The Indian who revived Catholicism in Sri Lanka

RELIGION: In the second half of the 17th century, two important developments took place in Ceylon as Sri Lanka was then called.

In 1658, the Dutch replaced the Portuguese as the European military, political and economic power; and Calvinism or Protestantism, displaced Roman Catholicism as the religion of the Christians in the island.

Catholicism, which was a force to reckon with during the 150 years of Catholic Portuguese rule, almost completely disappeared.

The Protestant Dutch, who saw the Catholics as a Portuguese political fifth column, persecuted them in such a way that practicing Catholicism was impossible.

In the areas controlled by the Dutch, those found practicing Catholicism were fined or flogged.

Their marriages and births would not be registered unless they joined the Reformed church.

At any rate, they would not get any government posts or favours, though a few were tolerated for practical reasons.

For decades after the exit of the Portuguese, the Catholics in the island had no priests to minister to them, no catechists to teach them, and no churches to congregate in.

This had resulted in many Catholics lapsing into their traditional Buddhist or Hindu faiths.

Some joined the Dutch Reformed Church for safety as well as social and economic advancement.

Some remained Catholics, but they were Catholics only in name, having adopted pagan customs.

Some did practice Catholicism tenaciously and secretly. But what they knew of it was precious little.

But Dutch persecution was not the only reason for this pathetic condition. The way the Portuguese had gone about converting Ceylonese and the attitude of their priests were also responsible for the collapse.

Many had converted to Catholicism because it brought liberation or because they were inspired by outstanding missionaries.

The fishermen along the Mannar coastline, for example, were ardent Catholics because they were converted by St Francis Xavier.

Over 600 of them were killed by a zealous Hindu monarch of Jaffna, and yet they did not give up.

But others were converted by the use of brute state power.

Prof Tikiri Abeyasinghe in his book Jaffna under the Portuguese (Stamford Lake, Pannipitya, Sri Lanka, 2005) says the predominant mode of conversion in Jaffna at least, was by official diktat and show of force.

A Portuguese priest would come to a village with government officials and "command" the rejection of false gods and the acceptance of one true God.

"Fear of a fine or corporal punishment with cane and stock would ensure their (the converts') regular attendance at church on Sundays and on feast days," Abeyasinghe says.

The priests exacted money from the members of their parish so harshly, that Jaffna at one stage was getting de-populated.

According to Father Simon Gregory Perera, an outstanding historian of the Catholic church in Ceylon, the Portuguese had made the mistake of treating the Catholic church as an arm of the state.

They saw the church and the priesthood as representatives of the political and economic interests of the Kingdom of Portugal.

As a result of these political and security considerations, as well as racial prejudice, the priests were Portuguese.

No Ceylonese was allowed to become a priest. And because of this, the Catholic priesthood was very small.

"The pastors of Ceylon were in consequence complete foreigners from the beginning to the end, apt to misunderstand the people and take little notice of their customs or the past or of the future," Fr SG Perera writes in his book Life of Blessed Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Sri Lanka (first published in 1942).

Therefore, when the Dutch came, all that they had to do to break the back of the Catholic community, was to expel the few Portuguese priests who were around.

Causes concern in Goa

The condition of the Catholic community in Sri Lanka was causing concern in Catholic circles Goa, which was the seat of Portuguese and Catholic power in India and the Far East.

But Goa was helpless. The fear of the Dutch was deep rooted and pervasive, because the Dutch were outdoing the Portuguese in ruthlessness.

While Portuguese priests could be easily detected, Indian priests could infiltrate Ceylon unnoticed.

But according to Fr SG Perera, Indian missionaries could not be sent to Ceylon because missionary work outside India was the monopoly of the religious orders, and these orders had closed their doors to Indians.

Enter Joseph Vaz

But there was one person who was determined to go to Ceylon, no matter what the danger. He was prepared to go on his own, without the aid or backing of any of the established religious orders.

He was Fr Joseph Vaz, a young priest belonging to a family of Konkan Brahmin converts of Sancoale in Goa.

In the words of the Belgian historian R Bowdens, Fr Joseph Vaz was a "meek brown man from Goa with a cloth about his waist, begging his way and racked by fever, seeking only the hearers of the word of Christ."

