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Society of the Missionaries of St. Francis Xavier
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Who are the Pilar Fathers?
The Early Phase. The official name of the Society that took birth in Goa in 1887 is: The Society of the Missionaries of St. Francis Xavier, Pilar. That was how Fr. Bento Martins, an ordinary parish priest with an extraordinary zeal and vision, wanted it called. Francis Xavier was the great Spanish Jesuit missionary, who in the mid 16th century brought Christianity to Goa and to the lands of the Far East Asia. Fr. Bento wanted his followers to emulate the zeal and fervour of this great saint in sharing the gospel of Jesus to people far and wide. If one reads the history of Christianity in Goa, one notes that in the 19th century there was a tremendous missionary wave among the indigenous societies. Even the diocesan clergy excelled in crossing the boundaries of Goa to give Jesus to the world. Goa had become an open diaspora Church. Dr. George Moraes, an eminent historian, commenting on this missionary resurgence said that the Goan indigenous clergy bearing the burden of the day and its scorching heat, kept alive…the Catholic faith from Comorin Point to Everest Peak for well nigh 200 years. It was in such an ethos of fervor and zeal for sharing the Gospel that Fr. Bento Martins started this Society with the approval of the then patriarch of Goa, Dom Sebastiao Valente. The latter gave him a lot of encouragement and privileges to facilitate his apostolic activities. Bento Martins concentrated on the newly conquered territories that became a part of Portuguese Goa, and ventured even in the regions of the Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka. In 1890 Fr. Bento shifted his headquarters from the remote parish of Agonda in south Goa to Pilar a hillock in central Goa where there stood an old abandoned monastery of the Franciscans. Given its central location, Pilar soon became the hub of feverish pastoral and missionary activity of this fledgling society. The place is called Pilar, after the monastery that had as its patroness Our Lady of Pilar, a devotion to Mary prevailing in Saragosa, Spain that was brought to Goa by the Franciscan monks. The Society adopted Our Lady of Pilar as its patroness. Hence it is called the Society of Pilar and the priests are called Pilar Fathers. For some time the Society flourished with the members engaging themselves in the preaching ministry in the Churches of Goa, and conducted retreats for the laity in Pilar. One of its members was the saintly Fr. Agnelo D’Souza whose cause of beatification is in process. The Renewed Society. In the 1930’s, however, the
society went through hard times. Fr. Bento the founder died of malaria at a very
young age of 49. The older members passed away, some left the Society, and no
new members were joining. The Society did not have a seminary of its own for
training the new members. Eventually in 1939, there was just one member, Fr.
Rosario Gomes who kept the flame burning. Providence came to the Society’s
rescue. It did not die. In 1939 the Society received a spurt of new life when
five young and enthusiastic diocesan priests among whom was the dynamic Fr.
Conceicao Rodrigues, and two brothers joined the lone survivor Fr. Gomes. They
too were inspired by the zeal of Francis Xavier, and determined by a pledge they
made to the saint, strove to give new life to the dying society. The Society was
radically reorganized. It virtually had a new look. The Second Founders of the
Society as they subsequently came to be called, gave a new thrust to the
missionary activity making it the principle aim of the society, and widened its
scope to embrace the whole of India. A thing that was uppermost in their minds
was that the Society should have its own seminary to ensure its continuance and
growth. That became a reality and 12 years later this Seminary presented its
first fruits of three priests. Since then the Society has been flourishing. |
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The Pilar Fathers are members of a Society of Apostolic
Life, whose very raison d’etre consists in actively introducing Jesus to all
people, and sharing his teachings considered as ‘good news’ for wholesome human
and social life, through the witness of life, and their activities. The Society
is ‘Indian by birth’, barely 115 years old, and counts about 400 and odd
members. The Society went through an evolving form of growth and one can
identify two distinct phases in its nascent years.