BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ
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Articles about Joseph Naik Vaz
The Work Of Blessed Joseph Vaz
The Tablet, New York (1987)
Canonize Bl. Joseph Vaz As India And Sri Lanka’s First
Catholic Saint!
Pope John Paul II On The Occasion Of The Beatification
The Cause Of Bl. Joseph Vaz Has Suffered Many Setbacks
The Pope Could Canonize Bl. Joseph Vaz
Sri Lanka Pioneer Beat Persecution
Sages And Saints Of India
The Polish Connection
“Apostles Like Him”
Letter To The Holy Father
The Work Of Blessed Joseph Vaz
His
missionary work was not colonial, not
helped, authorized, associated with colonial conquest.
He gained the
protection of the Buddhist, non-Christian King of Kandy,
Sri Lanka.
He used Inculturation
as a missionary method. He founded a Catholic
para-liturgy and literature using the two languages and
cultures of Sri Lanka, Tamil and Sinhalese.
He educated his servant
John Vaz, a member of the Indigenous tribe of Kunbis, and
sent him back to Goa with a letter of recommendation to the
priesthood. The Portuguese Church Councils had reserved
the priesthood for the two higher castes.
He
founded the miraculous Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu It
was crowned in 1924 and is one of the five officially crowned
Marian Shrines of the Church, along with Czestova, Lourdes,
Fatima, and Guadalupe.
He
is the first non-European native in modern times
to
found a Mission and Church in a “Third World” country; to
found a fully native Catholic Religious Congregation; and to
be given the official title of “Apostle” (of Kanara and
Sri Lanka) by the Church, for his work in rescuing the Church
there. His Indian Oratorian Mission is the only fully
native, non-European Catholic Mission of our colonial
era.
The
Church he re‑founded in Sri Lanka was persecuted and
survived isolation from Rome for 140 years.
The Tablet, New York (1987)
Msgr. John Condors.
Propagation of the Faith
“Saviour
of the Catholic Faith in Sri Lanka, founder of
a native religious congregation at a time when such
institutions were non-existent, coordinator of a
missionary society which supplied Asian missionaries
to another Asian country, and capable Church
administrator even during times of persecution, Fr. Joseph
Vaz holds a very special place in mission history.”
Sages
And Saints Of India (1992)
English writer, Fr. Roger H. Lesser
When
he died ...there were 70,000 practicing Catholics..
Of these no less than 30,000 were converts from other
religions. Not one had come in through motives other
than religious, since Vat had neither money to bribe
nor power to influence or entice them.”
Canonize
Bl. Joseph Vaz As India And Sri Lanka’s First Catholic
Saint!
*
The Indian converts of the Archdiocese of Goa have been
Catholic since the Portuguese conquered Goa in 1510. They
were allowed to have a native clergy and have worked as
missionaries for the Portuguese Missions as well as those of
the Propaganda Fide for almost half a millennium now. These
Indian missionaries have extended the Church in India and
other parts of Asia and Africa as no other Third World
community has done. Since Indian Independence, most of the
Bishops of India and Pakistan have been Indians from Goa,
guiding the Church through difficult times.
*
Sri Lankan Catholics were also converted by the Portuguese,
starting in 1505, and then again by B1. Joseph Vaz.
They remained loyal to the Church under 140 years of Dutch
persecution, cut off from Rome except for Bl. Joseph Vaz and
his native Indian missionaries from Goa.
*
These Indian and Sri Lankan Catholics are disappointed and sad
that they do not have a canonized Saint while so many Asian
and African communities (who did not do such extended
missionary work or suffer such persecution) have been given
Saints.
*
Blessed Joseph Vaz should be canonized as a representative of
the missionary work of Indian Catholics and the heroic loyalty
under persecution of Sri Lankan Catholics.
Pope
John Paul II On The Occasion Of The Beatification
“I
came to Sri Lanka above all to honour Bl. Joseph
Vaz ... Like a star shining in the Asian sky, this great
spiritual guide teaches us many lessons about the
goodness of the human person and the nobility of our
destiny as human beings.” January 21, 1995
The
Cause Of Bl. Joseph Vaz Has Suffered Many Setbacks
His
first Cause, started in 1713, was annulled by Pope Benedict
XIV in 1738 and severe persecution in Sri Lanka hampered the
collection of new miracles.
His
second Cause was completed and submitted by the Portuguese
Patriarch of Goa, D. Jose da Costa Nunes, with volumes of
miracles in 1955. All 78 Bishops of India, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, Burma, and 150,000 Laity petitioned Pope Pius XII to
beatify him. No beatification was given.
In
1957, his Cause was put in the Historical Section. As
the original documents required were mostly lost, the Cause
ended here. Fr. Gasbarri, the Oratorian Postulator, resigned.
In
1965, Portuguese historian, Mons. Manuel da Costa
Nunes, discovered the original Goan Oratorian Records in a
Lisbon archive. He described the discovery as a major miracle
that saved the Cause.
After
the “Positio
Historica” was completed in 1985, new miracles were
again required.
Thus
there was no beatification until 1995, for the Pope’s visit
to Sri Lanka. Since October l999, 4 big miracles have
been reported but their approval is still pending.