Though of high caste and well-versed in Konkani, Portuguese, Latin, and later in Tamil and Sinhala, Fr Joseph Vaz led a life of poverty, giving and ministering to the poorest of the poor, rather than hankering for power and position even within the church.

In Ceylon, he represented no power, no institution. But at the end of his 24-year, near solo mission in the island (he never left it) he had created 70,000 practicing Ceylonese Catholics, from Jaffna to Colombo and from Kandy to Trincomalee and Batticaloa.

Only the deep South could not be penetrated as Dutch power was particularly strong there.

As coolie and beggar

It was in 1681 that Fr Joseph Vaz started making his way to Ceylon. The process was arduous and seven years long.First, he had to get the permission of the Bishop of Cochin in Kerala, under whose jurisdiction came Ceylon. Second, he had to be undetected by the Dutch in Kanara and Tuticorin, through which he had to pass en route to Ceylon.

Kanara, a region south of Goa, was administered by the Dutch from Colombo, and Tuticorin was in Dutch hands.

He decided to go in disguise as a coolie (unskilled labourer) seeking work in Ceylon. Discarding his robe and shoes, he went about barefoot with only a cloth around his waist.

He learnt to live on a diet of Conjee (rice gruel) and rice, with little else to go with it.

While in Tamil Nadu, he learnt Tamil, which stood him in good stead when he landed in Tamil-speaking Mannar and then went on to work in Jaffna.

The Indian was not needed in Mannar, which was already staunchly Catholic, but in Jaffna, as the Dutch had been very successful in their anti-Catholic campaign there.

Out of necessity, as well as to avoid detection by the Dutch in Jaffna, Fr Joseph Vaz went about disguised as a beggar.

Begging allowed him to study Jaffna society at close quarters besides letting him lead the life that Christ would have liked him to lead, a life of poverty.

Begging enabled him to quietly search for, and identify, Catholic houses at a time when the Catholics had to hide their faith from the prying eyes of the Dutch and their agents.

Soon, he discovered Catholics, who readily accepted him.

Going by the account of Fr SG Perera, the fact that Fr Joseph Vaz was a Brahmin, was a major factor inducing acceptance in Jaffna, because in Jaffna, more than in any other part of Ceylon, the Brahmin was held in the "utmost veneration." And the fact that this Brahmin was humility itself, added to his appeal. The Hindus too were attracted to him, as to them he was a venerable Sanyasi (ascetic).

Later on, throughout Ceylon, he was known as "Maha Swami". But he detested this.

And unlike the Portuguese priests during Portuguese rule in Jaffna, who exacted or extorted money for their services, and the Dutch Protestant ministers who lived a life of luxury, Fr Joseph Vaz neither sought payments nor lived a luxurious life.

According to Fr SG Perera, his requirements were so small, that even a beggar would have had no difficulty in having him as his guest.

Worked only at night

Though accepted in Jaffna, Fr Joseph Vaz had to lie low, move about undetected and do his religious work only at night throughout his two-year stay there.

Marriages, confessions, sermons, and baptisms were conducted only between nightfall and dawn. He moved about only at night.

A heartening discovery was a whole village of Catholics, 10 miles north of Jaffna, called Sillalai.

This hamlet, which came to be known as "Little Rome" became his first base. But even in Sillalai, all religious work was done at night.

Admission to the services were controlled by the Muppan or the chief of the village. The Muppan provided escorts when the Father visited other villages.

But the Dutch did get wind of his presence and attempted to arrest him. This forced him to leave Jaffna. The Dutch asked the Jaffna Catholics to pay fines if they did not renounce their faith. The Catholics preferred to pay the fines rather than recant.

Fr Joseph Vaz went to Puttalam via the Wanni. Puttalam had been a stronghold of the Portuguese and therefore of Catholicism during Portuguese rule. But the Catholics here had had no priests for decades because of Dutch persecution. The Jesuit pastors had been driven way in 1640. Therefore, the Goan Father single handedly went about administering the sacraments, rebuilding churches, appointing catechists and explaining the Christian doctrine.

