1.     What this Petition is about

This is a Petition started in 2021 to H.H. Pope Francis by the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute in California  to make Indian-Sri Lankan St. Joseph Vaz (1651-1711) a Patron Saint  of  Medical First Responders.  It was expanded in 2022 to petition His Holiness to choose him As Patron Saint of some of St. Joseph Vaz’ landmark contributions such as

· Founding the first native Religious Congregation in 1685, the branch of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, at a time when natives were not yet admitted to the existing religious Orders.

· Successfully having good Inter-Religious Relations with Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim people. He was recognized as an Indian Sannyasi and a Christian Saint. He gained the protection of the two Buddhist Kings under whom he lived. He gained the help of the Muslim Physician of the King of Kandy who saved him from a plot to have him expelled from Kandy to certain death at the hands of the Dutch.

· He founded a Native Para-liturgy and Catholic Literature  in the native languages, Tamil and Sinhala, of Sri Lanka.

· He trained and used the Laity as participants in religious education and administration of underground chapels in times of persecution.    

· He educated his tribal servant  John Vaz in Portuguese and Latin and sent him back to Goa with a Letter recommending him to be made a priest at a time when only the two higher castes were admitted to the priesthood.

· He risked his life to re-found the Church in Sri Lanka under persecution and submitted a Petition for freedom of religion in 1705 to the anti-Catholic Dutch government.

2 . The need for signatures

As we did for the Beatification and Canonization of St. Joseph Vaz, we are submitting this Petition to the Pope and the Holy See as an international organization which is not under any Episcopal jurisdiction. The Popes and the Holy See do consider Petitions by International organizations, sodalities, institutes, that are widespread and are not under any fixed Episcopal Jurisdiction.

However, as in the case of our successful 2014 Petition to H.H. Pope Francis to canonize then Blessed Joseph Vaz, there is a need of many signatures for the Petition to be acted on.  

Our Joseph Naik Vaz Institute is an U.S. based lay organization that has worked for the Beatification and Canonization of Indian-Sri Lankan Saint Joseph (Naik) Vaz since 1978.   Our members, partners, and supporters are mostly from the Indian and Sri Lankan diaspora, but we have many other international supporters and partners who have supported his Beatification and Canonization.  Many of them are not Catholic. 

From 1978 to 2014, our Joseph Naik Vaz Institute submitted Petitions for action on the Cause of St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz to three Popes, namely, Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.  We collected many signatures from around the world.  They were all considered as part of the devotion to St. Joseph Vaz.   

In 2014, His Holiness Pope Francis asked for evidence of international devotion to St. Joseph Vaz so that he could canonize him.   The Postulator of his Cause, Rev. Dr. Thomas Klosterkamp, O.M.I.  submitted our international work to spread his story and devotion to him.  The many signatures we submitted was proof of real international interest in his canonization.  H.H. Pope Francis accepted our Petition and decided to canonize him.

3.How and Why we started our 2021 Petition to H.H. Pope Francis to make St. Joseph Vaz “Patron Saint of First Responders

St. Joseph Vaz had come from Goa, India to re-build the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka under Dutch persecution in 1687. He was well versed in both Indian and Portuguese western medicine and nursed the sick throughout his missionary journeys.  

In 1696, he and his Companion Priest, his nephew Fr. Joseph Carvalho were faced with the smallpox epidemic in Kandy, the capital of the Buddhist Kingdom of Kandy.

They immediately went to the rescue of the abandoned victims. 

The King of the Buddhist Kingdom of Kandy and the nobles and the wealthy left the infected city. The victims were thrown into the streets and surrounding jungles to die by their relatives because of fear of infection. 

The two priests stayed, risked getting infected themselves as First Responders do, and put up shelters, nursed, fed, cleaned their smallpox pustules (sores), and even buried them.  They did this work at the risk of their own lives from infection for almost two years.  At this time, St. Joseph Vaz also founded the first hospital in Kandy.  He went on to attach free health clinics to any churches he founded in Kandy and the underground chapels in Dutch territory.  

In 2021, when we saw the start of Covid which was an infectious worldwide pandemic without a cure, we saw a striking similarity to the deadly smallpox epidemic in Kandy from a disease which was highly infectious and had no cure.  We sent the following Petition to H.H. Pope Francis to make St. Joseph Vaz a Patron Saint of Medical First Responders

Sent on April 21, 2021

Your Holiness Pope Francis: 

We Petition Your Holiness Pope Francis to make Indian-Sri Lankan St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz the "Patron Saint of First Responders" during our COVID times.  In 1697, St. Joseph Vaz immediately responded to take care of the abandoned victims of smallpox in Kandy, Sri Lanka, at the risk of getting infected by smallpox himself. He was an outstanding model of Christian and humanitarian love and service to his fellow men and women, regardless of race, nationality, caste, creed or any other orientation. 

Filomena Saraswati Giese, President Joseph Naik Vaz Institute
Berkeley, California

www.josephnaikvaz.org