Hailing from Mapusa, Goa, Fr Julian Carrasco, a Catholic secular priest who served the Church in four Continents: namely Asia, Africa, South America and Australia, was born in Mombasa, Kenya, East Africa, on December 20, 1930. Baptized there on January 18, 1931, he underwent his primary and secondary school studies there, and came to his native Goa ((India), to join the Patriarchal Seminary of Rachol where he completed his Philosophy and Theology and was ordained to the Priesthood at the Bom Jesus Basilica, Old Goa, on January 6, 1954 by Archbishop Jose Vieira Alvernaz, Patriarch of the East Indies. Fr Julian Carrasco, was a hard worker who could not waste his time. Soon after his ordination, he was appointed as the Assistant Parish Priest at the St. Thomas Church, Aldona. The writer of this obituary, hailing from that village received his guidance in discerning his vocation, as a young boy at that time. In 1956, Fr Carrasco started teaching in St. Thomas High School, Aldona, was also appointed as the Confessor (Minister of the Sacrament of Penance) to the nuns of Rosa Mystica Convent there, also as the ecclesiastical animator of Catholic Action and Director of the Legion of Mary presidia of the Parish.
In 1958, he left Aldona and went for higher studies to Nagpur. He passed his BA in Political Science in first class and won the Sir Arthur Bleussaet Silver Medal. In 1960 he secured the Cowasjee Jehangir Latin Scholarship and obtained 3rd rank in the exams. On his return to Goa, his services were requisitioned by the Society of Pilar to teach English at Fr. Agnel High School.
This school had been started by the Society, in 1953, as “Escola Pe. Agnelo”: to teach Portuguese as well as English Primary classes to cater to the needs of students from inside and outside Goa, who were entering the All India Mission Seminary, Pilar, without any Portuguese background, and had to cope with the Seminary studies in Portuguese and Latin, as well as to the local day-scholars’ needs. After the Liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule, the medium of instruction was shifted totally to English from June 1962, and the school was upgraded to a Secondary and recognized by the SSC Board, Pune. The students of this Fr. Agnel High School answered the Board exams from March 1965 onwards. In this dire need, Fr Julian Carrasco accepted the request of the Society of Pilar, promptly and willingly, and took the assignment of teaching of English in the higher classes from June 1962 up to April 1967; and had his share in the success of the first three batchers of the students in the SSC exams. The present Superior General of the Society, Fr Francis Carvalho, belongs to the first batch of his successful SSC students.
Fr Julian Carrasco then went back to Africa and worked in Kenya and Zambia from 1967 to 1986 as a school teacher and headmaster. Iolace to the suffering patients.
His last visit to Goa was in December 2014, for the exposition of the relics of St Francis Xavier. He breathed his last in the hospital at Perth, Australia on July 11, 2015, and after last rites at the Holy Cross Church, Hamilton Hill on July 25, he was buried at the nearby Freemantle Cemetery. May his soul rest in peace.