The
Pope Could Canonize Bl. Joseph Vaz
without
further miracles as he did Maximilien Kolbe, perhaps on the
same grounds, that persecution hampered his Cause
We
invite all those with access to the Pope to ask His Holiness
for this long overdue and just canonization
Sri
Lanka Pioneer Beat Persecution
By Msgr. John Condon
SRI LANKA is a
large island at the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent.
It has had a civilization from pre-Christian times. It had its
own rulers and was politically independent up to the 16th
century in spite of repeated invasions from South India. The
religion of the great majority of its people is Buddhism,
brought into the country by their missionaries sent by the
Indian emperor Asoka in the third century B.C.
Early
in the 16th century the Portuguese built a fort in
Colombo, the present capital, and their influence began to be
felt in the country.
With
the Portuguese came also the Catholic faith: Missionaries of
several religious orders worked on the island. The
first to come were the Franciscans, in 1543. The Jesuits came
in 1602, and soon after, in 1606, the Dominicans and Augustinians. They made many
conversions and firmly planted the faith in the island.
Severe
Persecution
By
the middle of the seventeenth century another colonial power
from the West came on the scene: the Dutch. They
overthrew the Portuguese in Sri Lanka and occupied the
territories that had been held by them. The Dutch were
Calvinists. Through fear that the Catholic faith might remain
a political link between the Sri Lankans and the Portuguese,
they began to persecute the Catholics. determined to root out
Catholicism from the island.
For
about 30 years after the advent of the Dutch. the Catholics
had no priests to minister to them. It was then that in 1687,
a remarkable man of God, an Indian priest of the Archdiocese
of Goa, Father Joseph Vaz. hearing of the sad situation in
which Sri Lanka’s Catholics found themselves, came into the
country in secret and in disguise to tend the abandoned flock.
First
alone on the entire island, and later assisted by a
small group of other Indian priests, he labored in Sri
Lanka, tirelessly and relentlessly and without ever going back
up to his death in 1711.
In
the quarter of a century of his labors in Sri Lanka he rebuilt
and rejuvenated the Church which sustained by the impact of
his saintly personality successfully weathered the storm by
persecution under Dutch rule (1658-1796) until, with the
coming of the British, freedom was restored to Catholics in 1806. The
influence of Father Vaz on the Church in Sri Lanka has endured
and is felt even today.
Father
Vaz’s extraordinary achievement in Sri Lanka is itself
reason enough for him to be ranked among the great
missionaries of the Church.
Pioneer
Organizer
When
the Dutch persecution of the Catholics of Sri Lanka began, it
was no longer possible for European missionaries to come
into the country. Even if they were willing to come, it
would have been difficult for them to hide their identity. The
color of their skin itself would have betrayed them. Indian
missionaries wouldn’t have that difficulty. Providentially,
at this critical moment in the history of the Church in Sri
Lanka, a society came into being in Goa which, thanks to the
efforts, enterprise and foresight of Father Vaz, began to
supply Indian priests to Sri Lanka, with Father Vaz himself as
pioneer, leader and trailblazer.
Had
he come alone as just a priest of the Archdiocese of Goa, he
certainly would have achieved much, as he actually did, but
there wouldn’t have been others to follow up and continue
his work. The Oratory, a community he founded, on the
other hand, became a means of recruiting worker, for Sri
Lanka. In reality it became a missionary society. It supplied
Indian missionaries to Sri Lanka for over 150 years until with
freedom restored to Catholics by the British missionaries from
the West were again able to resume work on the island.
Saviour
of the Catholic faith in Sri Lanka founder of a native
religious congregation at a time when such institutions were
non-existent, coordinator of a missionary society which
supplied Asian missionaries, to another Asian country and
capable Church administrator even during times of persecution.
Father Joseph Vaz holds a very special place in mission
history.
Mons. Ladislas Nicolau
Zaleski
was a native of Poland who re-discovered, Blessed Joseph Vaz
at the end of the nineteenth century
Mons. Zaleski became Blessed Joseph Vaz’ devotee and admirer
published accounts of his life
held him up as a model of the native clergy he had been sent
to train, and
proposed that a new Cause for Canonization be started for him
It is a remarkable historical coincidence that a Polish Pope,
John Paul II, fulfilled his Polish compatriot’s wish and
beatified the “Apostle of Kanara and Sri Lanka” in 1995
By
P. Ciampa, S.J.
an Italian Jesuit who worked in Sri Lanka for many years
Madras, India, 1960
Mgr. L.N.
Zaleski has been the third Apostolic Delegate in India from
1892 to 1916.
Mgr.
Zaleski had a two-point programme: first, the formation of an
Indian clergy, and secondly, the formation of missionary-mindedness
among this clergy. He found a great inspiration in
carrying out this two-point programme. It was the life of a
saintly Indian Priest, the Ven. Fr. Joseph Vaz, who inspired
Mgr. Zaleski with faith and trust in the Indian Clergy and its
potentialities. Mgr. Zaleski knew that, if he could do
something to encourage the Indian priests to follow and imitate the examples of sanctity and
missionary-mindedness of Ven. Fr.
