By Pratapananda Naik
Miramar, Oct. 18, 2021: Jesuits’ former Goa provincial, Father Rosario Rocha, who was a polyglot and scholar of Buddhism, died October 18 in Pune, western India. He was 69.
His funeral will be October 19 evening in Pune.
Father Rocha was serving as the spiritual director of Pune’s Papal Seminary at the time of his death. Earlier, he had held several important designations. He was appointed the Goa province in 2011 at the age of 59. After his term in 2017, he took a sabbatical year. He then did pastoral work based at Pedro Arrupe Institute in Goa’s Raia.
He was at Snehasadan, Pune, for a year from 2019. He returned to St. Britto in Goa’s Mapusa because of his poor health.
Father Rocha had found in Pope Francis a merciful revolutionary, who is a pastor at heart. “The Catholic Church is in the safe hands of the first Jesuit to ever become head of the Catholic Church,” he had said.
According to him, the Pope has taught Catholics that the Church doesn’t need to be simply critical but more understanding. The Pope’s lifestyle of living and working with the people has helped the Church get comfortable with the rest of the world. “The revolutionary Jesuit Pope Francis inspires me to challenge and question certain practices in the Church so that it finds its place in today’s world,” Father Rocha had said.
He had also served as the secretary of Pune’s De Nobili College Trust; Dean of Theology at Jnanadeepa Vidyapeeth (1997-2000).
Besides his mother tongue Konkani, Father Rocha mastered English, French, Portuguese, Marathi, Hindi, German, Pali and Sanskrit. He knew to understand and read Gujarati, Urdu, and Latin.
Father Rocha was born on March 9, 1952 as the only child of Alleluia and Anjelina Rocha at Benaulim, God. He was brought up by his widowed mother. He did his high school studies at Loyola High School, Margao, Goa’s commercial capital, and joined the Goa-Pune Jesuit province in 1970.
He did his philosophy studies at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth and one year regency at Snehasadan, Pune. His interest to study the Buddhist scripture’s language Pali and Sanskrit took him to Vadodara where he did his BA in Pali. He completed his MA in 1981 in the two languages from the University of Pune.
He did his theological studies at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) and was ordained a priest on May 1, 1985, at Benaulim.
He completed his MPhil and doctorate degrees at the University of Delhi with focus on Buddhist studies.
After his doctorate, he stayed at De Nobili College and began in 1991 to teach Buddhism and Indian Philosophy for philosophy and theology students. The following year he was sent to the United States for the Post-Doctoral Research in Theology of Religion at Boston and at Harvard universities.
He was a much sought after spiritual guide, who gave recollection talks and Ignatian retreats for religious men and women.
Father Rocha worked hard to go deep into the oriental and Indian philosophical thought. Along with Buddhist texts in Pali, he studied Vedic philosophy. He was also interested in the theology of religion, the philosophy of religion, comparative philosophy of religion.
He was convinced that the depth of understanding of religions is going to create, not only the Christian church of the future but new understanding of religions in India which has birthed a number of major world religions.
According to Father Rocha, “If you want to get deep into philosophical systems, then you need to know languages and you need to have access to the philosophical texts. In the history of the world, religions have become institutionalized. But when it becomes an institution, there is the tendency that certain aspects are emphasized and certain aspects are allowed to lapse. There are many keen insights, but some have been kept and embellished, while others are not so well embellished.”
He did not assert that religions share the same underlying belief system. However, he said, “What is predominant in all the religions is the search for not just ordinary meaning, but the search for a deep meaning of life and also of the divine.”