CNA Staff, Oct 7, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
Police in the Indian state of Goa are on the hunt for a Hindu man who allegedly publicly disrespected St. Francis Xavier and disputed the saint’s title as protector of the state, leading to complaints from the state’s Christians, who deeply venerate St. Francis.
Catholic news outlet UCA News reported that Subhash Velingkar, a former state-unit chief of the powerful Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, publicly questioned the authenticity of the relics of St. Francis Xavier housed in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa.
The relics are only exposed for veneration every 10 years. The next period of exposition and veneration is due to start on Nov. 21 and end on Jan. 5, 2025.
Velingkar reportedly said at a public meeting on Oct. 1 that a “DNA test” should be conducted on the relics to prove that the body is really that of the saint and not, as Velingkar claims, a Buddhist monk from neighboring Sri Lanka.
Describing Velingkar as a “right-wing Hindu leader,” UCA News reported that Christians in Goa filed more than a dozen complaints that Velingkar is “outraging the religious feelings and insulting religious beliefs” under provisions of the Indian penal code and have demanded Velingkar’s arrest.
“The Catholic community of Goa condemns the derogatory statements against St. Francis Xavier … We appeal to the concerned authorities to take strict necessary action,” Father Savio Fernandes, secretary of the Council for Social Justice and Peace of the Goa Archdiocese, said in a statement to UCA News.
Goa state, India’s smallest by area, is located on the country’s west coast. It was ruled by Portugal as a colony for over 400 years, until 1961. As a result of the state’s Portuguese influence, it remains one of the most Christian of all of India’s states, with a quarter of the population identifying as Christian, according to a 2011 national census.
The people of Goa have a strong devotion to St. Francis Xavier, the famed Jesuit missionary who evangelized the area beginning in 1542. He is known there as “Goencho Saib,” which means “the protector of Goa.”
The last exposition of St. Francis’ relics lasted from Nov. 22, 2014, until Jan. 4, 2015, and drew millions of pilgrims.
India has seen a surge in Hindu nationalism and violence against Christians in recent years, especially in places governed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The northeast Indian state of Manipur has seen mayhem and bloodshed amid an ethnic conflict that has killed hundreds of Christians since last year. In addition, reports have emerged of persecution of Sikhs, a religious minority in the northwestern state of Punjab in India.
A group of over 300 U.S. Christian leaders sent a letter to the U.S. State Department in August urging the agency to put India on a watchlist of countries that have “engaged in” or tolerated “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said in 2023 that it was “alarmed by India’s increased transnational targeting of religious minorities and those advocating on their behalf.” As recently as May, a USCIRF report included India among the countries with the worst religious persecution in the world.
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Human beings are made in the image and likeness of the Divine – declare Christian Scriptures. Hunting human beings cannot be our way of proceeding declare lovers of life and defenders of humanity worldwide.
Serving the sick, the diseased, the elderly, and those on death-bed were serious issues of concern for the Goans like Saint Francis Xavier (7 April 1506 – 3 December 1552), Saint Joseph Vaz (21 April 1651 – 16 January 1711), and for the Venerable Agnelo Gustavo Adolfo de Souza (21 January 1869 – 20 November 1927).
Bending low to uplift the lowly were important physical and spiritual exercises practiced by the legendary Francis, Joseph, and Agnelo of universal fame. Tolerance and respectful justice for the migrant, the marginalized, the exploited, the downtrodden, the sick, the differently abled or the divyang, the elderly, the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stigmatized and ostracized leper made Francis, Joseph, and Agnelo genuine life-servers and visionary worldbuilders in human history.
People of goodwill in Goa and in the rest of India love to imitate and emulate the life-protecting, life-serving, like-supporting, life-promoting, and life-enhancing examples set before them by the legendary Francis and Co of the bygone eras.
Pro-active spirituality practitioners from among the Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians in Goa love to celebrate the life and times of Francis Xavier through periodical fasting, prayer, Shramdaan, offering free food or ‘langar’ to devotees, and indulging in pilgrimages on foot crossing mountains, forests, valleys, and streams across Western India.
Praying and singing melodious spiritual songs imbued with utmost reverence and deep unction in praise and honor of Saint Francis, batches of pilgrims both young and the young at heart, children, women, and men make their humble entry to pray at the feet of Francis Xavier, their evergreen inspiring spiritual hero and protector patron in chief.