The history of the Karnataka Province began when nine Jesuits landed on the bank of the river Netravati in Mangalore on December 31, 1878, at 11.30 a.m., to be exact. The nine were: Frs Nicholas Pagani, Angelo Mutti, Augustus Muller, Angelo Maffei, Otto Ehrle, Quintinus Sani, Urban Stein, and Bros. Francis Zamboni and Matthew Maneghetti. The Catholics of Mangalore had been repeatedly requesting the Holy See to send them Jesuits mainly for the education of their children. According to their requests, the Holy See carved out Mangalore with its suburbs and Calicut from the jurisdiction of Verapoly and Padrado on Sept. 27, 1878, and directed Fr General of the Society of Jesus to take up the territory. The General entrusted the work to the Jesuits of the Venetian Province. Till then the Carmelites had been serving the territory.
In spirit and by their Constitutions the Jesuits cannot undertake the charge of dioceses or desire hierarchical rank or seek ecclesiastical honours. Theirs has to be a helping service in the local Church or a pioneering service to set up a normal hierarchical structure. Once this is done, they quit the diocese or remain as helping agents in their specialised field of work. For the rest St Ignatius did not circumscribe or limit the scope or type of work within the vision of a Jesuit's life. The only norm he set was the good of souls and the greater glory of God-within the bounds of obedience: "It is according to our vocation to travel to various places and to live in any part of the world where there is hope of God's greater service and the help of souls". (Constitutions)
In this spirit the first Jesuits began their work on the solid foundations inherited from the Carmelites, foundations of deep faith and solid piety and abundance of natural talents, too. And in less than half a century, in fact within 45 years since the start, the Jesuits handed over the territory as a viable diocese-the diocese of Mangalore-to the diocesan priests of the place, and moved on to Calicut. In 1923 Calicut became a separate unit, christened the Diocese of Calicut. The Mangalore Mission too became the Calicut Mission.
In 1937 the Jesuits of the Calicut Mission moved into Bangalore as helping hands to take up the St Joseph's Institutions which for 70 years had been efficiently managed by the Fathers of the Foreign Mission of Paris. For want of personnel from among their own the latter generously handed over the college and its two feeder schools to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus.
In course of time, a sufficiently large personnel and a variety of works in the three dioceses proved that the Calicut Mission had become adult enough to be raised to the status of a Vice-province. Thus by a decree of the General, Fr Janssens, dated 5 May, 1955, the Mission was named the Mangalore Vice province. In the meantime there was another change: after 77 years Calicut. with its Jesuit man-power, became a unit by itself, though linked with the Madurai Province, and came to be called the Malabar Region. And a few years later, on 27 September, 1960, it became an independent unit and formed the Kerala Vice-province- all in keeping with the linguistic division of the country itself. It was in the same spirit that the Mangalore Vice-province received a new nomenclature- Karnataka Vice-province -as we find it today.
The first nine had set to work without loss of time especially in Mangalore, and within ten years laid the foundations on which their followers steadily built.
They worked as parish priests and missionaries, as confessors and spiritual guides, as preachers and teachers, as theologians and moralists, as educators and writers, as administrators and business managers, as social workers and champions of justice, as architects and builders and painters. As a result of their work, the St Joseph's Seminary, St Aloysius College, St Joseph's Industrial Works with its asylum, Fr Muller's Hospital-the Pagani Dispensary, as it was known then-the Kodialbail Press, parish work with its activities, devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Apostleship of Prayer, the sodalities, confraternities and co-operative societies, retreats and missions spotlighted the Diocese of Mangalore under its three Jesuit bishops: Msgr Nicholas Pagani, Msgr Abundius Cavadini and Msgr Paul Perini.
The first fifty years till 1928 saw the steady development of these works, contributing to the growth of the diocese of Mangalore: material, intellectual and spiritual. It was, we may say, a diocese bound work. The same pattern was repeated in the diocese of Calicut after 1923 (though from the beginning of 1879 Jesuits had been working there, too) with Bishop Perini as its first bishop.
