Originally posted May 21st, 2010
After many years of Jesuit training, I took as a matter of faith that Francis Xavier was the first multi-cultural saint, having spent 11 of his 46 short years in the East. Nothing could be farther from the truth. His mission was closely tied to the Portuguese colonization of India, begun in 1498 by Vasco da Gama. Xavier arrived in Goa on May 6th 1542, along with Portuguese explorers, seamen, soldiers, and merchants—the first or second wave of occupiers. As a Jesuit, he vowed to spread the gospel of Jesus, but he was so fully aligned with European/Portuguese plans to dominate the East that it creates a very messy picture. Pope John Paul the Second, of Blessed Memory, was not around to hound Jesuits who delved into politics, though the army of God five hundred years ago was firmly in the pocket of the colonial, military-industrial, slave-trading complex. The exact opposite of Bob Drinan or Fernando Cardenal Martínez.
The history of any revolution or period of innovation is hard to read. I am skeptical of any authorized version, particularly a story of the human and divine interacting. Though the Roman church and the Jesuits insist that Jesus came to save all humankind regardless of race, or language, or tradition, when I look at the cultural artifacts of Xavier's mission, the architecture and iconography, I see a different story.
Portuguese governance of the territories they occupied in India lasted from 1505 through 1947. After Gandhi, these scattered coastal enclaves, known as Portuguese India, or Goa in popular parlance, began to be taken over by India. The pace accelerated in 1954, when peaceful Satyagrahis' attempts at forcing the Portuguese to leave were brutally suppressed.
This postcard commemorates the Saint issued by Portuguese India in 1946, a year before Indian independence.
The following images are presented as evidence that Xavier was, and is still, a very European saint. The photographs are of Bom Jesu (1695 C.E.) and the Se Cathedral in Old Goa. (Photography by Garry Demarest.)
Xavier’s casket in the Basilica of Bom Jesu.
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The nave of the Basilica of Bom Jesu
Close-up of the main altar in Bom Jesu
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Another altar in Bom Jesu
Se Cathedral, Old Goa.
The nave of Se Cathedral.
This is an older church in Old Goa that predates the current Basilica of 1695.
The Creation of a European Saint in Baroque Art
Nicolas Poussin (1595-1664)
The Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier
Peter Paul Rubens 1617/1618
This monumental painting was displayed alternately with The Miracles of St. Ignatius of Loyola on the high altar of Antwerp's Jesuit Church.
St. Francis Xavier stands preaching to a crowd of people. Some of the miracles he performed as part of his missionary activity in Asia are vividly depicted, both as a testimony to the Counter-Reformation and as preparation for the beatification of St. Francis Xavier in 1619. A man is summoned back from the dead, the blind and lame are healed, and in the temple an idol is falling, broken, to the ground.
Depiction of one of the miracles of Francis Xavier.
André Reinoso, The Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier (1619) at the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Lisboa / Museu de São Roque, Lisbon, Portugal
Images from Japanese Art
And finally some of the sweeter images of Xavier. Although my analysis has portrayed Xavier as a very European figure, that is not to say that his influence was entirely negative. (The tonsure on Xavier might indicate that he has been incorrectly identified with one of the Franciscans who followed the Jesuits in Japan).
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