Pope Francis elevates Goa archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao as a Cardinal

 

Pope Francis elevates Goa Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao as a Cardinal in Vatican City 

Christianity in Goa is over 450 years old but it was only on Saturday, August 27, 2022 , that a `Real Goan’ Goa and Daman Archbishop Filipe Neri Antonio Sebastiao De Rosario Ferrao was appointed as a cardinal in the Catholic Church. 

 

I said `Real Goan’ because many Pogo or Persons of Goa Origin have been appointed as cardinals in the past. (By the way, Persons of Goa Origin (Pogo) Act, a private member’s Bill was recently moved in Goa Assembly to define Goans).

 

Filipe Neri Antônio Sebastiâo Do Rosario Ferrão is such a long name, but that is the style of Goan Catholic names. And Mind you, these are the person's names, not of the father or the middle names.

Like his name, the new cardinal also has a long list of his designations. 

 

Besides Goa, he is also the archbishop of Daman, located near Gujarat and far off from Goa - and he is also the Patriarch of the East Indies. 

 

Pope Francis elevated Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao as Cardinal during a consistory for creation of Cardinals held at St. Peter's Basilica at Vatican City. He was among 20 new cardinals including Archbishop Anthony Poola of Hyderabad. 

 

Mumbai Archbishop and later Cardinal Valerian Gracias was the first Asian to be appointed as a Cardinal by Pope Pius XII in 1952, a few years after India achieved her Independence. Born in Karachi, Cardinal Gracias was a Person of Goa Origin, hailing from from Navelin near Margaon. 

 

Pune Bishop late Valerian D’Souza, though born in Pune, was also a native of Goa, hailing from Parra near Porvorim. Goa has given several bishops and archbishops - and thousands of priests and nuns - to the Catholic Church. 

 

Pakistan’s first Cardinal Joseph Marie Anthony Cordeiro, also hailed from Goa. As a staff reporter of the Panjim-based English daily, `The Navhind Times' , I had met and interviewed Cardinal Cordeiro when he had visited Goa in early 1980s. 

 

Cardinal Simon Pimenta, the first Marathi-speaking Cardinals of Mumbai was another cardinal I have interviewed. 

 

The post of cardinals in the Catholic Church is very important. These senior ranking clergies with Red Hat were in the past referred to as Princes of the Church. 

 

It is among these College of Cardinals that a new Pope is elected whenever there is a vacancy. (This is a very rare situation that for the past over a decade we have two popes, Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. 

 

Those cardinals less than 80 years old are entitled to participate and - also to be candidates - in the secret elections held at the historic Sistine Chapel in Vatican City to elect the new Pope. Incidentally, the number in the College of Cardinals does not exceed 120. 

 

The number of cardinals from India has remained static to six during the past many years. 

 

However this does not reduce the chance of an Indian cardinal being elected to the papacy. 

 

Camil Parkhe 

^^

Pope Francis may visit India this year

Pope Francis may visit India this year

Reporters Name | CAMIL PARKHE | Thursday, 31 March 2016 AT 10:35 PM IST

    

Pope Francis, visit India, Catholic Bishops Conference, CBCI, Roman Catholic Church, Pune, Camil Parkhe

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/NewsDetails.aspx?NewsId=5485323426147461785&SectionId=5171561142064258099&SectionName=Pune&NewsDate
=20160331&NewsTitle=Pope%20Francis%20may%20visit%20India%20this%20year

PUNE: There are high chances that Pope Francis may visit India this year as the Catholic Bishops Conference of India has formally urged the Indian government to invite the pontiff on a state visit. If Pope Francis accepts India’s invitation, it will be the fourth papal visit to the country.

Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, President of the CBCI, has recently sent an invitation to the Pope to visit India. As per the procedure, the CBCI has also requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to formally in-vite the pontiff to India.

Head of the Roman Catholic Church is also the head of the Vatican City state and therefore as per the protocol, needs a formal invitation by both the Indian government and the Indian Catholic Church to visit the country.

The Church leadership in the country would be happy if the Pope attends the proposed canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa in Kolkata. Pope Francis has already announced that the Nobel laureate would be formally declared a saint on September 3, on the eve of her death anniversary. The visit of the global head of the Catholic community in India is expected to boost the image of the BJP government, which is often accused of being anti-minorities.

Pope Paul VI was the first Pope to visit India to attend the international Eucharistic Congress held in Mumbai in 1964. Pope John Paul II was on a 10-day India visit in 1986 and again on a three-day visit to New Delhi in November 1999. Incidentally, Pakistan had also last month sent a formal invitation to Pope Francis to visit Pakistan. Pope John Paul II had visited Pakistan in 1981.

moving images NFAI book review

Published in Sakal Times, Spice (Sunday edition) on Jul 19 2009, Page 3
Reels of history, now in words
-- CAMIL PARKHE


Before the age of teleefore the age of television, live telecasts and Breaking News, it was the Indian News Reels, shown in Indian theatres before the screening of films, that provided the only moving images of the `news' to the viewers in this country. The news were at least two or three weeks old, but they were a treat savoured by all those who revered some national and international leaders and heroes of those days.Documentary filmmaker Prem Vaidya, who recorded history as it unfolded in those days has now also penned down his experiences of those moments in his book Memorable Assignments on Moving Images.
Vaidya, who retired as director/producer of the Films Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has chronicled some of the memorable assignments in his 31-year-long career. These assignments were completed when mediapersons were not equipped with gazettes like mobiles, OB vans or even the landline phones. Among his notable assignments, Vaidya writes about the last couple of days of the late prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who died at Tashkent.Before going to bed on that fateful night, Shastri was taking a brisk walk in the drawing room in Tashkent and Vaidya captured his figure moving around in silhouette till he ran out the film in his camera.
A few hours later, he was woken up from his sleep only to be told that the prime minister was dead.
During 1965 war with Pakistan, Vaidya moved with his camera into the battlefield in the eastern sector documenting how the Indian soldiers destroyed Pakistan's so-called invincible Patton tanks. His footage, filmed as he moved into the Pakistan territory along with the camouflaged Indian soldiers, was one of the rare coverages of the real action in war in the 1960s. A few years later when Indian forces entered the then East Pakistan to help the local Mukti Bahini soldiers fight against West Pakistan's tyranny, Vaidya was once again where the action was. He had the privilege of filming for posterity the scene of Pakistan's Commander Lt Gen Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi signing the surrender treaty in the presence of India's military representative, Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora.

Vaidya also takes along the readers to his other equally challenging Ocean to Sky -Ganga Boat Expedition led by the legendary Mount Everest hero Sir Edmund Hillary. Another interesting chapter in the book is Vaidya's documentation of the vanishing primitive tribes of Andman and Nicobar islands.
With his narration of the news events, the filmmakerturned-author succeeds in leading the readers to that bygone era of black and white photos and films, and relive those moments through his own lenses.The author has an impressive style of recreating the past with minute details. The book is indeed a documentary which would be also useful to those interested in study of media.