In Mangalore, Fr Maffei, who as a scholar had written the first Konkani Dictionary, set ablaze the missionary activity which Frs F. Corti, D. Coelho, A. Gaviraghi, A. Camisa and A. Zearo carried on vigorously at Nellikunja, Naravi, Pavur, Agrar and Suratkal; in Calicut Fr Caironi turned out to be pioneer in mission work, especially among the Pulayas, which his co-workers Frs Montanari, Sequeira and others carried on and are still carrying on. St Vincent's Industrial Works, the Jesuit Novitiate, Marikunnu Hospital, schools and churches and chapels also matched the works in Mangalore.
A new phase and pattern of activity opened up in 1955 when the Calicut Mission became the Mangalore Province and saw itself no more diocese-bound. The Jesuits of the Vice Province were in their element: free lancers, helping hands. They had already moved into the field of education in Bangalore in 1937. Now in 1958, at the request of the Bishops, St Joseph's School at Hassan was opened and in 1959 St Joseph's High School and St Joseph's Industrial School in the diocese of Ootacamund were taken over. In 1968 the management of St John's School at Bellary was temporarily undertaken by the Jesuits. The calm vision of Fr Boniface D'Souza, the first Viceprovincial, enabled the Viceprovince to make steady progress.
No longer confined to one diocese, the Karnataka Viceprovince was in five dioceses, ready to take up any work. There was an urgent need of mission work and of missionaries in Bangalore and other dioceses. Our men were ready and opened new mission stations or took up those existing already in the various dioceses of Karnataka.
As members of a Society essentially mission-oriented, already in 1959 Fr William Picardo had set off to far-off Africa to begin the Mwanza Mission. In 1970 the Viceprovince took up Nagaland as its mission territory and Fr Stany Coelho along with Fr Ligoury Castelino and Br Raymond D'Souza left for the new land to do pioneering work. From then on others have followed to stabilise Christian life through educational and social works.
Every one of the 425 Jesuits in the 100 years has played his part in the building up of the province in the measure God had given to him. Both those who shone in the public eye and those hidden souls who toiled quietly and won little appreciation have all contributed their share. And among the 425 Jesuits a vast majority were sons of the soil'. With unusual far-sightedness the pioneers from the Venetian Province had started at the very outset not only a seminary to make the local church self-sufficient in man power, but also opened in 1880 a Jesuit novitiate to recruit men for the Society. too. How wise and effective this policy was may be judged from the fact that in 45 years Mangalore Diocese became indigenous run by its own diocesan priests and in the Society an Indian became the Superior of the Mission. When the Mangalore Jesuit novitiate had to be kept closed after 14 years, candidates for the Society were sent to Shembaganur for their novitiate and juniorate. But again when the Mangalore Mission became exactly 50 years after the first novitiate, Christ Hall was opened at Calicut as the novitiate of the Mission. When once again the Calicut Mission was upgraded into the Karnataka Viceprovince yet another novitiate for the new vice province was opened at Bangalore, called now Mount St Joseph. Christ Hall continued as the novitiate of the Kerala Viceprovince. Each of these novitiates in the place has always helped local vocations-nearly 260 novices have had their training in these houses.
In 1928, when the Calicut Mission from the first batch of nine, Br Francis Zamboni, lived on to see this day. The others had gone to their eternal reward, leaving their stamp on the great works they had undertaken.
After tracing rapidly the 100 years of growth of the Karnataka Vice-province we feel that we should dwell a little more on the principal institutions and works in the Vice-province at present. They are the product of experience and designed to carry on the work of the Society into the second century, adapting or changing as the apostolic needs of the time may require. Some of them are of hundred years' standing, some of later origin and a few just making a start.
- Taken from the Karnataka Jesuit Centenary, Souvenir, 1878-1978
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