The Karnataka Jesuit Province will never be sufficiently grateful to Providence that it had Fr Boniface D’Souza at the helm of affairs at the critical moment of its history. A man of great stature, he stood head and shoulders above the others both physically and in all other aspects. Endowed by nature with rare gifts, he brought every one of them to the task of governance of the Vice-Province.
Fr Boniface belonged to a devout Catholic family of Mulky on the outskirts of Mangalore town. He was the eldest of four brothers all of whom were ordained priests, three of them in the Society of Jesus and the fourth for the diocese of Mangalore. Their only sister, Sr Viola, was a member of the Apostolic Carmel. The three brothers rose to officialdom in the Society as rectors of various institutions and one, Fr Jerome D’Souza, who had entered the Madurai Mission, became Regional Assistant for India at the Jesuit Curia at Rome. He was twice selected as one of India’s delegates to the General Assembly of the U.N.O. Obviously the family had the administration gene.
Boniface was born on 10 December 1894. He did his primary school at Mulky and then joined St Aloysius College, Mangalore for his High School and FA (=Intermediate or PUC). He wanted to study medicine at Madras, but did not get admission into the Madras Medical College. He returned to Mangalore and taught in the St Aloysius College High School, hoping to secure the desired admission in the following year. But the Director of the Boarding House where he lived, Fr Gregory Coelho, a man of zeal and discernment, had noted in him unmistakable signs of a religious vocation and advised him to offer himself as a novice of the Society of Jesus. Boniface accepted his advice and never turned back. He joined the novitiate at Shembaganur.
After completing his Philosophy at Shembag, he returned to Mangalore where his superiors asked him to do his BA in Mathematics. He did his Theology at the Gregorian in Rome and was ordained priest there in 1928 and Tertianship in Florence under Fr Alberti, his former superior in India. He was then sent to Paris for a year to secure a certificate of proficiency in French to certify him to teach French in the College classes. So during his entire period of Principalship at SAC as well as at SJC, his designation was Professor of French.
During his term of office as Director of SAC Boarding House, he had realized that there was need of improving hostel accommodation and of organizing hostel facilities on a rational basis. The first work which he undertook as rector of St Aloysius College, Mangalore – he was the first Indian to be the rector of SAC - was to construct a two-storeyed building with 40 rooms in the lower part of the Boarding House property to serve as hostel for non-Catholic boys. The original hostel was reserved for Catholic students and came to be known as the Sacred Heart Hostel. He also bought the building known as Anand Bhavan alongside the Court Road and made this a hostel for students who wanted a vegetarian diet. Finally he purchased a small building at the corner of the property and was used as a pharmacy; this too was used as a hostel. Thus the entire property extending from the Boarding House to the Court Road became the property of St Aloysius College and began to be used for hostel purposes.
Since accommodation for the High School boys was insufficient, he constructed a building on the lower level on the eastern side of the main building of the High School, and it came to be known as the White Building. He also purchased an acre of land on the slope adjacent to it and at a still lower level had it levelled, so that it could be used as a playground.
These would appear as minor adjustments compared to the major work of Fr Boniface, viz. the acquisition of the adjacent property where the Judge’s Bungalow was situated and which had eluded the First Fathers in the previous century. Then Mr Lawrence Lobo Prabhu had refused to sell it with the excuse that the Protestant Judge would not tolerate the presence of the Popish priests in the neighbourhood of his bungalow. Under the changed circumstances Fr Boniface succeeded in buying it at a very reasonable price from the Lobo-Prabhu family, the donor of the site where the High School and Jesuit Residence stand today. In the newly acquired land Fr Boniface’s successor built the magnificent College building with great sacrifices.
From SAC Fr Boniface was transferred as rector of St Joseph’s College, Bangalore. It was a turbulent time for the Jesuits in Bangalore. Just a couple of years earlier they had been entrusted with St Joseph’s Institutions by the Paris Foreign Mission Fathers. But that had caused many a heart to burn. That and the mode of functioning of the first Rector and Principal, Fr Ambruzzi, caused not a little disturbance, culminating in the abrupt departure of Fr Ambruzzi. It was Father Boniface’s calm, cheerful, tactful and friendly but firm approach that largely succeeded in calming the troubled waters. Here again he began erecting buildings to provide necessary facilities. The magnificent semi-circular Hostel building on the Lal Bagh Road at the corner of the College playgrounds bears witness to his building initiative and his aesthetic sense.
But it was as the Vice-Provincial of Karnataka, he was a builder par excellence in more senses than one of the term. He put up new buildings to meet the needs of the Vice-Province, built communities and more particularly built the men required for diverse apostolates and tasks in the vice-province.
Right from the start superiors perceived in him not only a fervent spiritual life, but also considerable practical ability. So when he returned to Mangalore from his studies in Europe, he was first appointed director of the Boarding House. In 1937 he was appointed Rector, and two years later Principal of St Aloysius College. When his term got over, in 1943 he was transferred to St Joseph’s, Bangalore. For a year he was the Minister of the House. From 1944 to 1953 he was the Principal of the College and Rector from 1945. As Principal he entered the University bodies as member of the Academic Council and the Senate, and for a period, as member of the Syndicate of the Mysore University. When he ceased to be the rector, he took upon himself the additional charge of the Hostel Warden. In 1954 he was appointed Superior of the Calicut Mission, and a year later, when the Mission was upgraded into a Vice-Province, he became the first Vice-provincial. In this capacity, he had the credit of purchasing the 65 acre plot of land near Kalena Agrahara village on the Bannerghatta Road, and of putting up the huge 2-storeyed building of MSJ with a capacity to hold 100 Jesuits.
After this, he was for several years the Superior of Fatima Retreat House which he himself had helped to establish. At the end of this long administrative work, he was transferred to St Joseph’s Seminary, Mangalore, where he ended his long life as a religious, nearly 56 years, and secured his well-earned rest from strenuous labours of his apostolate.
During his last two months Fr Boniface experienced difficulty in walking and required first the aid of a walking stick, later the support of a seminarian’s shoulder; subsequently he could not rise from the chair. He could celebrate Mass only with difficulty, seated. On the doctor’s advice he was hospitalized. Before being taken to the hospital, he wanted to be present for the Mass of the Final Vows of Br Joseph Crasta on 15 August. He was losing sensation from waist downwards. Tests revealed that he had a malignant tumour in the left lung. Fr Boniface was completely resigned to God’s will. He was anointed on 20 August, and on 14 September 1974 he surrendered his soul to God. During his last days he gave away everything he had, and when the last trifle was given away, with a smile of relief he said, ‘I have nothing more on earth.’ Only His love and His grace were enough for him.
- by Fr Richard Sequeira, SJ
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