Fr. "Chico" Monteiro

Dear Friends,

The Goans Abroad Editorial page, put out by Duarte de Sa (Dr. Eddy D'Sa) commemorating Fr. "Chico" Monteiro, and reproduced by the GoanCauses Moderator and Webmaster, Senhor Agnelo Gomes, is very interesting and illuminationg. The page supplies a crucial bit of data that Dom Martin in his version of the life of the late Padre does not.

Dr. de Sa tells us: "Soon after the Occupation the Indian Government decreed that all persons born in Goa would automatically become Indians by virtue of the Occupation.

"However, anyone wishing to retain Portuguese citizenship was required to register with the Occupation Regime.

"Given his family's long & historic ties with Portugal, Fr Monteiro chose to register as a Portuguese citizen.

"In October 1962, Fr. Monteiro received a notice from the Occupation authorities asking him to leave Goa. He did not obey the order and a second notice was served by the Occupation 'Governor.'

"In December 1962, Fr Monteiro was 'arrested' by the Occupation Regime..."
This is De Sa's version in a nutshell. A friend, Agnelo Gracias recently, on 3rd. December 2003, provided me a copy of the "order" served on Fr. Monteiro by the brigands... (See here).

I never did know Fr. Monteiro personally, and I am therefore neither hostile nor favourable to him. I became interested in him, when I saw Dom Martins' writings on him. I, of course, have a fundamental difference with Fr. Monteiro's approach to life, that of being non-controversial when the faith is openly undermined. But, the matter under discussion was not the faith, but our relative approach to the Occupation of Goa...

Up until now, the only account of Fr. Monteiro's life was that put up by Dom Martins. Dom Martins misses out this crucial bit of information, that fundamentally alters the complexion of the case.

Taking merely Martin's version, it would seem that Fr. Monteiro was innocent and that the Occupation lighted upon him and sought to make an example of him.

However, when we add the facts given by Duarte de Sa as above, it becomes evident that this is not the true representation of the facts.

If Fr. Monteiro recognized the Occupation as being the legitimate authority enough to obey their order to register himself as a Portuguese national — an alien!, then he was morally obliged to obey that same authority in its legitimate exercise of power... And, if we grant that that authority is legitimate, then we must grant that its actions against Fr. Monteiro are eminently proper and just.

Every state has the right to decide which alien may be permitted to reside in its territory - and for what period of time.

From the Goan viewpoint, the Occupation is and was illegal and without any moral or legal sanction. Its acts, orders etc., are and were null and void ab initio.

Given this basic and fundamental fact — and one that was always very evident right from even before the invasion, either of 1954 or of 1961, no sane and patriotic Goan citizen would oblige the terrorists and 'register' himself with them as either a Portuguese citizen or as not a Portuguese citizen, for the simple reason that these terrorists and their Occupation too very evidently never did have any authority to order Goans on any subject whatsoever - they were never a legal government, but always merely a bunch of bandits, pure and simple!

Therefore, I ask: What exactly was it that Fr. Monteiro was demonstrating by his act of submitting to the Occupation by registering himself with them as an alien?

We are tempted, as fellow Goans, to sympathise with Fr. Monteiro's predicament, which has even been positioned as a persecution of some degree or the other, and as something which demonstrates Fr. Monteiro's saintliness.

But from a purely logical, a relentlessly logical viewpoint, it is obvious that he was not being 'patriotic,' but that he was merely being sentimental, nostalgic and irrational.

That is: Fr. Monteiro's sufferings were brought upon himself without any good purpose or benefit to the Resistance Movement.

Taken merely logically, the Padre had either of two moving cause for his action:
  1. He did not understand what he was doing, i.e., he 'registered' himself with the Occupation, thus implicitly recognizing its' legitimacy, in a fit of absent-mindedness;
  2. He understood fully well what he was doing, believed in the legitimacy of the Occupation and wished to obey its order, at least at the time he had registered.
It is difficult to believe that a priest, who has undergone years of rigorous education in order to polish his mind and his intellect, would not be aware of what he was doing.

That becomes even more incredible when one considers his social standing and family traditions!

Either way, the Padre's action, whatever his moving cause, does not do him credit.

Let us not give into the temptation to be sentimental and maudlin, and to abandon reason and intelligence. Let us not give into the temptation to elevate Fr. Monteiro's life into some kind of hagiology, some kind of cultus of patriotism and of national resistance.

It is evident to-day, that Fr. Monteiro was nothing of the kind.

Let us stop wasting our time over this issue.

Let us not become maudlin and make fools of ourselves over someone who does not deserve our sympathies or our adulations.

Instead, let us seek out and remember and honour the true patriots and heroes of the Resistance - Aniceto Rosario who was murdered by the terrorists while he was defending Dadra in 1954; that 'Colaco' I have been told who held out with a rifle at the Damao Airport, 18th & 19th December 1961, keeping the terrorists at bay until he was martyred; other Goan patriots and martyrs.

Let us also record and memoralize also those Portuguese who were deputed to serve Goa and who served Goa well - men such as the Governador-Geral Bernardo Guedes, Captain Fidalgo and Lieutenant Falcao, to name but a few; also the Portuguese martyrs who lay down their lives alongside Goans, fighting against the terrorists of Nehru, to defend our beloved motherland Goa from the polluting hands of the Indians.

Far greater than Fr. Monteiro are those numerous priests who, during Nehru's blockade of Goa, stood up to the Indian Union by acting as conduits for the repatriation of monies by Goans in the Indian Union to their families and dependents back in Goa, and who suffered for their noble endeavours.

Far greater than Fr. Monteiro are those brave and courageous souls who braved the Indian Union's assassins and terrorists in order to convene in Paris in 1963, and to rebuke and expose the hypocrisies of the Indian Union.

Let us archive and honour these souls instead of wasting time over what is inconsequential and illusory!

I sometimes wonder whether my efforts to waken up Goans, and to mobilize them to fight to redeem the honour of their beloved motherland is worth it or not. I do not seem to be getting any positive response.

I am acutely aware that the Indianists have managed to stupefy the Goans and that most Goans are still in this thrall.

Yet, seeing the great and eminent Goans of the past, not the least of whom are those brave souls who convened in the Palais d'Orsay in 1963, I know what the Goans are capable of, and I work in the confidence that they will shrug off the blanket of unknowing cast upon them by the Great Hypocritarchs, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawahar Nehru, and overcome the enemy.

Viva Goa Livre!

P.J. Mascarenhas
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1