in the Church hierarchy. Also included is the newest auxiliary bishop, Simão Purificação Fernandes. Understandably, as this is a demi-official Church publication, one can expect official perspectives here.
The appendices contain some useful information, that is, if Church history is your thing. As the author tells us, “Not holding any academic degrees in history, I have, however, a fascination for things historical, and, for decades now, I have been reading books about history, just for pleasure. This work, therefore, can be classified at best as popular history, as I write not for the scholar but for the common man.”
It offers information on the Goa archdiocese and its “suffragans”, This technical term from the world of religion refers to bishops who lead smaller dioceses that are under the authority of a senior archbishop in the same region.
Would you believe that, at different points of time, the Goa archdiocese had as its suffragans Cochin (1557-1950), Malacca in Malaysia (1557-1838), Macau (1576-1976), Funai in Japan (1588-1671), Angamaly (1599-1610), Craganore (Kannur, 1610-1848), Mylapore (1606-1950), Mozambique (1612-1940), Peking in China (1690-1856), Nanking in China (1690-1856), Daman (1886-1928), Dilli (Timor) 1940-1976, Sindhudurg (2006 till date).
There is a note on the Tribunal of the Inquisition, on Padroado, the two saints connected with Catholicism in Goa (Francis Xavier and Joseph Vaz), episcopal residences, bishops of Goan origin, some historical ‘firsts’, and the archdiocese in statistics.
Some of this information, a small bit, is available in the annual church directory. But this is much more: a colourful, coffee-table, and detailed perspective of the Church in Goa.
We are told that “several native Goan priests, about 25 of them” were entrusted with governance of the local Church, either individually or as members of a Cathedral Chapter or a Diocesan Board. This was particularly during the vacancy of the See. “Vacancy of the See” means the period when a bishop’s or archbishop’s seat (diocese) is without an appointed leader, usually because the previous one has died, resigned, or been transferred.
Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrão suggest that a region which played a crucial role in Christianity in the East deserves an “unveiling the captivating tapestry of leadership that has shaped the destiny…”
As important as the contents of the book is its author.
Joaquim Loiola Pereira is the priest whom many in Goa would know as the long-time secretary to the Archbishop of Goa and Daman. Crossing his 75th year, the guitar-carrying, music-loving priest was ordained five decades ago. He has had postings at Cansaulim, Loutulim, the Minor Seminary of Saligão-Pilerne, São Brás and São Pedro, and the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media. (The last is another way of describing the Church’s media and PR office.)
Because of his work, profession and maybe interests too, Pereira has been close to the Portrait Gallery of the Archbishops. His office is steps away from it.
The author writes: “My daily visual contact with the pictorial representations of these important figures of the past prompted me to seek to know more about them and, eventually, to write a seminal biography note about each of them….” The author spent 30 years at the slot, and the book emerged from it.
Can too much closeness–literally and metaphorically–be a advantage or disadvantage here? Access is easy to get, but one might not find critical perspectives in the evaluation of such figures of the past.
He tells the story of how Caterina Goodhart, the Principal of the London School of Picture and Frame Conservation, one day walked in and volunteered to help restore and conserve paintings in Goa.
There are links to other sources of information. The 1933 Memória Histórico-Eclesiástica da Arquidiocese de Goa and a more recent one on The Portuguese Padroado of the East and the Mitred Bishops of the See of Goa (2004). The latter was published in Portuguese by the Portugal-based Goan author Francisco de Sá. Such work gets more widely noticed, sadly, often only after the author’s passing.
The book is printed at New Age, the Church-linked printing enterprise at Verna. Design by Nisha Albuquerque, photography by Terry and Joe Travasso, Patrick Lobo (front cover), Myron Barreto and Agnelo Lobo among others. Some drone shots lend value too.
Being a coffee-table book and printed in all-colour, the price is understandably steep. But useful for libraries, and definitely for a browse and a read, if you have an interest in this subject. Available at major bookshops.
