In January, as Sri Lanka continued to draw Indian pilgrims tracing the Ramayana trail, another group crossed the Palk Strait on a different spiritual journey. A delegation of 125 Goan Catholics arrived in Kandy to mark the 315th annual feast of St Joseph Vaz, popularly known as the “Apostle of Sri Lanka”.
For the pilgrims from Goa, the journey carried a special sense of connection. Vaz was born in 1651 in Benaulim, a village in south Goa. Yet it was across the Palk Strait, in what was then Ceylon, that he would leave his deepest mark. He spent 24 years on the island, leading a revival of Catholicism, which had been severely repressed after the Dutch seized Portuguese possessions on the island by 1658.
His life is still celebrated by Sri Lanka’s Catholic community, now estimated at around 1.6 million people. Much of what is known about the missionary comes from church records preserved on the island. The website of the Archdiocese of Colombo notes that Vaz showed a deep interest in prayer as a child and was nicknamed the “Little Saint” in his youth.
Ordained at 25, Vaz first moved to present-day Karnataka, where he built churches and schools. Various missionary groups were active across...
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