By Joe Palathunkal
Ahmedabad, Sept 16, 2023: A renowned Jesuit missiologist, who had studied missionary life as part of his vocation within the vocation, has died.
Father Joseph Valiamangalam died of diabetic complication on September 14 at Vadodara in Gujarat state. He was 73.
He was a member of the Jesuits’ Gujarat province for 54 years.
Born to Joseph and Mariyam Valiamangalam at Teekoy, a village 44 km east of Kottayam town in Kerala, on April 3, 1950, he opted to be a missionary far away in Gujarat.
After becoming a Jesuit, Father Valiamangalam chose the study of missionary life as part of his vocation within the vocation and mastered missiology through research and writing.
Father Valiamangalam, known among his friends as Father Mangalam, became a leading missiologist in the Catholic Church after he published scholarly articles on the discipline in several national and international journals.
His first book was “The Mission Methods of Fr Joaquin Villalonga SJ.”
Spanish Jesuit Father Villalonga was the first ecclesiastical and Jesuit superior of the Ahmedabad Mission during 1934-1949. Father Mangalam’s 1989 book brings out the farsighted approach of Father Villalonga in a scientific way.
His second book was “Community in Mission: Mission Consciousness of Christian Communities – A Contextual Missiological Study.” Unlike the first book the second had a universal theme that evoked wider interest.
Father Valiamangalam’s missiology is not a mere theological reflection but a perspicacious observation on the actual human situations in which the missionary worked. It is a people- centered missiology.
His missiology is a combination of history, theology and sociology giving special emphasis on the human and social dimension of a mission a Christian is involved in and that is why he focuses on mission consciousness of Christian communities.
Mission is not an exclusive work of a missionary but an integral part of the Christian community. This is reflected in the book “Building Solidarity: Challenge to Christian Mission,” edited by Father Valiamangalam and fellow Jesuit theologian Father Joseph Mattam.
In a scholarly lengthy article “History of Jesuits in Gujarat,” he traces the trigger to the mission work as the permission granted by Emperor Akbar the Great to build a church at Cambay in 1598.
Father Mangalam recounts the Jesuit presence in Gujarat region up to the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 and then after the restoration of the Jesuits from 1893 to the present time.
He has appreciated the “systematic and zealous work” of the German Jesuits in the mission field and later the painstaking work of the Spanish Jesuits who “have been instrumental in the birth and growth of the mission which has led to the formation of an inculturated local Church in Gujarat.”
That inculturation is evident in the missionaries’ conscientious study of Gujarati and tribal languages of the state that came into existence on May 1, 1960.
Spanish Jesuit Carlos Valles with more than 100 books in Gujarati and his confrere Father Varghese Paul with more than 50 books in Gujarati testify the inculturated Catholic Church in Gujarat. Father Valiamangalam was also a savant in Gujarati and had several writings in the language to his credit.
As the rector and professor of Vidya Deep regional seminary at Sevasi, Vadodara, and as the visiting faculty to several theology centers in India Father Valiamangalam has contributed a lot to the missiology he shaped. He was also the founding member of the Fellowship of Indian Missiologists.
The social dimension and the human situation he brought into missiology will remain a rich legacy for the future generation pursuing this discipline.
He served the nation with dedication and distinction. Respectful farewell to Reverend Joseph Valiamangalam. RIP.