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GOA CHURCHES COME
UNDER THREAT OF THE BUILDING BOOM
Frederick Noronha
PANJIM, May 8:
Growing affluence, in part fuelled by expats Goans, and the urge for
"modernizing" in a hurry is eating away into the heritage of
Christian religious monuments handed to Goa over the centuries. Some
priests too are are on a building spree, provoking conservationists onto
the warpath.
"It is unfortunate that in the seminaries today, history, heritage
and moral values are not at all taught to those who aspire to become the
future guardians of our churches," complains Percival Noronha, a
former senior bureaucrat in the Goa government, whose tenure straddled
both the colonial Portuguese and the post-1961 regimes.
Fighting a long and virtually-lone battle to preserve historic monuments
which are over a century old, former Goa government senior official
Percival Noronha of Panjim has been leveraging officials, church
authorities and public opinion over many years to build up concern over
the issue.
He disagrees with the view that crowded churches mean that the old must
make way for the new. Demolishing historic monuments can hardly be
justified, and other buildings could be set up without damaging the
treasures in stone of the past, he suggests. Or additional service timings
could be considered too.
In some places, says he, churches have been turned into
"billboards". Donors are perpetuated by having their names
prominently displayed. "In some instances, the names of donors
outshine the name of the saint to which the church or chapel is
dedicated," he adds.
Noronha points out that a seminar on the world heritage monuments of Old
Goa , the historic former capital of Goa, put in lengthy
recommendations way back in 1995. Till date little, if anything, has been
done. On the contrary, the area has been allowed to become a concrete
jungle at the behest of builders.
But it is not only officials who face charges of neglect, or a lack of
understanding of the heritage of the past. Religious authorities have
themselves undertaken a number of building activities, some of which Noronha questions.
In 1996, the Church of Borim built in the 1860s was also demolished, said
Noronha. "It is high time that a suitable piece of legislation is
framed for safeguarding age-old monuments against demolition," he
told the town planning department. "We have in Goa enough
churches that have been terribly mauled by concrete appendices," he
points out.
One other village where the issue made it to local headlines was Loutolim.
News reports said a century-old tree had been felled to make way for a
concrete stage outside the village cemetery, with some parishioners
questioning the wisdom of the move.
Questions have also been raised about the links between those pushing such
projects -- which sometimes allegedly involve influential priests, and
relatives who are engineers or builders possibly having a vested interest
in more building activity.
In sections of the local press, it is not unusual to find letters to the
editor voice concern about particular priests going on a building spree,
and causing "heritage destruction".
Many of Goa's churches are centuries old, and have been built after the
arrival of the colonial Portuguese rulers in the state in the early
'sixteenth century. Today Christians here, converts from among the local
community, see this as as part of their cultural tradition.
Not all parishioners have taken kindly to changes in the Mapusa and Penha
da Franca churches and the Maina-Curtorim and Dessua chapels, among
others.
Using strong language, Noronha said that the Maina-Curtorim shrine, built
in 1783 and full of historicity besides being a beautiful Renaissance-type
sanctuary, was being "destroyed" to enlarge the church.
At Fatorda, the only specimen of a Rococo facade chapel is "being
allowed to die a natural death by not caring even to reset the tiles of
the chapel", says he. Last December, news reports caused some
uncertainty about the St. Andre Church of Vasco da Gama, whose roots go
back to the year 1570.
Besides the monuments itself, questions have been raised over how assets
of the local Church are sometimes being managed.
There were complaints about real estate belonging to the chapel of Our
Lady of Remedios at Cuelim, which was allegedly sold to a builder at a
"throw-away price". Similar issues have erupted among
Catholics of Mumbai, who have questioned the way in which Church
properties were being administered or alienated.
In the 'sixties, Percival Noronha charges, citizen-run church bodies in
state-capital Panaji "large tracts of prime land at Miramar (now a
bustling suburb) for a song".
Date: Tue May 23, 2000