By Kollengode S Venkataraman, (written in 1999)
In India, Hinduism bears the karma of untouchability and the rigidly hierarchical caste system; Islam bears the consequences of ravaging of temples by Turkish marauders and their minions in its name, and the compulsory tax Jizzia they imposed on Hindus for practicing their religion; the Catholic church bears the Indian cross of the Goa Inquisition.
St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, brought Christianity to India rather uneventfully twelve centuries before European missionaries arrived on Indian shores. But when the European missionaries came to India in the 17th century for “saving souls,” the “second coming” for Christianity in India was far from being uneventful. Caught up in temporal power in Europe, Christianity lost its own soul when, in 13th century it instituted on heretics the Spanish Inquisition that extended to all Iberian colonies, including the idyllic Portuguese colony of Goa in India.
Now, nearly seven centuries after the Spanish Inquisition, the Vatican seems to be ready for repentance. Bosco de Sousa Eremita of The Gomantak Times (Nov. 1, 1998) published from Panaji, Goa, reports that the Vatican may apologize for the Spanish Inquisition after a scholarly symposium during October of this year for what it calls a “Review of Conscience as part of celebrating 2000 years of Christianity.
According to the Gomantak Times story, P. P. Shirodkar, director of archeology in Goa, one of whose ancestors was among those tortured and killed in the Goa Inquisition, said, “The Vatican meeting will surely help assuage whatever ill will that exists between Christians and Hindus,” particularly in Western India. The Goa Inquisition first tried to check the practice of Hindu rituals among converts, but later was used “as a weapon to punish anybody,” he said.
Father Carmo Martins, spokesperson for Goa archdiocese, hailed the current Pope’s decision to “accept the mistakes committed by his predecessors.”
Jorge de Abreu Noronha, who edits a newsletter for the Goan community in Portugal said, “The Pope has done what the clergy and even the Catholic laity ought to have done, and the move boosts his image.” However, not everyone agrees on the latter part of the statement.
Teotonio de Souza, author of Jesuits in India: In Historical Perspective, commented, “If vengeance is served cold, the Vatican’s apologies are served colder still.”
Goans should be thankful that the Vatican apology, bitter as it is, is still better late than never. Why? Because the Catholic Church’s meandering bureaucracy took more than 350 years to exonerate its own Galileo Galilei, the astronomer, for his heliocentric theory.