FAREWELLS AND WELCOMES.

FAREWELLS AND WELCOMES.

These days in the Catholic Church in Goa transfers of the priests are going on in full swing. Old priests after completing their mandatory terms are transferred to the new locations and new priests are sent to replace the old locations. In this way farewells are given to those who leave and welcomes to those who come. Transfers according to my information are many times resisted because of the attachments to certain places by the priests. Because of the pressures and pulls by the priests, Panjim Altinho citadel of Catholicism conducts thorough scrutiny before finalising the transfers of the priests. Like Ministerial portfolios and Police postings some priestly postings are also very lucrative for which many of the priests are aspiring. So also there are some postings which are meant as punishment for certain priests. Our Catholic Church leadership is many times punishing some priests in a Hitlerian way thereby desecrating the principle of Christ. According to one source posting of priests to some coastal places in Bardez is like the lucrative PWD Ministerial portfolio and from where a long timer priest will simply not like to vacate.

When some priests in some villages attain the long tenure they become like naturalised citizens of those villages and in order to stick to these villages they do all nonsensical activities including political support to prevent Bishop’s Palace from transferring them from their already established village Churches. Some priests are as an act of Judas push their close friends in their localities and Churches to organise signature campaign to forward it to Bishop Palace so that Bishop stops their transfers. This type of chicanery goes when priests in their already established villages got firm grip over huge financial resources and also of best of concubines. Concubinage is very rampant in many of the villages where priests are involved and it is this sad parting of their concubines that make them hard to lose when they are transferred. The most affected priests due to their transfers are those who lose the close company of their concubines though they are easily replaceable in the new postings since this segment of women are easily accessible in every village and that too very cheaply. Females having close physical contacts with the priests are of very low strata of Goan society. Because of easy availability of concubines and plenty of Church money in many places, priesthood is become a very lucrative vocation. One priest openly told me that for a priest every existing luxury in life is easily available. During the invasion of Kuwait when expatriates started leaving Kuwait for their countries of origin, the most affected victims of this scenario were those involved in concubinage. I saw how one Goan man was bitterly crying while leaving Kuwait for separating from his Sri Lankan concubine of 7 years. This type of parting is a very sad and unbearable.

Money is the core of all evils and easy money in the name of God is the worst evil. Greed for money for worldly luxuries is an easy path to sinful life. When money flows in one’s hand easily, one is easily bound to misuse it. Judas did the same. He was in charge of the Cash and since money went into his hands without much of his personal efforts, he became slave of money leading finally to sell his own Guru, Jesus Christ. Many of the Churches are become fountains of excess money and when this money easily goes into the hands of some greedy and worldly priests, they are tempted to become slaves of money.

In many cases there is no transparency and no accountability of the money collected by the priests in the Churches. There is declaration of receipt of money thru donations and thru weekly and feastly collections but there is no declaration of how the received money has been spent. Even in the Gulf this trend is rampantly followed by the Church leaders giving an impression that the money given to the Churches by the faithfuls are gone into the hands of robbers. In one particular country in the Gulf the money collectors and money counters namely Sakistao – Kuzner – Bottler – Driver and other Church helpers built their own empires in Mangalore and Bombay because the Bishop of that Church accepted only the notes from the collections and not coins which he surrendered to those who were counting. If there is no proper transparency, the faithfuls should stop putting money in the collection boxes because it is going into the hands of wrong persons for sinful purpose. In most of the cases priests do not like the faithfuls to ask the accountability. This is like a robbery which goes against the teachings of Christianity. Because of such easy flow of money into the hands of priests many of them resist their transfers.

Kuwait Goans during the Konkani language agitation in Goa sent lakhs of rupees as donations for this Konkani campaign. Unfortunately, a good amount of Kuwait money went into the hands of wrong and crook people. Secondly Kuwait Goans went on giving donations without asking in return from the recipients accountability of their donations. Taking advantage of this situation, the recipients of Kuwait donations spent the Kuwait money for their personal benefits and luxuries thereby ignoring the cause for which the donation was sent. When there is no accountability from the recipients then there is danger of misusing the donated money by the recipients. The donors and money collectors must always make a point to ask for accountability. Even those involved in collecting funds for Church activities must do their Christian duty of asking accountability otherwise they will put the priests into sin of misusing the donated and collected funds. Kuwait Goans sent lot of money for the Church activities in Goa but many times its utility was wrongly done by the priests who received this donation.

One political scientist Prof. Laski says “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Many of the Churches are having their Diocesan Schools and normally the heads of these schools are Village Pe. Vigar or Pe. Cur. To become the head of one High School is not a joke but due to this appointment the Pe. Vigars and Pe. Curs many times become corrupt, turning worldly and thereby forgetting their priestly duties. When they hold such top positions money and power go into their heads and many of them in many of the cases feel there is no end of them. They forget that they become priests not to attain worldly power to compete with other human beings. Because of this crude wordly power, many of the priests heading the Church Schools become victims of sex which they acquire illicitly from their own female teachers in their schools. One can easily check in one’s own Village Church School whether the priest principal or priest head master of the school is involved in such sex scandal or no.

The work of the priests should be related to Church affairs in the promotion of spiritual aspects of the faithfuls to save their souls though spreading the gospel of education is not wrong but to do this job as well do our priests have sufficient time? Surely no and hence they should be removed from the job of education especially those who are also doing the work of Per. Vigars and Pe. Curs. The greatest educationist of Goa was the late Fr. Philip Neri Mendonca the then Principal of Arpora School. He attained this peak because he confined himself only to one job of educationist and not of Pe. Vigar or Pe. Cur also of Arpora Church. In every village the discipline and quality of Catholics have gone down in Goa. Most of the corrupt and worst people in Goa are Catholics. Worst of the criminals, robbers and politicians are Catholics in Goa. This is happening in Goa now because our Pe. Vigars and Pe. Curs are more involved in things which are not meant for priests. Spreading of education is no more a job of Pe. Vigars and Pe. Curs. Two in One job is unattainable and as such Bishops should split these two jobs into two different persons.

Meantime, Farewell to those who finished their terms and welcome to the new comers.

A. Veronica Fernandes.