Goa Catholics
Goan Catholics (Goa Catholics; Konkani : गोंय्चे कॅतोलिक Goiche Katholik ; Portuguese : Goeses católicos ) are Roman Catholic Christians whose ancestors were Christianized and partially assimilated during the Portuguese colonial rule over Goa . During the Portuguese colonial rule, Catholics made up the majority in Goa, Daman and Diu . Today 360,000 predominantly Catholic Christians still make up a quarter of the population in Goa, while 1.62% are Roman Catholics in all of India.
history
Since the beginning of the Portuguese colonization of India there have been mixed marriages between Portuguese and Indians in Goa, the rest of Portuguese India and in the predominantly indigenous princely states subordinate to the Indian suffragan dioceses of the Archdiocese of Goa ; a caste of half-breeds quickly formed .
Around 1540 there were already 1,800 households in Goa with around 10,000 descendants of Portuguese sailors, traders, garrison soldiers and adventurers from the lower nobility with Indian women. If you add servants and slaves, it should have been around 40,000. Most of these servants were Hindus and Muslims. Their conversion to Catholicism had different reasons. In addition to real conversions by the numerous missionaries who worked all the way down to the Malabar coast , there were also many new Christians who promised themselves social benefits and social advancement through conversion. In addition, the Indian caste system also played a role, because it no longer applied to Christians, and indigenous casteless people or members of lower castes saw it as a welcome opportunity to break out of the traditional social system. Hence, only a small proportion of Goa's Catholics are actually of Portuguese descent. In addition to the Catholic faith, they also adopted Portuguese names and the Portuguese culture, partly also the Portuguese language, which has also strongly influenced the local dialect Konkani .
In the 19th century at the latest, the Catholics from Goa also spread to Bangalore , Mangalore and Mumbai . Today they are spread beyond the former Portuguese India in all of India and Portugal, but also in other Lusophone countries as well as in Great Britain, North America, Australia, East Africa and the Arabian Gulf.
In South India, the Latin Goa Christians mixed with the Thomas Christians who had lived there since ancient times . One can basically distinguish both ethnic groups by their names and their affiliation to the different liturgists of the Catholic Church. While the descendants of the Goa Catholics belong exclusively to the Latin liturgy, the Thomas Catholics are at home in the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankar rites.
Especially at the instigation of the Indian MP Professor Froilano de Mello in the Portuguese Parliament, the assimilated Goa Catholics - in contrast to the African "subjects" of Portugal - were not classified as Assimilados , but instead recognized in 1951 as (theoretically equal) Portuguese citizens. Catholics born in Goa, Daman and Diu up to 1961 (end of Portuguese rule by annexation to India) and their children are therefore entitled to Portuguese citizenship.
Well-known representatives of the ethnic group
- António Costa (* 1961), Prime Minister of Portugal
- Maria Cron (1608–1683), stigmatized nun in Goa
- Ivan Dias (1936–2017), Indian Curia Cardinal
- Joseph Gabriel Fernandez (* 1925), Former Bishop of Quilon , South India
- Gonsalo Garcia (1556–1597), Franciscan Minorite, martyr, saint of the Catholic Church
- Valerian Gracias (1900–1978), Archbishop of Bombay and first Indian cardinal
- Joseph Vaz (1651–1711), saint, apostle of Ceylon
Individual evidence
- ^ The Time Almanac. 2010, ISSN 0073-7860 , p. 304.
- ↑ António Henrique de Oliveira Marques : History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 385). Translated from the Portuguese by Michael von Killisch-Horn. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-38501-5 , p. 163 f.
- ↑ Annemarie Schimmel: The religious situation: Islam in theory and practice. The minorities. Religious minorities. In: Muhammad Usman Malik, Annemarie Schimmel (Ed.): Pakistan. The country and its people. History, culture, state and economy (= book series Ländermonographien. Vol. 6). Erdmann, Tübingen a. a. 1976, ISBN 3-7711-0196-4 , pp. 204–206, here p. 205, (on the conversion of Hindu lower castes) .
- ↑ Jean Antoine Dubois : Letters on the state of Christianity in India, in which the conversion of the Hindus is presented as impracticable. Wagner, Neustadt / Orla 1824, p. 71, footnote , (To the Goa Catholics on the Indian west coast).
