PANJIM, NOV 30
Prolonged efforts by the Society of Missionaries of St Francis Xavier Pilar (Society of Pilar) finally bore fruits, with the society getting raised to the Status of Pontifical Right.
According to Fr Cosme Jose Costa, Professor of Church History at the Pilar Seminary, the indigenous Society of Pilar founded by Fr Bento Martins was discreetly instituted with the approval of Dom Valente, the first Patriarch- Archbishop of Goa on 26th September 1887.
“However, since there was a ban on religious orders in Goa from 1835 to 1928, the Portuguese Government, would not allow new members to join the Society (when its existence came to their knowledge on the death of the Patriarch), and as the old members died out one by one, the Society by 1939, came to the verge of extinction with a lone survivor,” said Fr Costa.
“The Society was re-organized on July 2, 1939 by Fr Conceicao Rodrigues and Fr Francis Sequeira and their companions [7 new candidates (5 priests and 2 laymen)] with the above lone survivor,” he said.
The re-organizers remodelled the Society’s constitutions in accordance with the requirements of the Code of Canon Law of 1917, and also “with a view to making them fit for a Society of Pontifical Right” and submitted them for the approval of the ordinary on 9-6-1942.
However before getting the approval, the first two pages of the printed copies had to be changed, reprinted and pasted, dropping the ‘Pontifical Right’ provisions. The approval was granted four years later, on 24th June 1946, and one of the printed copies of the ‘MENS’ containing the changes, was officially given back, rubricated by the Chancellor of the Archdiocese.
“It contains this modified clause ‘Constituitur in Archidiocesi Goanae Societas Missionariorum S. Francisci Xavierii ad norman Can. 673-681 C. I.C.’ The ‘Pontifical Right’ provisions stood consequently dropped,” stated Fr Costa.
The second attempt was made by the then Superior General and Council on June 26, 1968. A petition was sent to the S. C. Propaganda Fide asking “to give thought to the possibility of erecting the Society into a Society of Pontifical Right”. “There the matter ended as the Society was caught up in a web of crisis, necessitating three Apostolic Visitations,” he said.
On February 2, 2009, the petition for the Pontifical Right was renewed by the present Superior General and Council, as the Society had expanded into 4 Provinces of Delhi, Goa, Kolkata, and Mumbai and the Agnel Region, as well as opened communities in Nepal, Rome, USA, UK and Germany.
At present, the Society of Pilar has 458 professed members, of whom 319 are priests all formed in the Pilar Seminary, 11 Brothers, the remaining being scholastics under formation. They hail from Goa, Maharashtra, Mangalore, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and are spread in a total of 130 houses, communities or residences.