IS CANDOLIM A CURSED VILLAGE

Recently our Pe. Vigar while delivering his homily in the Church indicated his anguish over our village for not producing any single priest since last 39 years and lamented asking thus: “is  this village a cursed village?”

First of all, the first statement was wrong.  The last priest from Candolim was ordained on 21^st December 1995, Fr. Lino Lopes,  a Salesian.

Regarding the word curse, I must say here that it is not the village that is cursed but some of the priests attached to the Candolim Church were cursed,  they were not creating atmosphere conducive to produce priests.  These priests were Satanic priests in the garb of priestly robes.  Candolim Church had the worst distinction of producing the Martin Luther of Goa in Pe. Alvito Vaz who established the independent Church of Cuncolim to support the casteists of Cuncolim who were known to dig the graves of the low caste Cuncolkar and put the dead bodies out of the cemetery.

Candolim Church got another worst distinction of producing two Judases who sold Candolim Church for a certain period of time to Amitabh Bachan to film a Hindi Film allegedly with a vulgar pose inside the Church, these Judases were Fr. Santimano and his the then assistant Fr. Cipriano. The former is dead I heard but the latter is still around in my neighbourhood doing the job of Pe. Vigar.

A century and half back the remains of one non-Bamonn Candoikar who was buried in the Candolim Cemetry,  were installed in the wall at the entrance of the Church, inside right side when entering the Church thru the main door. When one old feudal lady of Pinto family next to the present Bosio Hospital, got this news, very philosophically and also sarcastically  she asked all the Bamonn who were instrumental in preserving the remains of the commoner coming from one ordinary family known as Kanpinn, “KITEM KELEM RE TUMI, KANPINNICHEA PUTAK IGROZ VIKLI MURE?”.  Listening to this comment from the old lady of famous Pinto family, the Bamonn from Candolim realized their folly.  To undo this mistake, they secretly met the Pe. Vigar who was also a Bamonn and told him on one particular night during the rainy days to keep the main door of the Church partially open so that they come with Pickaxes, remove the bones and throw the same out into the field filled with water. As planned they did their job without anybody’s notice.

Next day there was hue and cry; Portuguese security personnel came, investigated but found nobody as culprit.  They never doubted the Pe. Vigar but as a scapegoat, they arrested the Church “Pedo” whom they beat mercilessly to confess but they found him ultimately innocent.  I don’t think there existed any Pe. Vigar as wicked as  this from Candolim Church.

Just because Candolim village failed to produce a priest during the last so many years that does not mean the village is a cursed village.  On the other side, Candolim village had unique distinction to produce great and holy priests like Father and Son (Farias), such a priestly duo – father & son - never appeared anywhere else on this planet in the history of Catholicism.  The other great priest from Candolim were the makers of Pintos revolution.  Still other great priest of Candolim was Pe. Chico Monteiro who shook India by fighting his case on the invasion of Goa by India.  Special lawyer came from London deputed by Queen Elizabeth to fight for him in the court at Panjim in mid sixties.  To fight for justice with Indian government was his pastoral duty and he fought bravely while others caved in.  Besides there were other priests from Candolim who made Candolim proud, they were Pe. Estanislaus, Pe. Antonette, Pe. Romanos the founder of St. Theresa High School who later on doled it to the Candolim Church and some more.

Parents and schools are also responsible to create priestly vocations in their villages apart from the priests attached to the local parishes.  But they have no time to devote for this job. Parents are busy in making money and priests are busy after worldly affairs thereby giving a very bad image of the priesthood.  In such a situation, how there can be priestly vocations easily? And if you have in your Church a “Rostad” type of casteist Pe. Vigar who is arrogant, proud and money grabber, vocations will never come in our villages, let the concerned Pe. Vigars bark in the Churches as much as they can.  These barking Pe. Vigars are responsible to repel the priestly vocations from our villages.  The Pe. Vigars who are satanising the holy Altars by preaching curseful sermons will be responsible for bringing curses on our villages.

As per my informamation, very shortly a new Pe. Vigar will take charge of the Candolim Church; whoever he may be but for his smooth functioning he must be a very humble priest and not a proud one and a money conscious worldly priest. He should work hard to eradicate from Candolim the rampant concubinage going on where many of our Catholic females are become slaves of non-Christians. There are clashes among the members of Catholic community which should be sorted out amicably by the intervention of the “Gaumcho Pe. Vigar” instead of going to the court. The Pe. Vigar who is preaching from the Altar the “Zupattis” to the faithful is  unable to clean this rot.

The second point is to arrest the spread of Call Girls menace in Candolim which spoils the image of the local girls. The current local atmosphere is not conducive to produce priestly vocations easily because the Satan who dubbed Candolim village as the cursed village himself is a cursed one whose contribution in the promotion of priestly vocations is ZERO. He is fit only to give from the holy Altar Zupattis like a Tiatrist to the locals who are eagerly waiting for his exit.

A.Veronica Fernandes,
Candolim, Goa.

Tel. 7507394349.

USE CHURCH COLLECTION FOR POOR.

