Please read this article published in Indian Catholic Matters on this link

By Filomena Saraswati Giese – The Catholic world is looking for a Saint who worked under Covid-like conditions of an epidemic or pandemic who could be a model and Patron during our Covid times.  Two models of this kind of Saint have emerged in the last couple of years.  One is the Indian-Sri Lankan Saint Joseph Vaz who died three hundred and eleven years ago and whose Cause took an agonizing three hundred and nine years to be acted on.  The other is American Fr. Patrick Ryan who died one hundred and forty-four years ago and whose Cause was started after Covid started in 2020, and is nearing its first phase of completion within a month. 

1. “Indian-Sri Lankan Saint for our COVID times”

One strong candidate is Indian-Sri Lankan St. Joseph Vaz, who came from a remote part of the world in rural, coastal India and died in a faraway Buddhist kingdom in the high country of Kandy, Sri Lanka.  He was a living Saint whose work among the persecuted and among those with a deadly infectious disease was extensive, and in some cases miraculous.  When Covid attacked humanity suddenly in 2020, many of us who knew his life were struck by the similarity of the serious infectious and deadly nature of this new disease and the smallpox epidemic in the Buddhist kingdom of Kandy in 1696. 

As someone who had researched the life of Indian-Sri Lankan Saint St. Joseph Vaz, I had an article published in January 2021 titled “Indian-Sri Lankan Saint for our COVID times” in the Bombay Examiner (2021. https://josephnaikvaz.org/archives/974) describing his heroic actions during the smallpox epidemic in Buddhist Kandy.  They are recorded in the accounts and letters left by his contemporaries (see: Fr. S.G. Perera, S.J. Life of  Blessed Joseph Vaz. Apostle of Sri Lanka. Pg. 122. Reprint 2020. Kandy. Sri Lanka). 

When the King, his courtiers and nearly all the population of the city left and abandoned the dying victims in the streets and jungles, St. Joseph Vaz and his young nephew, Fr. Joseph Carvalho, stayed not only to give spiritual ministrations to them, but to physically nurse them, clean their sores, feed, and shelter them. 

Here are some of their actions for the abandoned victims:

1. He put up sheds with branches of trees to shelter the sick from wild animals. 

2. He gave food to all; arranged a place for lying down; squeezed the matter from their pocks; killed the vermin that were breeding; cleansed the sores and washed them with water.

 3. He went through the streets both morning and evening, carrying always on his shoulders, pots of rice  and other foodstuff for the sick. 

4. Making no distinction whether one was a Christian or a pagan, he and his nephew visited all with the same charity, and helped all according to their needs, cleansing and washing all, even the filthiest.  His contemporaries wrote that Father Joseph Vaz and his nephew, Fr. Joseph Carvalho, visited all with the same charity, and helped all according to their needs, making no distinction whether one was a Christian or a pagan. 

5. As many had deserted the city to flee from the pestilence, there were houses left vacant. The Fathers chose and rented four of them near the church and transformed them into a hospital.  He thus established the first hospital in Kandy. 

6. They spent the whole day visiting both the hospitals and the houses of the sick, administering the Sacraments to the dying.  

Appreciation: The Buddhist King’s gratitude to St. Joseph Vaz          

Several of his contemporaries wrote that the Buddhist King used to say that he wished he had four priests like him in his kingdom, and that his city would have been left without inhabitants if this priest had not been there.  He wanted to give a great sum of money to the Venerable Father.  When the members of his council pointed out that he would not accept it since he did not touch money, the King was filled with admiration at such disinterestedness.

What recent Popes have said about St. Joseph (Naik)Vaz during the deadly smallpox epidemic and his special place as an Asian Saint

. Pope St. John Paul II presided at the 1995 Beatification of St. Joseph Vaz in Sri Lanka, the main theater of his missionary life. Pope St. John Paul II said in 1995 at his Beatification: “His heroic charity, shown in a particular way in his selfless devotion to the victims of the epidemic in 1697, earned him the respect of everyone.”

