St Gonsalo Garcia: The 1st Indian saint

MUMBAI: The first Indian to attain sainthood hails from a village in Vasai near Mumbai. St Gonsalo Garcia was born in 1556 and did missionary work in Japan before being martyred in 1597. He was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 1862.
Gonsalo's memory is kept alive with a college named after him in Vasai. He is the patron saint of the Vasai diocese and a feast is held to celebrate his day of birth on February 5. Bishop Thomas Dabre of Vasai, a Catholic theologian, says Garcia's relevance even today lies in the universalism of his charity and love.

When Gonsalo was born, Vasai (then called Bassein) was part of the Portuguese colonial settlements in India. He was trained by Jesuit priests at the college near the fort. The Jesuits were taking up more and more missionary work in Japan and Gonsalo, then a boy of 15, was sent to that province with his tutor Fr Sebastian. But his plans to join the Jesuits did not materialize as the order admitted only Europeans. He settled in Japan, learnt the language and continued with his charitable work.

After a few years, he moved to Manila in Philippines as a lay missionary. Here he came in contact with a Franciscan priest, Fr Peter Baptista, and joined the order as a lay brother. He worked for several years with leprosy patients before being admitted to the order of the Franciscan Friars Minor at Manila. He soon moved back to Japan and worked for four years at the Franciscan monastery at Micao (Kyoto).

But storm clouds were hovering over the horizon for the missionaries as Japanese rulers suspected them of sedition. They were confined to their monastery in December 1596. In January 1597, they were arrested and imprisoned and in February, Gonsalo and 26 others crucified in Nagasaki. In 1627, Garcia and his fellow martyrs were declared "Venerable" by Pope Urban VIII. It took the Catholic Church over 250 years to declare him a saint on June 8, 1862.