During my stay in Kuwait when I noticed there was no accountability of the money collections Church collected on Sundays, Fridays and any other Feast day, I was totally disappointed.  In Goa at least the amount collected is declared but in Kuwait nothing like this, nobody knows how much has been collected and where it is spent and for what purpose. The amount collected in Kuwait is very big.  But one thing I noticed there, the priests and Bishop live a very luxurious life using luxurious cars and changing the same very regularly against the instruction of the Pope. The Bishop can spend any amount for any purpose without getting consent of anyone.  There was no system as far as this money is concerned, at least it looked to me.  They spend for anything the Church collected money but not for the charity especially for the suffering domestics though the collection of domestics on Sundays is the highest among all. The persons like Cook, Driver, Buttler, Sankistao and others who used to count this money are according to one source became lakhpotis.  One Bishop there gave a clear instruction to these persons never to bring coins to him, only the notes.  That means, where to take the coins and into whose pockets to put? Answer is very clear,  Create the Judases. Judas was tempted to become Judas because as a Cashier he was given free hand to handle the apostles’ kitty.

Then I spoke to some of my close friends and colleagues and formed a group whose members refrained from giving their contribution to the Church thru collection box and instead the same amount we jointly collected by ourselves and started giving it to the poor people for their needs, especially to the suffering and persecuted maids. Though our charitable work in this way was small yet it served the purpose of many needy poor people in Kuwait not only from Goa and India but also from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Philippines. Since it was a charitable work done in a true Christian principle, we refrained from making a noise of this work. 

In my village Candolim in this month from 13 to 15 there were two Feats, one of Boa Morte Saibinn on 13^th and 14^th while on 15^th it was of Assumpta Saibinn.  According to the available information, during these three days the collection reached to around 4 lakhs of rupees.  Besides this, every week the total collection of our Church reaches to around 40 thousand rupees.

Now the question comes like this:  where does the Church collections finally go?  Into whose pockets?  Is it to Altinho Panjim to deposit in the Swiss Bank account or it goes into the pocket of the local priests? Many of the priests are known to go on foreign junket; some to meet their concubines while some with their concubines for pleasure trips abroad, as given to understand.  Is this the way for our clergy to spend recklessly the money collected in the Church from the faithful? Why up to now no single Church authority in Goa coming forward to allocate a certain amount for the poor in their villages?  And why not the Bishop of Goa taking a step forward towards this direction?  There are no poor in our community?  Or Goa Church is anti-poor?   Is our Bishop so numbed to the feelings of the poor and their needs? 

 

It is time now for all the faithful in Goa to raise their voices in unison to enlighten the Bishop of Goa to act properly and to force him to instruct all the parish priests in Goa to create a "Poor Persons Fund", otherwise he should be dubbed as the enemy of the poor in Goa.  In this case he will be called anti-Pope who is the great supporter of poor.  The money collected in our Churches is the property of Goan Catholics and they should get benefit of it first.  Charity begins at home first.

Thru the enormous amount of contribution of faithful, the faithful are tempting the priests to act recklessly monetarily. There is no transparency of this money or accountability leading our Church leaders to act sinful with the help of this easy received money. It is thru this money we are tempting the Church leaders to commit sinful acts.  Hence, it is imperative now to refrain from contributing surplus money in the collection box.  Instead, everyone must do his own charity in his own way by avoiding putting anything in the collection box, as we used to do in Kuwait.

A.     Veronica Fernandes,
Candolim, Goa.
Tel: 7507394349.       

 

APPEALING GOA CHURCH TO HELP THE POOR.

A few years back when the then Bishop of Kuwait spotted a young Goan girl asking donation in the Church compound for the heart surgery of her poor neighbor in her village in Goa, costing 5 lakhs of rupees, the Kuwait Bishop asked her, “Can’t your Church in your locality do this job instead of doing in Kuwait?  Why can’t your Parish priest with the consent of your Bishop create a fund for the poor in your locality by devoting one Sunday’s collection every month for this purpose?”.

In my Church in Candolim, on an average every Sunday’s collection reaches to Rs. 40,000/- and common persons do not know finally where it goes and whose account and for what purpose.  It would be nice for the Church authorities to elaborate on this so that doubting Thomasses doubts are cleared. 

According to Kuwait Bishop, Goa Church is very rich needing no donations from Kuwait and if needed Goa Church can collect any amount for the benefit of the poor thus preventing collection from Kuwait.

In view of this, I appeal to the Bishop of Goa to issue a Circular to all the Parish Priests in Goa to create a “Poor Persons Fund” in their parishes thru the contribution collected from the Sundays collection as mentioned above. By supporting the poor persons we will surely support the poor and ultimately we will serve the poor as advised by the present Pope Francis.    

If in our parishes our parish priests can raise funds in lakhs of rupees from the faithful in the Church for the constructions of Our Lady of Fatima’s Grotto and Statue of St. Jose Vaz, why in the same manner our parish priests cannot collect fund for the benefit of the poor?  As it is many of our parish priests are going on pleasure trips to UK, FAR East and other places by spending money from whose pockets?  Can these same priests declare the source of the money they spend for their trips abroad?  And can the Bishop of Goa throw some light on this trips and funding?   

A.     Veronica Fernandes,

Candolim, Goa.

Tel: 7507394349.