In his homily at the Canonization ceremony in 2015, His Holiness Pope Francis also chose to highlight this Saint’s heroic self-sacrifice for those with a highly infectious disease.  Most importantly, the Pope described his nursing care of victims of a smallpox epidemic in the Buddhist Kingdom of Kandy, Sri Lanka in 1696, as a mark of the Church’s own mission to the suffering and the fatally ill people of the world.  Here’s what Pope Francis said:

• “St. Joseph Vaz had a particular desire to serve the ill and suffering. His ministry to the sick was so appreciated by the king during a smallpox epidemic in Kandy that he was allowed greater freedom to minister. 

• His example continues to inspire the Church in Sri Lanka today. She gladly and generously serves all members of society. She makes no distinction of race, creed, tribe, status or religion in the service she provides through her schools, hospitals, clinics, and many other charitable works.

• Saint Joseph knew how to offer the truth and the beauty of the Gospel in a multi-religious context, with respect, dedication, perseverance, and humility.

In April 2021, we sent a petition to H.H. Pope Francis to consider him for a Patron Saint during this pandemic that’s taking so many lives because of his nursing care of infectious people.  His work for the sick, the highly infected, the abandoned victims was extensive, and recognized public by non-Christians as well as our Catholic Popes.  That Petition is before the Pope for some decision but needs support from the Churches of India and Sri Lanka where he worked as a missionary under persecution and nursed the infected and abandoned.

1. Meanwhile the American Church has been promoting the Cause for Canonization of Fr. Patrick Ryan as a Model of Service during a Covid like epidemic 

In an article in the National Catholic Register on August 16, 2022, we read one of the many reports in the American Catholic press of the story of Fr. Patrick Ryan, the young priest who “continued to go from house to house in the worst-infected area of the city of Chatanooga, in Tennessee,  offering sacraments and prayer for the sick and needy”  during an epidemic of yellow fever which took many lives.  He contracted the disease himself and died from it on September 28, 1878.  In 2016, priests and historians in his diocese proposed that a Cause be started for him because there had been a tradition that he had made heroic sacrifices to visit those who were ill and the dying from yellow fever.  On the 140 anniversary of his death in 2020, just after the appearance of Covid, the diocese of Knoxville opened the first session in Father Ryan’s cause for canonization.  It falls into a new category of Martyrdom called “Offering of Life” that Pope Francis initiated in 2017.

His Cause for Beatification and Canonization is being vigorously prosecuted by the Diocese of Knoxville and has the great support of the American Bishops here have also been statements that link his self-sacrifice to Covid.  Bishop Rick Sticka, bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville which started his Cause, said: “Rather Ryan truly had the heart of a priest.  He gave himself completely to people of all backgrounds and faiths.  He saw the presence of God in all people and refused to abandon anyone to protect his own life.  I find it a blessing to know that at this moment of a pandemic, we have the example of Father Patrick Ryan.”   We expect him to be given special recognition in the area of Covid by September 28, the anniversary of his death, and perhaps his possible Beatification.   (https://www.ncregister.com/blog/canonization-causefor-father-patrick-ryan-moves-forward). 

 It is our hope that these and other models of heroic risktaking for the infected and dying will be recognized by our local churches and by the Universal Church as inspirations to us during the Covid era. 

Filomena Saraswati Giese: She was born in Goa, India and brought up in Singapore.  She was educated in Singapore, Australia, and the U.S. She founded the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute in 1980 to keep alive the memory of then Venerable Fr. Joseph Vaz and to work for his Beatification and Canonization. Her sister, Ligia, inspired her to work for the recognition of St. Joseph Naik Vaz as a Saint of the Catholic Church. She has a Master’s in Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  Her Master’s thesis was on the aspect of Indian “Sannyasa”(Renunciation and Yogic lifestyle) in the life and missionary work of St. Joseph Naik Vaz. The work of the Joseph Naik Vaz for the Cause of St.. Joseph Vaz has been recorded in the Positio Historicas for the Cause and accepted as evidence of international devotion to him by the Church.

This article was published on August 29, 2022 in Indian Catholic Matters