Shifts to Kandy

In 1691, Fr Joseph Vaz decided to shift his base to Kandy in the centre of the island. Kandy was safer than the Dutch-dominated maritime provinces, because it was under a Buddhist King. And its central location enabled him to reach all parts of the island more easily.

But Kandy was out of bounds to foreigners. And existing foreigners were not allowed to leave the Kingdom.

The King and the nobles were afraid that foreigners would undermine their independence.

Though the ban did not apply to Indians, Fr Joseph Vaz could be arrested because he was a Catholic missionary, and therefore a possible Portuguese agent.

He slipped into Kandy incognito, as a poor labourer. But Nanclars de la Neroll, an unscrupulous French adventurer with high contacts, told King Wimaladharma Suriya that he was a Portuguese spy. Fr Joseph Vaz was promptly imprisoned.

But Wimladharma Suriya soon realized that he had made a big mistake. Though a staunch Buddhist, who had taken steps to arrange for the proper ordination of Buddhist monks with Burmese help, he became an ardent admirer of the Indian missionary.

He relaxed the conditions of imprisonment. He allowed Catholics to visit the prisoner and later allowed him to move around in Kandy town.

But soon Fr Joseph Vaz became bolder, slipping out of Kandy frequently to minister unto Catholics in various parts of the island. He asked Catholics not to participate in "pagan" rituals including supplying flowers to Buddhist temples if their land was owned by a temple.

But this infuriated the Buddhist monks. The monks complained to the King, but the King said that it was not right to expect Catholics to contribute to their temples.

Drought and smallpox helped evangelisation A severe drought and an epidemic of smallpox brought out Fr Joseph Vaz's latent spiritual powers, and his dedication to the poor and the sick.

When all "pagan" rituals failed, Fr Joseph Vaz publicly prayed for rain and it poured.

And when the entire population of Kandy, including the King, fled when smallpox hit it with rare virulence in 1697, Fr Joseph Vaz stayed back, tended the afflicted, and buried the dead, going from house to house.

The people of Kandy were amazed that a "Brahmin" should shed his caste prejudices and do what he was doing unflinchingly.

The King was so impressed and thankful to the Father that he gave him full freedom to indulge in evangelisation and go wherever he pleased.

Till the drought, there was no evangelisation in Kandy. But following the drought and the smallpox epidemic, evangelisation began in a major way.

Understandably, this set off alarm bells among the Buddhist clergy as Kandy was the only surviving independent Ceylonese and Buddhist Kingdom.

It was the location of the holiest Buddhist temple in the island, the Dalada Maligawa, or the Temple of the Buddha's tooth.

The monks and nobles pleaded with the King to ban evangelisation and expel the Catholic priests.

A church was burnt by an irate mob. The King had to ask Fr Joseph Carvalho, who was in-charge at that time, to quit Kandy.

But soon, the King's Muslim physician, with the odd Hindu name Gopala Mudaliyar, interceded, and made the King reinstate Fr Vaz and Fr Carvalho. The burnt church was re-built in 1699.

But with all the freedom, Fr Joseph Vaz and his four new companions from Goa, continued to live a very simple life, wearing nothing but a sarong.

He travelled incessantly, but on foot and barefooted. He would live in a shack, sleeping on the ground on a mat, without a pillow.

His meal was a plate of rice, with meat on occasion, only when offered by a devotee. He wore his cassock and shoes only when he visited the King in the palace.

At night he would read Sinhala and Tamil books to brush up his knowledge of these languages.

He and his follower, fellow Goan Brahmin, Fr Jacome Goncalvez, contributed to Catholic literature in Sinhala and Tamil.

Beatification

The process of the canonization of Fr Joseph Vaz began soon after his death in 1711. But he has not been made a Saint yet, though to the Catholics of Sri Lanka he is a Saint.

But in 1995, he did become the Blessed Fr Joseph Vaz when Pope John Paul II beatified him and acknowledged that he was the second founder of the Church in Sri Lanka.

The Pope hailed Fr Joseph Vaz for instilling deep religious meaning into the lives of his followers in the true spirit of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.

PK Balachandran is Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times in Sri Lanka