LOOT BY THE PRIESTS.
Somewhere in 1954 in Candolim the then new Pe. Vigar was nominated, his name was Pr. Nicholau Noromha hailing from Margao. He was highly intellectual, deep thinker and a great journalist in Portuguese. Because of his anti-Portuguez writings in the then Portuguese Newspaper “A Vida”, the Portuguese Government of Goa with the consent of the Goa Patriarch, as a punishment detached him from all his writing activities and sent him to Candolim Church as its Pe Vigar. Such a posting for Pe. Nicholau Normha was like demotion from his works of journalism so also in the fraternity of priests this posting for such a highly intellectual priest was like a humiliation. Two days after Goa was annexed by Bharat, Pe. Nicholau Noronha was surrounded by some pro-Bharati Hindus at Candolim Tinto and asked him his opinion on the ouster of Portuguese Government and advent of new Bharati Government. For this Pe. Vigar Noronha gave a short speech to all the gathered people there saying that “this new Government is a good Government and it will do lot of good for Goans and as such we all will have to welcome this new Government”. The entire Hindu community listening to this speech applauded Pe. Noronha’s speech with broad smile on their faces.
When Pe. Nicholau Noronha took charge of his new posting as Pe. Vigar of Candolim somewhere in 1954, the Bamon from Candolim joined together with others and conducted a fund collection campaign to give a hefty purse to the new Pe. Vigar and a big radio set “Pye”. When Pe. Viagr Noronha came to know of this plan at the last minute, during his thanksgiving homily he openly declined the good offers presented to him on behalf of the villagers. He said I don’t require these gifts, you are giving me this gift and purse by pinching the poor people which is against my principle and against the doctrine of Christ. If at all you want, you can keep the Radio set in the Church parlour as a property of Candolim Church. As a priest, my mission in Candolim is not to accumulate personal wealth.
Then about 40 years back, Candolim Church honoured in a public function at the entrance of the Church the first Bishop of Candolim Village from Saipem Vaddo. Again a hefty purse collected from the blood and sweat of the poor locals was kept in readiness to present to the new Bishop. When the Bishop came to know of this, instead of accepting this purse, he returned it saying it is against my Christian principle to accept such purses collected from the donations of the poor people. I request you he said to return the money collected from the poor people or keep it to your Church.
These days in many of the villages in Goa transfers of priests are taking place. Taking advantage of this situation many of the crook priests awaiting their final day of transfers, in connivance with some local stooges and their mistresses from their respective Churches conduct fund collection campaigns to be given to them as farewell purses. These purses sometimes go into lakhs of rupees collected mostly from the innocent and poor villagers. In fact I can at moments call this collection as extortion of money from the local villagers against their wishes in the name of Church and transferred priests. It is a pity that such crude methods are used to fatten the personal purses of the transferred priests. This is anti-Christian method similar to the one used by the hard hearted politicians to fatten their already fat purses. I don’t know how the Bishop House at Altinho tolerate such loots by the priests and that too in the name of religion. It is totally an injustice which should be stopped forthwith especially when Goa Church is working so hard for rendering social justice to the people. Fr. Maverick must apply his mind on this fund collection extortions by some priests who are on ready for transfer. A few of the transferred priests are even demanding Cars from the faithfuls. This is a big money gifts and purses. Where finally this will go? For the benefits of transferred priests’ family members or to their concubines? As it is priests are known to possess their own mistresses who need lot of money and unless you have lot of personal money you cannot afford to keep concubines.
Priests are looked well by the Church authorities and according to their system it is against their priestly code to accumulate personal wealth and it is doubly against their Christian doctrine to inconvenience the faithfuls by using harsh methods to collect money for their personal benefits from the poor people. This is like a “chori” and it becomes double chori when it is done by priests who are supposed to be more upright than the persons known to be upright. In fact most of the methods used by the priests to collect funds for the Church affairs are full of faults, vulgarity, immorality and other unchristian principles. Church leaders must take a strong note of this unwarranted methods used by some priests to collect funds and costly gifts for their personal use.
Recently in my locality there was fund collection campaign for the repairs of the local Church. In order to attain its goal, the organisers of this fund collection sent lists of Raffle thru small school children studying in their school for sale with a warning that “if you do not finish selling these lists, you will not get your final term results”. Is this justice? Does this “harakiri” on the innocent children goes in line with Christian doctrine? Even I noticed in this type of fund collection campaign priests very cunningly use females to woo the customers as sex tool. By using females for such fund collections, priests are prostituting the good image and integrity of upright females. This again goes against Christianity and must be stopped by all means.
Meantime, were the two priests as indicated above namely Fr. Nicholau Noronha and Bishop from Saipem followed the right Christian principle or No? To me, yes they did justice to their Christian principles. Will we ever get such Christian leaders now? Now a days even for a small Christian duty by the priest is charged heavily. Money making is become the main objective of many of the priests. Because of this. anti-Catholic denominations are mushrooming all over in Goa thereby damaging the credibility of Catholicsm. Embracing of non-Catholic denominations by leaving Catholicsm is a mark of protest against money making rackets organised by Catholic priests and also because of the vulgarity and spread of sex in Catholic Church. Catholicsm will survive in Goa only if we have good, humble and simple priests otherwise risk is involved. If till today Catholicsm is surviving in Goa it is only because of the tremendous work done by our yesteryear priests such as Pe. Agnelo, Pe. Jose Vas, Fr. Faustin and of their likes. It is centuries past now and still we cannot fill the vacuum created by those days gigantic and holy priests.
A. Veronica Fernandes.