Joseph Vaz, his “most cherished work... entrusted to his
special care by Pope Leo XIII” would be successful. For
the salvation of India therefore he wanted Indian
priests like Ven. Fr.
Joseph Vaz.
A
Most Effective Proof
The
life of Ven. Fr. Joseph Vaz, Son of India and Apostle of
Ceylon, became in the hands of Mgr. Zaleski a most effective
proof to convince the Ecclesiastical circles in Rome and the unsympathetic in India of “what
an Indian Priest, well trained and full of apostolic zeal, is capable of.”
(Zaleski, L
‘Apotre du Ceylon.
P.J. Vaz, Calcutta, 1896, p. II). Mgr. Zaleski published
the life of the Ven. Fr.
Joseph Vaz first in French (Calcutta. 1896), then in
Italian (Mangalore, 1897), and finally in English (London, 1913). Thus all the missionaries working in
India could read it in their own mother tongue, without
any excuse of
misunderstanding
Mgr.
Zaleski discovered that “in the beginning of this century
(19th), people had in Ceylon a great veneration for
Fr. Vaz. It was equal to that which surrounded the memory of
St. Francis Xavier...” And he concluded,
“Fr.
Vaz’s life should be
known today more than ever, since His Holiness Pope Leo
XIII gave a new impetus to the formation of an Indian Clergy
in the whole of India. His life, if it were more known, would
be a model to all Indian Priests, and it would show what
an Indian Priest, well trained and full of apostolic zeal, is
capable of...”
So
he dreamt of the day when Fr. Joseph Vaz would be beatified.
He wrote: “ Indeed, we have had Saints in India, but as yet
do not have a single India (Confessor) Saint...” Therefore
he hoped to hasten that day, because “’the beatification
of an Indian Priest would no doubt give a new encouragement
towards the creation of an Indian Clergy. Without an
Indian Clergy the mission will never be able to develop in
this vast country, since the number of the missionaries sent
from Europe can hardly meet the needs of the Christians and in
many places cannot cope with the situation. Yet
we have to bring the Gospel to non‑Christians.” (ibid.
pp. II-III).
Message
of Mgr. Zaleski
Though
Mgr. Zaleski died in Rome, he expressed the wish that his
remains come to rest among those for whom he had laboured so
valiantly. With the transfer of the Papal Seminary,
which he founded, from Kandy to its new location in Pune, the
Alumni of the same Seminary, some of whom had known Mgr.
Zaleski, have fulfilled his wish. Mgr.
Zaleski’s remains now rest in the Seminary at the floor of
the altar in the new Chapel of the Seminary. From there
his message will be repeated to the future generations of
Indian Priests:
“Be
priests and missionaries like your model and patron, Ven. Fr.
Joseph Vaz.... I want you to be like him. India
needs priests like him.” (Cfr. Zaleski, Epistolae ad Missionaris, Vol, I, II).
The
Papal Seminary “will be a monument to Mgr. Zaleski’s zeal
in seconding Pope Leo XIII’s efforts for the formation of an
efficient Indian Clergy.” (Mgr. L.P. Kierkels, C.P.).
And if the Seminaries form priests like Ven. Fr.
Joseph Vaz, Mgr. Zaleski’s hopes will be fulfilled. Thus
the two great friends, Zaleski and Vaz, will continue their
mission in the service of the Clergy in the New India.
Letter
To The Holy Father
(Sgd.) JAMES CARDINAL LERCARO
Archbishop’s House,
Bologna (Italy), 1st August 1955.
Most
Holy Father,
Considering
the admirable life and virtues of the Servant of God, Joseph
Vaz, these words seem applicable: “When he makes himself a
guilt-offering, he shall see posterity, shall prolong his
life” (Isaias, 52 : 10).
For
he, treading under foot his most noble lineage, accounted
riches and all good things of this earth as naught, that he
might win souls to Christ by becoming a devoted brother to the
poor and the sick, specially to those stricken with morbid
pestilence or those who could count on no human aid.
Accordingly,
after he had spared neither sweat nor labours in such
apostolic charity for 24 years, he went round the whole island
of Ceylon and there restored and established the Christian
faith, so that he merits to be compared with Xavier, that
other apostle of those regions, in his untiring zeal and
ardent and extensive labours.
His
memory is still in veneration among those peoples, who look on
him as a man of the highest sanctity endowed with singular
virtues.
Most
Holy Father, it is my conviction that, if the heavenly honours are bestowed on this
Servant of God, it will prove
to be of very great benefit
to the clergy and people of that island and of the whole
of India, nay more, he will be chosen as a
protector and as an example to be imitated. Since
there is every reason to believe that this honour will redound
to the good of all nations bound together by fraternal ties
under Holy Mother the Church, suppliant at your feet I presume
to suggest that you appoint a commission in the Sacred
Congregation to look into the introduction of the Cause of the
Servant of God.
Prostrate
at your feet and imploring your
Apostolic Blessing.
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CALIIFORNIA, USA
Contact: josephnaik.vaz@gmail.com
Contact: josephnaik.vaz@gmail.com