St. Francis Xavier’s Gifts to Kerala

By

Dr. Augustine B. A. Papali

Note: This was published in the National Asian Pacific Catholic Organization’s publication in November 2006, on the occasion of the 500th Birth Anniversary Celebration of St. Francis Xavier at Catholic University of America, Washington, DC

St. Francis Xavier was one of the greatest missionaries of the Catholic Church. He was perhaps next only to St. Paul in the number of churches established, people converted, and countries traveled for the spread of the Faith. Everyone knows that St. Francis Xavier landed in Goa and started his conversion work there. Some stories say that he had to start with the re-conversion of the existing Catholics who had “gone native” in some of their moral and social practices.

Be that as it may, once he had reclaimed the church in Goa for Jesus, St. Francis traveled north to Bombay and to the southern parts of the Malabar Coast. He established large and thriving churches in Bombay and Mangalore. Since the Zamorin of Calicut had turned against the Portuguese, St. Francis traveled further south to Cochin, Allleppey, Quilon, and Trivandrum. Wherever he went, he established churches that thrive to this day — a living testimony to the hard work and the strength of the Faith he instilled in the new converts.

Unlike in Goa and perhaps in Mangalore, the people he converted in Kerala were mostly from the lower castes, mainly fisher folk. Therein lie the two main gifts of St. Francis to Kerala.

If you ask new converts to any form of Christianity in any part of the world, they will say that they feel a sense of liberation and empowerment. This is especially true in India. Those of us who were born to Catholic parents may not fully feel this. But those who become Christians for the first time in their adult lives do feel this tremendously. Those from the lower castes realize for the first time that they are equal to anyone else in the eyes of God. That is what leads to the sense of liberation and empowerment. They feel that they are free from the oppression of the Caste system. Then they feel that they can achieve anything that others can. The education that they receive as part and parcel of their new Christian life is the chief contributory factor in this. Along with the Catholic Faith that sense of liberation and empowerment was the first gift of St. Francis Xavier to Kerala.

The second gift is no less important. The reason why St. Francis converted mainly fisher folk was that many in the upper castes were already “Christians.” They were adamant in the practice of their own Faith and were not interested in what seemed to them to be a “new-fangled” Christianity that St. Francis was preaching. That leads to the question about the kind of Christianity they were practicing.

What follows is considered controversial, but, in my opinion, it is true. After St. Thomas the Apostle established a Christian Church in Kerala in the first century A. D., the main contact the Kerala Christians had with the Universal Church was through the Chaldeans of present day Iraq. As some of you may know, the Chaldean Christians had fallen prey to the Nestorian Heresy that separates the divine and human natures of Jesus and believes that Mary is the mother of only the human Jesus. This is the kind of Christianity that St. Francis Xavier found Kerala Christians practicing. Naturally, he was appalled and tried to “re-convert” Kerala Christians to the true Faith.

I am not sure how far St. Francis succeeded in this respect. His turning to the lower castes may indicate that he was not very successful. He must have found conversion easier than re-conversion. However, he had sown the seed. That was his second great gift to Kerala.

The seed St. Francis sowed bore fruit in course of time because he had requested from his superiors more help in this effort. The other Jesuits who followed St. Francis seem to have succeeded to a much greater extent, as is proved by the large Latin Catholic Church around Cochin. Through all the turbulence and turmoil of Council of Diamper, the Oath on the Bent Cross, all the chaos and splits of Christian Churches in Kerala, most of the Latin Catholics of Kerala have stood steadfast in their Faith.

By the way, the remnants of the old Nestorian Heretical Church can still be found at Trichur in Kerala.