By Matters India Reporter
Margao, August 10, 2023: Catholics in Goa have expressed relief after a Catholic priest was granted anticipatory bail in a case related to his homily that mentioned a 17th century warrior king.
The Sessions Court in Margao, Goa’s commercial capital, on August 8 granted bail to Father Bolmax Fidelis Pereira, a renowned environmentalist and parish priest of St Francis Xavier’s Church in Chicalim.
On August 4, the police in Vasco registered a case against the priest for his comments on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (1630-1680), founder of India’s Maratha kingdom who was considered the bravest ruler in the 17th century.
Father Pereira was booked under section 295 of the Indian Penal code for defiling a place of worship and section 504 for intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace.
During the Sunday homily on July 30, Father Pereira urged people to be firm like Shivaji, who accepted all faiths. “He did not discriminate against anyone. He accepted all people. He was a warrior, hero of the nation. Some people consider him as God. Talk with your friends and ask them whether Shivaji is a hero of the nation or God.”
The sermon in Konkani language, titled “Sermon–God our Protector–Fr Bolmax Pereira” was posted in the YouTube channel managed by the parish youth.
Father Pereira went to the court for anticipatory bail fearing arrest.
The district judge-1 and additional sessions judge, after hearing arguments from both the parties, granted the anticipatory bail on a bond of 20,000 rupees and a surety of like amount.
The Vasco police did not oppose the bail but insisted that the accused should cooperate in the investigation process.
The priest’s lawyer Andrad told reporters that the first information report failed to point out which statement of the priest, in his homily, had hurt religious sentiments. “While we assume that the FIR has been lodged, the priest has on two occasions clarified his statement and even apologized,” he said.
Welcoming the news, Rose D’mello, a Catholic woman wrote in a YouTube channel, said, “Justice will prevail. God bless Father Pereira. We pray for understanding and peace, forgiveness and love for brotherhood in our land.”
Another Catholic said Father Pereira is a good priest concerned not only about his flock, but about his motherland.”
Carlo Costa, a layman, says, “God will never leave him for he works for truth and is a good priest.”
Augusto Fernandes, a journalist, says Father Pereira is a victim of political opportunism.
Writing in the Gomantak Times newspaper August 8, Fernandes said, “To many, it does not matter whether Shivaji is a God or not; whether he is a saint or not. History books have it that he was a great warrior and a good man, and it is a pity that a sermon from a pulpit enabled many to create a mountain out of a molehill.”
He also said the priest had spent on a few of the 18 minutes of the sermon, but one statement about Shivaji was “enough fodder for a few with political affiliations to try inciting communal tensions in the state. That they failed is testimony to the tenacity of Goans from all religious denominations.”
The writer says the priest only tried to “establish a connection and awaken the faithful to the fact that silence is the ancient language of defeat, as Salman Rushdie once wrote.”
His thoughts spilt onto Shivaji, and he inadvertently gave politicians an opportunity to do what they were waiting for – a chance to create communal discord, he added.
Fernandes also says the “incident and its aftermath showed the Goan mindset and the ability of the community to look at such incidents as avoidable blunders.”
Fernandes also says that even many Catholics have misunderstood Father Pereira because of his environmental activism.
Father Pereira has a doctorate in ecology and environment studies from Jodhpur National University.
Known as a fun loving person who loves to make others laugh, play football and his guitar, Father Pereira is credited with bringing many young people back to the Church.
In June 2022, Father Pereira guided students of St. Joseph Vaz College in Cortalim to mark Goa’s 35th statehood day by launching a mangrove conservation project.
They collected around 1,100 mangrove saplings from the bunds near the old Sancoale Church and planted them along the riverbank at Bondeabhatt Sancoale in the Zuari Bay.
A year earlier, he welcomed the Supreme Court cancelling mining leases in Goa and said Indians could still trust the judiciary to safeguard the Constitution.
He reportedly uses youth power to promote agriculture and protect Goa from polluting mines.
The apex court in June 2021 dismissed review petitions filed by the Goa government and Vedanta Limited against a 2018 order cancelling the state’s move to renew 88 mining leases.
Father Pereira asserts that the people of Goa are the “real heirs of the natural resources of our land, water and forest” and that the victory “is ours when we sincerely fight to protect them.”
He alleged that successive governments in Goa have “terribly failed and fooled” their people.
Father Pereira had also joined the ‘Save Mollem’ campaign to save the dense evergreen forests of Mollem, 60 km south of Panaji that support thousands of indigenous people, besides wildlife.
The forests are also the site of a highway expansion, the double-tracking of a railway line, and a power transmission line that had threatened to cut down more than 30,000 trees.