Vasai’s Saint Gonsalo Garcia: Why people need to know about India’s first saint

Updated On: 12 February, 2023 09:20 AM IST | Mumbai | Nascimento Pinto

Certain pockets of Vasai’s Catholic community will come together to celebrate the feast of the patron saint of the Diocese of Vasai this weekend with a day-long fair. Priests from three churches in the town dedicated to the saint dwell on why more people need to know about the saint from the region

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This week, Vasaikars celebrate the feast of Saint Gonsalo Garcia, who was born in Vasai in the 1500s and is regarded as India`s first saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Photo Courtesy: Nascimento Pinto/mid-day

“I feel that there are not many Mumbaikars who know much about Saint Gonsalo Garcia,” expresses Father Rajesh Lopes, who is associated with Saint Gonsalo Garcia Church in Vasai’s Stella neighbourhood. He continues, “I would say, he is India’s forgotten saint because he was canonised many years ago, and after that the Diocese of Vasai was bifurcated much later in 1998. So, till 1998, he was a forgotten saint. We just have a few churches that are named after him in Vasai.” Incidentally, Garcia also happens to be India’s first saint from the Roman Catholic church.

Lopes’s words hold true not only at the religious but also at the cultural level as Vasai boasts of many things of historical value and this is certainly one of them that needs to come to the fore. Lopes along with many other Vasaikars is getting ready for festivities by certain pockets of the town’s Catholic community to celebrate the feast of their ‘son of the soil’, Saint Gonsalo Garcia. While the day of the feast is officially celebrated on February 6, two known churches named after him in the suburban town will bring in the festivities this weekend on February 12. It will start with morning mass followed by a day-long fair including food, music and cultural activities. The other church that is named after Garcia, who is the patron saint of the Vasai Diocese, lies in Fort Bassein, more commonly known as Vasai Fort today; is said to be the place he was born and lived till he travelled to Japan.

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