BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ

Your Holiness

We humbly petition Your Holiness to grant the canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz as a native saint for the nations of India and Sri Lanka and their loyal and devoted Catholics. The Churches of India and Sri Lanka, unlike other Asian and African Churches, still do not have a native canonized Saint.

We beg Your Holiness to waive all further requirements for the canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz. Only Your Holiness can waive the rules for canonization as in the case of the Causes of Mother Teresa and St. Maximilien Kolbe. In the case of Mother Teresa the 5-year waiting period was waived because of her obvious saintly life and work. As Your Holiness knows, the splendor of the heroic missionary work and life of Blessed Joseph Vaz is still with us today. The Sri Lankan Catholics have held him as their Protector Saint for three centuries now. His Eminence, Angelo Cardinal Sodano, recently approved the declaration of Blessed Joseph Vaz as the “Patron Saint of the Archdiocese of Goa and Damao.” Since his installation as Patron Saint of Goa on January 16, 2000, he is, for all practical purposes, a “Saint” in India. The Bishops of India and Sri Lanka have asked Your Holiness for his official Beatification and Canonization many times as all are convinced that he is one of the greatest saints and missionaries of the Church.

We respectfully beg Your Holiness to also consider the parallels in the acts of heroism and the Causes of St. Maximilien Kolbe and Blessed Joseph Vaz. St. Kolbe volunteered his life for a man condemned to die in a Nazi camp. Blessed Joseph Vaz volunteered his life under persecution to save the Catholic faith of an entire nation, Sri Lanka. Today the descendants of the Church he rescued from extinction number one million Catholics. Sri Lanka has ten percent of Catholics in a largely Buddhist country, second only to the Philippines in percentage of Catholics in any nation of Asia, because he volunteered his very life for the Church there.

Your Holiness waived the miracles in the case of St. Maximilien Kolbe on the grounds that persecution hampered the collection and testimony to miracles during the Communist regime in Poland. In the case of Blessed Joseph Vaz, the Dutch persecution lasted for 140 years in Sri Lanka and hampered the collection of miracles and testimony. The first Process of Miracles was annulled by Pope Benedict XIV in 1738 precisely because all priests were banned and no religious Congregation other than the Oratorians of Bl. Joseph Vaz could enter Sri Lanka. The Indian Oratorians and their Sri Lankan flock were cut off from Rome for 140 years and it was near-impossible to prosecute his Cause. In the mid-nineteenth century the Masonic and anti-Catholic Government of Portugal banned all religious Orders, including Bl. Vaz Oratorians, and this caused the extinction of his Congregation and his Cause. These two conditions of religious persecution far outweigh anything encountered by the Cause of St. Maximilien Kolbe. We therefore respectfully beg Your Holiness to waive the final miracle required for the canonization of BI. Joseph Vaz for the same reasons as for the beatification and canonization of St. Kolbe, namely that persecution hampered his Cause.

In canonizing Blessed Joseph Vaz. Your Holiness and the Church would be giving a model of heroism and great loyalty to the Catholic Church under conditions of persecution and political turmoil so relevant to the present situation in India and Sri Lanka. We therefore humbly beg Your Holiness to canonize Blessed Joseph Vaz for the greater good of the Catholic Church in India and Sri Lanka and as a sign of Your Holiness loving concern for their devoted Catholics.

Yours respectfully in Christ - Devotees of Blessed Joseph Vaz

June 12, 2000