Goa’s Sancoale church, home of St Joseph Vaz, of fame in DK, gets a face lift

Mangalore Today News Network

Panaji, June 11, 2016: Reports from media sources inform of Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao of Goa has  consecrated the new altar of the parish church of Sancoale. The church has completed 410 years (1606-2016) this year.

South Goa’s Sancoale village has given Goa its first saint in the Catholic Church – St Joseph Vaz. But it has also passed through ups and down as far as the Catholic faith is concerned. The church edifice too has passed through its death and resurrection at different times.   Sancoale was formerly a part of the Cortalim parish. A chapel constructed by a rich Portuguese in Sancoale around 1600 was raised to the status of a parish churchin 1606 by Archbishop Aleixo de Menezesof Goa and dedicated to Our Lady of Health.

Only the facade of this first parish church constructed by the inhabitants of the village, under the guidance of the Jesuits, exists today. This structure with the statue of Our Lady of Health was declared a national monument in 1937. In 1951, during St Joseph Vaz’s third birth centenary year it was depicted on Indo Portuguese postage stamps.

Though St Joseph Vaz regularly attended the Cortalim church which was closer to his ancestral home, he also frequented the Sancoale church where he wrote on August 5, 1677 the Letter of Bondage to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and signed it on the altar of Our Lady of Health.

During the Maratha invasion in December 1683, the Portuguese government gave the churches of Salcete provisions and ammunitions to defend, in case of an attack. While some parish priests abandoned the churches, and rendered the lands unprotected to the enemies, the Sancoale church was valiantly defended by a priest Fr Antonio Francisco da Cunha, and thus it was the only church no one could meddle with.

A century later, the people of Sancoale started living a life of ease and comfort, despising Christian principles. By 1834, they defied the parish priest publicly for constantly reminding them of their bad conduct. Giving up, he left taking with him only his breviary and the Blessed Sacrament. A few days later a mysterious fire consumed the entire church edifice, sparing only the facade which stands today.

After the fire, plague after plague decimated the entire population of the village and within a few years, the Portuguese officers and merchants disappeared from the village.

A former chapel at Shindolim, probably founded in 1783, was elevated to the rank of the present parish church in 1839. This church had three altars dedicated to Our Lady of Health, the Holy Family and to St John the Baptist. It is this chapel that has been renovated and extended after 117 years.

St. Joseph Vaz, also worked in Kanara and in Mangaluru his mark exists in Mudipu and he went on to serve in Ceylon, presently Sri Lanka and is known as it’s apostle.